Generic free mobile indie crap

What is the point of being an indie game developer?

If you fantasize about working for Bethesda or Bungie, but you're stuck making small-time games in your basement... that doesn't mean you're an indie, does it? Or maybe it does, now. Maybe indie isn't a label I want, at all.

We have heard that the indie dream is dead. It is the apocalypse. Phil Fish tells us via twitter that we can't succeed, we will never make it and there is nothing for us now. It seems like everything has changed back to how it was before Steam and the app stores even existed. Back when people like me started making games with no intent of selling anything. Just for fun.

So for now, it seems like indie means a few things. It means you're in it for the money. Which means, you're copying everybody else who has succeeded. Which means, you're churning out generic games. Indie means mobile. Why? Because its a small screen with lower expectations. Because you can make a crap game and people will still download it. Indie means free. Even though the thing that makes an indie an indie is the attempt to make money, rather than just make a fun, artful game... indie games are now exclusively free. So indie is now a set of contradictions.

You have the freedom to make anything you want, so you force a generic game that matches what everyone else is doing.

You want to make money, so you give your game away for free.

You have the chance to let your voice be heard, but you self censor so people will hopefully like you.

You promote yourself but don't help other indies out or support your community beyond lip service. (This one is particularly heinous).

If that is what an indie is, I'm not an indie, then.

Someone help me figure out what it is, then. What is a game developer who just makes a game because he/she likes it with no consideration for making tons of cash or getting internet famous in the process? Am I all alone in my perspective?

Anyone out there?

 

You know I'm there with you brother. Some day I would like to take a crack at making money from it just from the fun of doing the experiment.

But it's always been just a hobby for me. Something I do just for fun and to kind of give something to other people to enjoy.

Granted, there is no real need for people like me to do this anymore because as you said these days Indies are all basically giving everything they make away for free. At least for the most part. Still I'll do it even if I never release anything because I enjoy it. And I think most of the things they are making are basically just clones of each other.

And I guess I still always think there will always be some people who will appreciate the unique spin I put on my games. I tend to make games that are different. Certainly not the mainstream Indie kind of games. Like Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop, the scrolling veggie shmup, the Halloween game and my Christmas game. Most people may not like them but I think they are at least different from the norm.

Most people around here I'd say probably don't get the kind of stuff I make at all. They'd be (and are) telling me all kinds of things to change so I could turn my games into basically clones of other mainstream Indie games. If I am doing that then I see no point in even making them.

But yeah if I was doing it all for money then you're right. No sense in trying to innovate really. No need to really make what you want to make or what I want to make. I'd find the hot sellers and try to put my own unique spin on those. I'd feel like I couldn't really just do whatever I wanted because I would have to make every decision based on market acceptance. Or at least consider market acceptance and popular trends way more than I do now.

That's just the difference in doing it as a business instead of a hobby I think. I want to do it for fun and then one day make something that although it was made entirely for fun it actually sells well too. That is my dream... one day.

 

...if you just copy everyone else, you will never realize whatever style you can achieve on your own. It will never be your true expression.

 

Define "indie", we have "indie's" with millions in the bank to spend all the way down to one man band's. The platform range is broad and the types of games are also broad. So "indie" is a broad term...

It's far from "doom and gloom" many hard working successful small indie's out there, but they do deserve it.. Like any "Art" type industry it's a tough cookie to crack unless you have a lot of money.

I started the "indie" path for no more reason than Bioware don't release games quick enough and I wanted to fill the "gap". I don't really care about money, I just need it to be able to produce the game within a reasonable time frame and have the resources to make a follow up.. If I end up selling only 2,500 copies for example it's game over. I tried, failed and that's the end of it..

But it is comforting to see that developers that truly put their all into PC / Console platforms generally have done really well.

Anyway point being, there is always an exception to the rule. There's many "indies" in the field punching well above their weight, putting their all in and if I was a betting man it's those guys and gals I'd put my money on.. As for the rest, well they've pretty much evened the playing field for themselves, let them fight for scraps whilst others aim for the sky.

