The risk and the reward: My view on indie games

Most people who know my videogame tastes know that I'm a pretty big fan of indie games. Thats a pretty odd thing to be a fan of, really, because its akin to saying "I like the taste of cheap ice cream". Indie games aren't a genre. Not really, anyway. Just like AAA games, they come in many different flavours- first person shooter, puzzle, real time strategy and mint-choc-chip. So what is it that defines an indie game? Indie is independent, independent is usually small and cheap. So indie really means budget, right? That surely cannot be reason enough to single out this selection of games and to say I 'like' them. Why then, are indie games such a different kettle of fish to their big budget brothers? When you're an indie developer, you've got to take risks. You've got to get noticed. There is no better way to make history than to do something differently- the irony being that there is no better way to make money than to repeat what made money last year (see: triple-A games). But fuck money! You're an artist! Be different, be controversial, be poor and then pretend that its what you were trying to do whilst secretly weeping into your pillow over the success you never found. Its no overstatement to suggest that the indie market is heavily populated by a lot of bad games. They're not even always bad ideas, they're just bad games. But you've got to break a few eggs to make a few omelettes! For every million indie developers that starve to death, one grows a beard and builds Minecraft. Its sort of a collective effort, really. If enough people have crazy ideas, one is bound to be good. Thats where the gold is, you see. In risk taking.

Money, fame and women are just three words. On a seperate note, here is the developer of Fez.

God knows the industry needs a little variation now more than ever. Its getting bad. Really bad. There was a point where I'd play indie games just to appreciate the variety in the ways they failed. Its been said a thousand times, but grey/brown/modern/gritty/regenerating-health/grenade-out!/shooters are getting a little dull. Its not like these two schools of gaming are warring, either. AAA breadmakers might like to dabble in adding a little dash of indie tomato to their proverbial foccacia, but at the end of the day they don't care. Why should they? They make a hell of a lot of money- telling them to "shake it up a bit, baby" is a futile and pretty ridiculous request. And lets face it, as much as indie's hate to admit it, their existence relies on the big bastards being bland. They wouldn't have it any other way.