I guess we can just have games we like and games we don’t, and not have to classify them either way… The line is way too blurry. It’s a feel rather than a metric.
I wouldn’t for a second describe BG3 as anything other than AAA. But something like It Takes Two has a very indie game feel even though it’s put out by EA.
Thinking about it further, since it means “independent,” I would consider any game where the devs had an idea for a game and made that game without corporate meddling compromising their vision to be considered “indie,” and if that includes some games by big studios like Valve or Nintendo, then so be it. It’s a huge deal to be able to make a game like that nowadays, regardless of how much funding they had. There can be “small indie” and “large indie” games.
Ironically that probably brings in some of the most expensive games ever made, like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us Part 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. If Star Citizen ever gets finished, count that too.
RDR2 especially is an unapologetically slow paced cowboy sim, rather than the Grand Theft Horse everyone seemed to be expecting. Big games by big studios, left alone to do what their bosses know they can do.
I think a further distinction should be made when a game has hundreds of devs. When you get that big, most people become cogs in a machine, which is pretty corporate. Definitely requires more fine-tuning to get a good definition going, but “small indie” at least seems to cover what most people currently just call “indie.” at least.
And we can’t even take self-published as a factor, because pre-MS Bethesda would publish their own titles too. Skyrim can hardly be counted as indie.
If being self-published were the only metric, many Nintendo games would be indie. So clearly that’s not a good definition to use.
And Valve, for that matter.
I guess we can just have games we like and games we don’t, and not have to classify them either way… The line is way too blurry. It’s a feel rather than a metric.
I wouldn’t for a second describe BG3 as anything other than AAA. But something like It Takes Two has a very indie game feel even though it’s put out by EA.
Thinking about it further, since it means “independent,” I would consider any game where the devs had an idea for a game and made that game without corporate meddling compromising their vision to be considered “indie,” and if that includes some games by big studios like Valve or Nintendo, then so be it. It’s a huge deal to be able to make a game like that nowadays, regardless of how much funding they had. There can be “small indie” and “large indie” games.
Ironically that probably brings in some of the most expensive games ever made, like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us Part 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. If Star Citizen ever gets finished, count that too.
RDR2 especially is an unapologetically slow paced cowboy sim, rather than the Grand Theft Horse everyone seemed to be expecting. Big games by big studios, left alone to do what their bosses know they can do.
I think a further distinction should be made when a game has hundreds of devs. When you get that big, most people become cogs in a machine, which is pretty corporate. Definitely requires more fine-tuning to get a good definition going, but “small indie” at least seems to cover what most people currently just call “indie.” at least.