 

I've started calling myself a hobbyist...because...it's stage one in my plan for world domination a hobby. They're learning projects for the time being, so making money from them is far less important to me than getting them to work, and figuring out where the Gremlins are coming from.

 

That word has no meaning anymore. It represents whatever you mean by using it.

 

So then Rockstar is an indie developer. The world has truly ended.

 

Yeah I think that is a big part of it. When I think of Indie and based on most of the forums and reddits I have read I think most others think this... an Indie is not some team of 7+ people (certainly not dozens like we often see in Indie Kickstarters) with tens of thousands of dollars.

Honestly I don't even know what people like that are even thinking other than trying to ride the Indie train.

It's probably changing.... the definition I mean... as anyone and everyone of any size calls themselves Indie. But I think still most gamers think of an Indie as a lone dev or a small team. A team of more than even 7 to 8 people sounds more like a company than Indie. To me it is a lone dev or maybe ul to 4 to 5 people. Basically the more people involved changes it to me. Because it is the size of the organization that makes it more Indie or more corporate AAA like.

 

I went to an indie meetup in LA. Basically, a bunch of guys showed up and there were two girls. At one point I got into a discussion about "what does indie mean?" She kept poking holes in my concept of what an indie is... to the degree that I couldn't answer.

Indie isn't a thing. It's a marketing angle designed to reduce people's expectations and encourage them to buy to "support the little guy".

 

Indie has just become a term to describe a game that doesn't fit the 'norm', as if it's an excuse so if people don't like it because the controls are clunky, the graphics are 'old fashioned', the theme is a bit risqué etc then they can just say "oh, but it's an indie game so that's ok". That's why larger studios label themselves as indie, it's front loading player expectations to manage the risk of failure or bad reviews.

 

See that is just it... I think Indie universally is seen as the "little guy or gal" again kind of painting a picture of a lone developer sitting at home working in their spare time and making some excellent little game. Or perhaps the guy or gal and a few of their friends. These scenarios are very Indie. And this is what Indie has always been at least until recent years.

I mean Indie developers have been around for decades. They made shareware and so forth. Yes some of them grew to become more like budgetware companies such as Apogee & ID Software but still they were very much seen as Indie developers at least in the beginning. Shareware was their thing. Some such as Mountain King Studios I think remained just a lonewolf Indie developer. These were the ones from the DOS days. There were many others before that on the Amiga, C64 and other such computers of the time.

I think the term has become so loose these days because it became cool to support Indies. It became cool to be an Indie. So the past few years we have seen people forming companies with even dozens of people calling themselves Indies. To me they are not Indie at all. They are just another game company basically like a AA or A game company. They have far more in common with AAA than they do with Indies. But they want to ride that Indie fame train. That is my view on it anyway.

Now you on the other hand singlehandedly developing games that you want to make and trying to sell those games. That is an Indie. Or a few friends (whether online or offline) teaming up to build games they want to make and selling those games they are also Indie. 15 people teaming up with $500k of funding well honestly I don't see how anyone can see that as Indie. That is just people forming a true studio. Sure it might be more along the lines of a budget game development studio but it is definitely more corporate than Indie in my opinion. Certainly I don't see how such a thing could be seen as "the little guy or gal". Others may well disagree.

I guess the important thing is what does Indie mean to you personally, @anselmo.fresquez?

 

Indie is short for independent, and that's what it means. That you don't have a parent company running things; you're not beholden to money guys who dictate what you can and can't do. So you're free to do your own stuff. It doesn't matter if it's one guy and no money or a team of 50 with a budget of millions...as long as they raised that money themselves and can do what they want with nobody else pulling strings, it's legit indie.

--Eric

 

That may very well be true but for me personally I won't ever see it that way and support the team of 50 with a budget of millions in the spirit of Indie as I do for small teams and particularly lone developers. I've made that choice many times in my life. Having the option to support some guy or gal's product or a big team's product I supported the smaller one.

