Context: There was a huge backlash over Dave the Diver being nominated for best indie game because despite being a smaller pixelart game, the developer is owned by Nexon.
Context: There was a huge backlash over Dave the Diver being nominated for best indie game because despite being a smaller pixelart game, the developer is owned by Nexon.
I think the indie games genre is just a vibe, not if something is really independent or not.
Like nobody is calling Witcher or Cyberpunk an indie game, even though it didn’t have an outside publisher. Conversely, most people would probably say Bastion or Journey are indie games, even though Warner and Sony published the games.
Warner Bros. and Bastion was a bit different. Microsoft used to have a set number of “slots” per publisher to put up a certain number of games on Xbox Live Arcade per year. WB didn’t have anything to fill the slot, so Supergiant basically negotiated with them to use that slot themselves, is how I understand the situation.
I hate that you were down voted but you are absolutely correct.
There’s no agreed definition of indie.
Back when I worked marketing and would attend GDC conferences, there were awards for “Indies” that had 30 people teams financed by major companies, competing against 1-2 people teams who took a loan against their house.
It’s stupid and frustrating.
And now, with Dave the Diver, it’s just highlighting the truth - Its always been a vibe, a aesthetic. You just have to make it look indie, and call it that.
Whatever definition you hold personally doesn’t matter.
The issue is generally more funding related.
One “indie game” might have a massive budget and multiple support studios. Another might have gotten fifty bucks for giving an investor a blowie and somehow turned that into a game. Sometimes you manage to get those massive upsets but the reality is that money tends to correlate with quality very strongly.