This year’s E3 was strange, for a lot of reasons. Outside of Microsoft and Nintendo presence and a handful of show-stoppers from third-parties, big AAA games took a backseat to games outside of that high price bracket. As a developer who operates in a team of 3 with the occasional part-time contractor or two, this was quite exciting at first; E3 isn’t usually a place where smaller-scale games get too much of the spotlight.
However, the way these games were packaged made me feel uneasy. This year’s E3 made me feel like the definition of both AAA games and indie games are becoming more and more opaque. AAA is being compressed into a fewer number of mega-budget titles, and the term ‘indie’ feels more and more like it’s being stretched to encompass… everything else.
I don’t want to define “indie” in explicit terms. What I do want to posit is that we may be approaching the point where “indie” is no longer a practical term on its own and it might be time to reassess how we talk about these games.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/15/replaced-tunic-unbeatable-and-more-summer-of-gaming-indie-spotlight"]How 'Indie' Gained Prominence in the 2010's
Up front, there’s an elephant in the room here. “Indie” has always been a nebulous term in the games industry. In the decade or so that I’ve been working in games I can’t think of a time when the definition of the label wasn’t being actively discussed.
It’s a debate that has always trailed off sooner or later. Does it refer to production scope? Artistic priorities? Self-publishing? There is no satisfying answer because it’s difficult to define “indie” without boxing out at least some developers who rely on it.
The closest thing to a universal consensus is “you know indie when you see it.” This means that even though the definition is loose, it is a label that can still be practical when used in context. “Indie” doesn’t need greater clarity than that, because the game that you are talking about is what defines the label when it’s used.
So, how did we get here? Much of this current language around indie games is informed by the early 2010s indie boom. During the start of the decade there was an influx of commercial games by teams of 1-5 people; Super Meat Boy, Fez and Thomas Was Alone to name a few. This movement only grew as Steam opened its doors to more developers. Shortly after Sony and Microsoft began to actively encourage small studios to open dialogues with them in the interests of bringing games to their platforms (the Vita in particular began to be touted as a portable Steam machine).
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2012/04/11/fez-video-review"]This was all happening on the back of what many seemed to regard as something of a cultural lowpoint in mainstream video games, where “grey brown shooters” had saturated the AAA space. I’m not sure how fair that was, especially considering some of the fantastic games to come out between 2008-2010, but the sentiment that games were becoming homogenized was there nonetheless.
It was an environment that allowed a vibrant array of small games by hobbyists to rise to the surface, and small studios and alternative artists thrived more than ever in the marketplace. "Mid-tier" or "AA" games of course existed; Telltale’s Walking Dead, Tokyo Jungle and Spec Ops: the Line all arguably fall into this category (the definition of “AA” is just as ambiguous as “indie” is). However the dividing line between what was regarded as mainstream and what was indie was stark, normalized by the rise of let’s players and game streamers around the same time. What does “indie” mean if you’re in the mid-2010s? Point to one of the many cover shooters from the generation just gone and say “not that.”
The Many Different Types of 'Indie' Games
So what does “indie” mean in 2021? Depending on who you ask, an indie game could be made for itch.io by a scrappy team of 1-2 newbies, or it could also be a game with a $5,000,000+ budget, a team of 15-20 industry veterans and major platform support.
And you know what? That might be fine, or at the very least there might not be any value in trying to fight against it. The label is going to continue to encompass more and more games so long as that remains a valuable marketing tool, in that a promising project does become more notable when the narrative around it is that it’s made by a small group of developers working outside the mainstream.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2016/07/06/10-second-ninja-x-official-pupil-vs-master-trailer"]Though this isn’t strictly true in the case of many games slapped with the “indie” label, it’s certainly not my place to tell any studio how they should identify themselves. I don’t believe better-financed developers accept the label in bad faith, or that anyone’s coasting on it. Every developer I’ve met works hard, and with “indie” meaning so many things to different people, I can understand why someone on a team of 15-30 developers could reasonably feel that they are.
But I believe the label has been oversaturated, and there are also developers who would prefer to market their games outside of it, due to the scope, or tone, of their projects. “We call Silent Games a ‘AA’ or ‘Double A’ studio for a few reasons, mainly that our studio size is probably larger than what I’d consider ‘Indie’ and we have intentions to grow larger in the future,” said Silent Games CEO Sally Blake (formally of Ubisoft) on the topic. “There are currently 15 of us and we will continue to expand over the coming years.”
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Tonally, Silent Games’ projects sit outside of both the indie space and the AAA space, Blake continued. “I feel like ‘indie’ has been associated with a certain vibe or aesthetic…” she said. “We also thought carefully about giving the right impression to players about the scope of the game as we don’t want to be accidentally mistaken for a AAA studio, even though we are aiming to create a high-quality game.”
As a co-founder of a smaller studio myself, this kind of clarity is appreciated. It’s difficult to be on a 1-5 person team when looking at Hades’ almost 20 person team, or Hellblade’s AAA-plus motion capture experienced team, or 12 Minutes’ star-studded cast, and seeing “Indie” in their most popular Steam tags. In an industry where overwork and unfeasible production pressures are already rampant, the concern that those games might be setting the standards that your game is going to be held to is a sympathetic one.
It certainly means now more than ever it’s important for smaller developers to set expectations through whatever channels they have available, to clue audiences into what their game is once people find it.
But what if no one ever finds it?
'Indie' Is Too Broad a Brush
Whether you’re an outlet looking to highlight games by small teams, a streamer looking for indie games with alternative mechanics, or even just a lover of games who wants to support interesting new talent - searching for these games can be really difficult. Indie labels on most storefronts contain any game smaller than Control. Finding press about indie games is also difficult, as articles that make an earnest attempt to spotlight indie games are also broad in scope. I’m sympathetic to the games press in this situation, too. I have no idea how I’d begin to sift through the dozens of interesting small games that come out every week without developers using better language to delineate them with.
“Indie” appears to no longer serve the function it once did, but newer, more appropriate language hasn’t emerged to replace it. We are at a point in time when more games are being released than ever before, yet we lack the vocabulary to easily differentiate, and by extension, spotlight, some of the most interesting or ambitious ones.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/13/the-biggest-announcements-from-xbox-bethesda-games-e3-2021-showcase"]I do want to stress that this is only an issue because games are more diverse, creative and ambitious than they ever have been. More developers are making games of varying scopes, styles and perspectives than ever before, something I believe Microsoft’s Xbox showcase at E3 2021 did a decent job of reflecting. In that showcase, games were treated as games rather than segregated into ‘AAA’ and ‘indie’ blocks, and sat next to one another without regard for their scope or budget. That is how far past the binary we are now, and that’s an incredible thing.
I do think, however, that if we don’t change the language we’re using when talking about anything less than the splashiest, most expensive games, a lot stands to slip through the cracks. Does that concern me as a developer? Sure, of course it would. But it’s the player in me, the fan of the offbeat and quirky, who feels that loss the most, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
[poilib element="accentDivider"]Dan Pearce is a Game Director and co-founder at Four Circle Interactive, developer of 10 Second Ninja X and an upcoming unannounced project. He has worked in the games industry at a small scale for over a decade and formerly developed the BAFTA nominated Castles in the Sky at The Tall Trees.
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