If Indie now includes even the team of 50 with a budget of millions then people need to lose the "support the little guy" motto. This is why I think for most people they still view Indie as the sort of cottage industry it has always been. Someone working out of their home building games by themselves or with a few others. Kind of like I see supporting the little guy as supporting the local income tax preparation service of a husband and wife team instead of going to an H&R block office or going to a farmer's market instead of Walmart. That kind of stuff makes sense from the "support the little guy (or gal)" view. Again at least to me.

I guess as with all things... it all just comes down to personal preferences and views.

 

Well, indie is indie. Like films...an independent film doesn't mean it has to be some film students with an iPhone, it can be a "real" film with a decent budget, and as long as a studio isn't controlling the budget, it's indie. This allows the independents to take on scripts that a studio would pass on for being "risky" or "not a sequel" or "not a reboot". Same thing with games; if you're an indie you don't have to do COD XXVI or Halo 37. I'm sure larger teams/budgets have more politics and compromises involved, but the core feature of "you can't tell us what to do, nyah" is there regardless.

--Eric

 

That makes sense and I can definitely get that definition from Indie. I think it would be great to have another term for it. Not sure what it would be. We have the term cottage industry that applies to the kind of thing I am thinking of but I've not heard it used in recent years for game developers. We had shareware and that was an easier way to pinpoint the "mom & pop" equivalent developers.

All I know is when I see a Kickstarter showing a dozen or more people sitting in some fancy office asking for $500k or more to build their dream game it just puts me off big time. If it is 2 to 3 people in one of their houses asking for $50k I am in a much more positive mindset right off the bat.

I know I am not the only one who has this view. I have read the same kind of thing on forums over the past year or two. Something worthwhile keeping in mind for game devs anyway. Might be a good idea to really emphasize "hey we're just a husband & wife team" or "just 3 good friends" because then the anti-corporate guard doesn't pop up. I honestly watch some of these kickstarters and think "dude, you have better equipment being shown in this video than most of the people you are asking for money from? I mean seriously?"

But yeah you're right. I can see it from the perspective of an Indie is an Indie period. I just think it would be better to have a term that identifies the people who are doing it out of their houses not already loaded with cash just through pure determination and grit. Those are the kind of folks I want to support.

 

So we have A, AA, & AAA. Maybe we have indie, indie indie, & indie indie indie? Or just indie & indie+

 

I was always clueless and resourceless in my ambition to ever make video-games. Other than a little software called WinLogo, I didn't have the means to do anything, not even a proper frame by frame animation tool.
Then I first started to come across little game engines it was great that would finally babysit through the process of making games. But never believed I could actually do it full time, only now I see a light at the end of the tunnel... hope it doesn't mean I'm dying. Life's short. Who cares about labels, or a word?? That should be the least of your concerns. You CAN make games, and you can even consider it profit from it, such are the great gifts of this modern era, that alone is all you need.

 

If Indie means all of the things above, then it has no meaning. Except in people's heads. You call yourself a non-conformist, so you're "indie". You have $500,000 but no "money guys telling you what to do" (doesn't exist) that makes you an "indie".

The truest test of whether you're "indie" is whether you're a hipster.

@GarBenjamin - It doesn't mean anything to me, anymore. It is just something you can say you are as long as you aren't AAA. Then again, nothing saying you can't be a AAA "indie"... which only further proves the nonsense of it all.

 

You've started out completely wrong in the premise of this post. Indie is not, has never been about, and will never be about, 'copying everyone else who has succeeded'.

The hall mark of indie is the game studios that take a risk to make what they want, instead of sticking the the tried and true formulas. @Eric5h5's comment about the film scene is relevant. Indie is about experimentation.

