Indie Game - The Movie

My argument was just that it's absurd for triple-A studios to make the risks that the studios behind Dear Esther or Journey have; their productions are small enough that they don't require a blockbuster to succeed. All the same, I hope their success paves the way for the mainstream, validating moments of slower pace especially (as an example specific to those two games). Richard Lemarchand of Naughty Dog gave a great talk on this (

Quote from Taylor

However, this does not mean if you work somewhere "mainstream" you will never work on something original, you have sold your soul, you have no creative power, and you cannot be passionate. I'm having a hard time putting into words how staggeringly off-base this whole depiction is.

No that seems pretty on point to me, based on my experiences.

On the topic of the documentary: I have had been looking forward to watch it for quite a while, but I had been holding back until tonight. Watching the guys in the documentary go through these difficult emotional times is even harder when you can relate to their situation back then yourself. Overall it's a little behind my expectations, but still very much worth watching. I'm happy that everthying worked out fine for Team Meat and Phil Fish in the end. I met Phil at Nordic Game last month - he was fun to talk to (and jealous at Minecraft for breaking all XBLA records ). Maybe it was the pressure of releasing the game being off his shoulders, all I can say is he didn't come across to me as a jerk at all.

Here's a great speech of a former Flashbang Studios member talking about interesting topics that really had to be said:

- the extreme egocentrism of indie game developers

- the unfair reasoning that blizzard, ea and other AAA studios suck, just because they are AAA

- some more respect...

-> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/173952/BenRuiz ... oapbox.mp3

Nice talk.

Also: http://www.dinofarmgames.com/on-indie-game-the-movie/

I'm sure AAA devs are very creative, etc. unfortunately you guys often aren't allowed to express it in your games. There are countless stories of bold new AAA stuff getting crushed by conservative publishers or skittish investors (e.g. The Crossing, LMNO) and I think that scares me shitless, the idea that I'd work for years on something then watch it get swept under the rug without even a whimper. Depression and anxiety are normal responses because it's a crappy situation.

Also, I think that IGS soapbox rant was totally missing the point.

People rarely hate people; rather, people hate self-destructive institutions that hurt other people.

So when you get an industry that says you're a failure if your Metacritic is under 85 and you sell "only" a few million copies for $60 each and management decides to close your studio, that seems crazy. That seems like a horribly dysfunctional system that encourages conservative design choices and thinks of devs as resources to be optimized or discarded. (Soylent green is made out of people!)

Let me be clear: I think most indies like AAA devs, AAA techniques, and AAA studios -- but they hate the AAA industry that exploits the cultural capital of games, and they hate the idea that some random CEO gets to fire you AND determine how society perceives what all of us do.

Sure, you can be cynical and say "that's the nature of all industries" or "well I work at ___ and I have job security"... but I think that's a really unproductive attitude.

Not a day goes by where I don't walk away from the office, sighing with relief, thankful that the CEO hasn't targeted me in one of his frequent, typical and mentally insane firing sprees.

A part of being professional is to design within the boundaries of your genre and target audience. Some people push the boundaries a little further than others though. If you want to spice up your professional portfolio I would simply go and work on different types of games, there's always so much to learn! Indy development doesnt solve the problem much either, your stuck with having to deal with tiny scoped projects which at least for me at this point would be even more frustrating than the alternative.

Quote from Campaignjunkie

I'm sure AAA devs are very creative, etc. unfortunately you guys often aren't allowed to express it in your games. There are countless stories of bold new AAA stuff getting crushed by conservative publishers or skittish investors (e.g. The Crossing, LMNO) and I think that scares me shitless, the idea that I'd work for years on something then watch it get swept under the rug without even a whimper. Depression and anxiety are normal responses because it's a crappy situation.Also, I think that IGS soapbox rant was totally missing the point.

People rarely hate people; rather, people hate self-destructive institutions that hurt other people.

So when you get an industry that says you're a failure if your Metacritic is under 85 and you sell "only" a few million copies for $60 each and management decides to close your studio, that seems crazy. That seems like a horribly dysfunctional system that encourages conservative design choices and thinks of devs as resources to be optimized or discarded. (Soylent green is made out of people!)

Let me be clear: I think most indies like AAA devs, AAA techniques, and AAA studios -- but they hate the AAA industry that exploits the cultural capital of games, and they hate the idea that some random CEO gets to fire you AND determine how society perceives what all of us do.

Sure, you can be cynical and say "that's the nature of all industries" or "well I work at ___ and I have job security"... but I think that's a really unproductive attitude.

moan moan moan

i agree with you quit a bit cj