Independent Spirit

The Escapist offers an editorial looking at the growth of independent gaming, mostly focusing on casual independent games.

There has been a stigma against the term “independent gaming” that it must somehow be unlovable, unapproachable and high concept to legitimately be indie. The term conjures images of graphically anemic games with steep learning curves and limited appeal. And that vector is certainly well traced, though the definition has broadened over the past few years into something a little more complex. After all, Half-Life 2 is technically an independent game, but to describe it as such would somehow break the spirit of the meaning. So, too, there exist independent publishers like Strategy First, Stardock, PopCap and GarageGames, and yet the moniker “independent” conjures images of eschewing the traditional developer/publisher model. In the end, what we think of as indie games is defined by titles created with small budgets from small developers with limited resources, both for production and publishing. In the past that has meant we have to throw small audiences in as part of that set which describes indie games. That’s not so true anymore.

Let’s be clear: That’s good.

Not only because it means more games – often for less money – as consumers, but because it broadens the breeding ground from which big developers and big publishers can pull. The gulf between the developers of independent titles and of big-name titles is not as great as it seems, and with the budgets on AAA titles soaring, being able to pull from a talent base that has experience with actually selling games improves the stock. It is a curious symbiosis that this generation is defined by high costs and high prices, but it’s also defined as the tool of revolution for the independent movement.

And, for the PC fans of the world, our numbers too often minimized in a market infatuated with the console industry, independent gaming manifests not only in the latest puzzler from PopCap but in endless in-browser diversions. Those who followed Raph Koster’s presentation, titled “What We Are Missing,” at last year’s GDC Prime already have an inkling of the potential power of gaming on the web. Dismiss it at your peril.