I play a lot of great indie games. Complicated space ship building simulators that require hours of learning actual orbital physics to succeed. Games about being a fungus growing in a dilapidated world. Games that explore the life of a tree. Asymetric dungeon crawlers where you alternate between playing the hero and the creeps. Cooperative construction games where you have to work as a team to stay ahead of the encroaching lava. Virtually impossible platformers. Twists on old 'dead' genres.

The indie scene is very much alive. And its very much producing creative and original games.

 

This. If you look at the most common usage of the word outside of gaming, Indie has always meant something that steps outside of the mainstream. Independent film, independent music, etc. Those terms usually are associated with things with subject matter or style that you can't see in theaters or hear on the radio. They are also associated with low-budget crap, depending on the perspective. ;-)

With regard to games, the word has sort of come to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, because everyone wants to slap the label on themselves. There are certainly tons of "indies" who just clone whatever happens to be big at the moment. Usually they do so at a much lower quality level, then plop it up for sale. Those are the money chasers and the get rich quick schemers. They get a lot of attention because there are just so freaking many of them and I think it is sad that they are increasingly allowed to define what the word means.

 

I definitely see Indie as meaning doing something different than the current AAA developers are doing. But there certainly are a lot of people who seem to be Indies who have the dream of making COD and other clones. And every time there is some big hit Indie game such as Flappy Bird what do we see? A huge number of clones. Not sure if that is what @anselmo.fresquez was referring to but that is what I mean by Indies cloning and also cloning each other.

But yeah I definitely think the point of an Indie should be to make something different than what the AAA are doing now. Now that could mean doing what the AAA were doing 10, 20 or 30 years ago or it could be doing things they have never done period. Just seems like a lot of folks are not doing that and instead are striving to copy current AAA games or current popular Indie games.

@anselmo.fresquez that ("If Indie means all of the things above, then it has no meaning.") is why I just can't accept this vague definition of Indie. Maybe a lot of it is because I've supported Indie developers for the past three decades. And while they were doing their own thing they were also very small teams or even lone wolf developers. I still see Indies that way. Basically like small mom & pop businesses, the guy who is a part-time handyman outside of his day job and the woman who outside of her day job is baking goodies and selling them on the weekend.

When all of this "support the little guy" stuff came out about modern day Indies I immediately thought of these same things and thought they were talking about the same kind of people I knew as Indies all of these years. But it seems to have grown immensely to be so vague and all encompassing you're right it really doesn't mean anything except you are not part of a AAA company. So basically you can be flat broke working alone or you can have hundreds of millions of dollars and a team of 500 people but as long as you are not an already established AAA company then you are Indie. That just seems pretty crazy to me. lol

 

Personally I wouldn't put any weight to words of the Tantrum Manbaby, a.k.a. Phil Fish, but it's your choice. Also I wouldn't call people churming out crap mobile f2p "indies". I would call them either Zynga- or King-wannabes.

 

I thought people defined it by the budget.

 

Well, yeah when...

It's kind of hard to say that Indie could be dead when literally everything is indie.

Not sure how you can say that...

When this is exactly what the vast, and overwhelming majority of self-proclaimed Indie developers do every day of their lives.

Sounds like "generic crap mobile" games to me. I can't see how you can say these games are uniquely indie, but everything else that is indie isn't indie, even though it is indie (of course). Because indie is whatever you mean for it to mean, the argument is beyond meaningless.

You can't win any points by stumbling over your own arguments and confusing the issue further. Indie has no meaning, anymore. It's a useless label that is nearly as broad as the word "art" or "game" at this point.

I just want a word that has actual meaning. Amateur. Hobbyist. Not Indie.

 

So then... a rich guy independently developing a game can't be an independent game developer?

 

If you want the people in the world to accept what you think "indie" means and to abandon what they think it means, it won't happen. The more people who chime in will only throw more and more different perspectives into the mix. All are equally invalid.

Just quote stuff you agree with and say "This." I am beginning to be amused.

 

Indie means you can do what you want, but frequently "I want to make a clone" is what indies want to do. Just because you can take risks doesn't mean you will.

--Eric

 

Not strictly true. We know that Fallout 4 is not an indie game. Neither is Halo 5, StarWars Battlefront, or COD 16 million. So some things clearly are not indie. Just as some things are clearly not AAA. In between there is certainly grey, but saying the word has no meaning is a bit extreme.

Amateur and hobbyist both have different connotations to the word indie. I would describe myself as a hobbyist or an amateur. I wouldn't describe many indie studios that manage to make a full time living doing this as hobbyists. The main reason you can't accept indie is because you are determined to argue the term has no meaning.

Wait, did you even read the list of games I posted? None of them were generic mobile games. Kerball space program is doing very well. So is Mushroom 11. The rest are still under development. There is nothing generic about any of these games.

Anyone who disagrees with you is wrong? This thread went downhill fast. Good luck with life and all that.

 

So is the person in charge of a multimillion dollar game not an indie? He can do what he wants.

 

Or is it a slippery slope? The only reason those games aren't indie (in most people's opinion) is because they are very expensive and worked on by huge teams of people. But in a world this big, I bet someone can think of a AAA game that was indie.

Weird, whenever I attack people I get moderated.

Sarcasm.

Thanks for playing.

If anyone else has anything to add now that we've blown a virtual gasket and suffered a bit of a meltdown...

 

"Indie" hasn't meant anything for quite a while. It used to mean game developers that were making games without a publisher, or not working directly for a publisher. Back before digital/internet distribution. Meaning that they were building the games first, seeking distribution later. Back when distributing a game was difficult and expensive. Since digital distribution, console and device stores, the field has equalized. Independent developers today can be one person teams or massive studios, publishers and distributors aren't really part of the equation, they are primarily marketing if anything. But even that isn't critical, as small devs can have big hits via virality, and you can't really 'buy' virality, it is about the game.

"Indie" doesn't say anything useful or descriptive about the developer or the game at all (at least not positively). Really, we are all just game developers, (and/or a subset speciality). Devs can be described by their level of experience, or drive. There are Hobbyists, who's primary goal is just the joy of making games. There are Aspiring developers, folks who haven't created a game yet, but who have the goal of becoming professional. The next group is the biggest, the Amateurs, those who have released, but are not professional level yet. And Professionals, those who make a living creating games. Additionally the term Vet is often used for those who have been doing it professionally for a long time, typically before digital distribution. Jokingly we often use the term Seasoned Vet for those who have released games on cartridges.

Ultimately though, getting hung up titles or defining developers isn't really useful. Like all creative endeavors, in the end, we are defined by our body of work and experience. We make games. Big games, small games, great games, S***ty games, popular games and games that no one ever sees. Make the best game you can, then make a better one. Everything takes care of itself.

 

I've already covered that. As long as you're calling the shots and don't have to answer to shareholders and investors—as long as you're independent (that's what "indie" stands for)—then sure you can have a multimillion dollar indie game.

Let's look at Trine 3...it cost well over $5 million, and is certainly an indie game, since they had complete control over it. They decided to make some major, fundamental changes, which was a pretty big risk. In this case the risk didn't seem to pay off, since the game didn't get much attention and there's a lot of discontent in the reviews, and they may have killed off the series in the process. Taking risks doesn't mean you're going to succeed (by definition). But at least they could take the chance; by comparison, you won't see the next COD suddenly turn into a 2D sidescroller.

--Eric

 

Very interesting discussion. It sounds like each of us are basically saying the same kind of things in our own way. No real major disagreement. Basically Indie has grown to mean nothing other than you are not working in a AAA studio. Literally that is it. Like @anselmo.fresquez said it all breaks down if you just go by "do whatever you want" because ultimately there is always someone driving things whether it is the CEO at the top, a board of directors/investors etc who actually have the final say so in this broad definition they would be the Indies. lol

So all we can really say it means is it is not AAA. Meaning if you are making games and not working at EA, Blizzard and so forth you are an Indie. And while that does mean something it means nothing to a much larger degree.

I wrestled with this kind of thing a couple months or so ago myself. Hobbyist fits me well. One day I'll aspire to become a cottage industry budget game developer. Might as well just take other valid terms and make up my own name. lol

 

There's nothing stopping larger studios from spinning off smaller companies & letting their staff rotate through them in between the major releases so they can experiment with things far removed from the parent company's without the risk of damaging the brand. If they are owned & funded by the parent company but are free to develop & release niche games/concepts are they considered independent? (Noting that this structure would probably help keep staff around & also lower company benefits like long service leave since they would be moving to a new employer every year or 2)

 

I believe I've heard of several major studios with 'indie' branches. So this is a thing.

 

It's a AAA Indie hybrid.

 

aaa studio?

 

InAdAiAe. Pronounced "in-ah-DIE-ee".

--Eric

 

According to some people, that is exactly what that means. But it's not about the person, it's about the game budget. If bill gates makes a game and makes all of the assets himself, the budget is $0, so it's an indie game. If said rich person spends a few billion dollars for assets, it moves into the AAA market.

 

@BoredMormon

Ha ha ha! That is insane. See to me this all completely destroys what Indie should represent. What I think most gamers thinks the term Indie represents. The idea is that any one of us here can make games and sell them and maybe even make a living from it. It is one thing to compete one on one, two or three in a real Indie market and another entirely to compete with AAA Indie divisions. That will definitely greatly distort the expectation of what an Indie game should be because they are actually being developed by AAA studios. It is madness really.

I mean it is like there being a contest for some amateur wood workers and some company sends over their team of highly experienced skilled wood workers to show off the stuff they have made using the best tools money can buy.

Definitely have no interest in supporting that kind of thing.

 

Perhaps it's simply the industry I'm in. We have giant 'AAAs' and little 'indies'. The little guys tend to develop the most new IP, the big guys tend to have the capital to take it to market.

It's quite common for the big companies to buy up small companies simply to obtain their IP and expertise in an area. The creators of the company promptly turn around and start a new company and develop new IP. The little guys entire business model revolves around being brought out on a regular basis.

This is generally the idea with an 'indie' arm of a big studio. They are free to experiment on whatever they like, with the understanding that anything awesome they create will get the full backing of the studio. Meanwhile costs are covered.

 

So indie devs a looking for a sugar daddy studio?

 

This is actually very common. Not the separate company part (thought that too is common, there are several small companies around here that are actually owned by bigger ones). The experimentation and exploration though is part of every big studio. Our studio built ~13 games last year. We released 2. Many were part of the exploration process, a couple just weren't going to do well. I spent the last year working on stunning game, really pushing the visual bounds of mobile games. We shut it down a few weeks ago. It was going to be pretty expensive to continue and the gameplay was a bit of a risk. We were proud of it, and certainly poured our hearts in to it, but we would have to made compromises to bring it to launch. It happens. It happens in all the successful studios. As you said, brand is often more important than a title. Often even experimental games that are shutdown have value. Some of our big hits have come from the ashes of an unreleased game.

Often during interviews, we get to see a lot of unreleased products from people coming from other studios (big and small). Some very risky games, some just didn't make the cut. At the very least, (as with my last game) they end up being portfolio content.

 

There will be no major wins from making manufactured bands. The best indies will always be grass roots, because they don't have a directive, only dreams.

 

I think the main point of being an indie is you make what you want, at the speed you want, for the platform you want. If you do that on your own or as part of a collective of likeminded people then you are most likely an indie.

 

Those are actually comforting numbers. My own ratio is kind of similar.

Unless what you want to make is new Star Wars games

 

I believe, in general, this is largely a misconception. (the concept of that indie is freedom, and large studios aren't).

"Control" over what you create is diminishes as your project grows. Like movies, it is largely a collaborative art form. The more people involved, the less control you have. But the inverse is true as well, the smaller the team, the more limitations you have. The idea that an "indie" has the creative freedom make whatever they want is largely a pretty fiction. They can make whatever they want, as long it is in the boundaries of their knowledge/skill/resources/budget and time. If they want to make an endless runner with fruit, doable. A sci-fi version of GTA, not going to happen. And this isn't taking into account that it appears that 99% of "indies" creative vision is fairly limited to clones/clickers/zombies and pixel games.

And even for the rare times it does work, success brings limitations. More often than not successful small teams/indies, rarely have a follow up hit. There are exceptions. When they get into the position of supporting a business/company, the control is exchanged for following the market, or making branded versions of their games. Crowd funding yields similar results, you have to meet your funders/market's expectations. Smaller studios are rarely chasing the dream of making their dream game, and instead following the markets trying to make a game that will sell. Given absolute creative control, who would ever make cookie clicker or any of the thousands of games that fill the market places?

On the big studio side of things, while certainly there will be less control over what you make, it isn't that simple. Yes, if you are an entry level modeler coming onto a franchise game, you will have little say in the direction of the game. However at higher levels, you will have more control. The teams can be big, and as such your voice is one of many. Senior and lead developers have a quite a bit of say in these games (although consensus must be reached). But most successful big studios, the control is in the hands of the game teams. There are some exceptions, but those don't stay successful. LucasArts for example, was plagued by interference from higher up the chain, and as such never really had hit after a certain point. (and no long exists). The idea of "suits" and people outside of the teams, making calls and demands on game development (creatively) is rare, certainly at successful studios. (even at the some of the big ones).

For example, my team (and the other teams in my studio) have complete control over the creative and design of our games. We concept, design and pitch. The games originate and chosen by our team. (often born from an idea pitched by a one or a couple of people). Now, obviously there is some context there. We are dedicated to mid-core and primarily Marvel and Star Wars. (We have other teams that handle other properties and genres, so if someone wants to do a Muppets casual game, they will take it/move to another team.) So the folks on our team are because they want to make those games. Because the games are the IP they are, Marvel/Lucas do have to approve everything that falls under their area, but the control is limited to that IP usage. They don't have say in in the game design, play or direction. When it comes to the games, no one outside of our team has control in over direction of our games. But that is the point, we are trusted to make the games because it is our area of expertise. And that is the case in most successful studios.

Generally, what I am saying is that creative control isn't absolute in any situation. If you are good, you have more control wether an amateur/small studio or large studio. All situations have some level of limitations, be it size of team or brand, or lack of resources/skill/experience. The term "indie" doesn't mean more creative control, and in practice it certainly doesn't show more creative results, even more so by percentage.

Being "indie" doesn't doesn't give you any more or less control or creativity. A person's skills/knowledge/experience and creativity are the only things that matter and impact what they do.

 

A key distinction is that the studio games decision making process is owned by the studio, an entity whose primary purpose is to return profits to its investors/shareholders. This decision making process may simply be a greenlight, "this team makes successful games cheaply, let them make whatever they want", but typically involves more control such as the final word on content, release date, QA, etc.

 

That doesn't happen. No one is trying to horn in on that lucrative indie market. What sense does that make for a company? AAA's aren't attempting to compete with "indie" devs. What does happen is large studios create smaller teams for R&D, and exploring markets outside their primary market. On rare occasion, there are some small companies that are created to uh.., well... leave behind the image of their parent company. (there are a two studios down here that I know of that are like that.) They feel that their primary brand will have a negative impact on sales.

 

This is true. (though cheap is relative, our games are less than an MCU movie, but way more expensive than a similar game made by pretty much any other company). But, yes, if our studio goes too long without a hit, people would start getting replaced. And we have to make a strong case for a greenlight. But the folks on our team all have the goal of making a hit game, so it is never really a case where we are pitching something overly risky or that we don't have the conviction that it will work. If we have had a recent hit, we have a lot more freedom to pitch a risky game. On the upside, even if a risk fails, we still have a job.