Whelp. Yep. It's Happening. Indie Genre is Dying. Or, at Least, the Fad is Ending.

[Afrospinach]

I can see actual indie games continuing heathily for a very long time but I do see the 'Indie Game' tag dying off soon now that the majority of people see how inane it's become, 'Have you seen that new Indie Game released by EA?'.

It happened in the music industry also - indie = independent. At some point it became a "genre" too. Derp. But what else do you call it, it is a fairly succinct tag to describe everything from minecraft to FTL.

It is ironic that when I was looking at the guy's profile who wrote the OP's blog, I have never heard of anything he has done

[Sky High]

as long as there are platforms that will allow indy games to be published with relative ease then I don't see why it would die out. plus "indy game" doesn't really describe what kind of game it is. other then it's made by a small studio and/or publisher.

[N-7]

the vast majority of indie games are either side scrolling bullshit or pixel art hipsterish bullshit. minecraft is really the only good thing to come from it.

Actually Minecraft is pretty much meh and there are significantly better Indie games.

[Kelimbror]

With the creation of the Steam Box, even though it has been delayed, I don't even seethe bubble bursting so to speak. I could see a lot of the lower quality games going away if they weren't so cheap to make. The market is saturated with less innovation and lower quality games, but part of that is because of how high the bar has been raised. I expect the Steam Box will have a larger impact than we think, sorta like how tablet/mobile gaming has been used. People who have never had the living room experience AND traditional computer users are going to bleed into the living room market. At the end of the day I'd rather see 100 new indie games that cost $2.00 than another CoD made ever year.

[Wilian]

Indie scene isn't dying. We're just finally reaching the point where people start to be vary of cheap crap made to cash in on the indie wave and look for quality products

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the vast majority of indie games are either side scrolling bullshit or pixel art hipsterish bullshit. minecraft is really the only good thing to come from it.

Except Minecraft isn't even a real game. Just unfinished platform from which mods have made game out of. There are tons and tons of high quality indie games, even if some of them are as you so eloquently put it (what else to expect) "pixel art hipster bullshit".

Games like Dungeons of Dredmor and FTL has not only widened the previously hard to get into roguelite genre for wide audiences but managed to do it without a lot of dumbing down. Games like Prison Architecht and Banished have revitalized almoust dead genre of tycoon/management games almoust by themselves. A ton of new platformers have arrived, both competitive and non-competitive where there previously was maybe 1 title every year and half providing tons of hours for gameplay. Survival games have finally managed to get a wider platform for themselves and do that without unduly compromises that often accompanies with focus group testing of big publishers.

I recommend you pay attention next time you proceed to make a fool of yourself with empty statements.

[Jester Joe]

Actually Minecraft is pretty much meh and there are significantly better Indie games.

Cave Story is significantly better than Minecraft in my opinion.
Talking about Indie games and no mention of Cave Story or VVVVVV...both had such amazing soundtracks.

[Deleted]

That's what it feels like sifting through the "New Releases" tab on Steam. I used to be genuinely excited/interested in the prospect of some cool games popping up that I'd never heard of. Now it's obnoxious as hell to sift through through the thousands of RPG Maker games and low budget shovelware in the hopes that there might be something remotely interesting : /

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what i am most sick of on steam is "early access" games everywhere wanting full price for an unfinished game, sure they should be allowed to sell them, but don't put them on the steam front page for godsake! i want see actual games on there, not £10 for an unfinished indie game.

[Wilian]

what i am most sick of on steam is "early access" games everywhere wanting full price for an unfinished game, sure they should be allowed to sell them, but don't put them on the steam front page for godsake! i want see actual games on there, not £10 for an unfinished indie game.

[Kelimbror]

what i am most sick of on steam is "early access" games everywhere wanting full price for an unfinished game, sure they should be allowed to sell them, but don't put them on the steam front page for godsake! i want see actual games on there, not £10 for an unfinished indie game.

I think a little more discretion with them would be welcomed, for sure. Something like Starbound was a perfect example of what is acceptable as early access. A very developed game with concrete and expansive development plans that are communicated to the investors (early buyers). From the second you could buy that game it was playable with lots of content and changes are communicated well. You shouldn't be able to sell a game that has one level, no music, and no goals other than to be complete 'at some point'.

[Kathandira]

The only problem I have with the Indie (Independently Developed, for those who don't know what it means.) is the flood of stick figure games that truly suck. I'm sure anyone with an Xbox Live account had gone through the Indie category and seen the copious amounts of worthless games that were available.

The big indie developers made the industry go nuts! Everyone and their mother started developing small games trying to get a piece of the pie. However this led to seeing indie games are cheap and boring games. There are those gems such as Terraria, Mine Craft, Fez, Bastion and so on. These are the types of games that keep the indie industry alive and thriving.

So in a sense, I would love to see the Indie Industry get knocked down a peg. I want to see those who are serious about make quality Indie games be the ones who keep that part of the industry alive.

[Nirawen]

snip

And pre-1999 when content was just considered a patch and was free.

[Deleted]

I doubt the indie games will vanish & considering how good some of them are I really hope they don`t.
I don`t think the likes of Steam allowing any old shit to make an appearance without any kind of testing up front is helping things & tbh it has stopped me from even going near the front page of Steam unless someone I know links something of interest.

The advantage of Indie is that that one or few devs sat in their hovel releasing something doesn`t have to answer to some fat cat that will want yet another clone of a clone of their previous cash cow & so they can be more daring/adventurous as to what they create & release.

P.S. http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/28/575...game-area-free

[Tenjen]

the only thing happening is that the chaff is being separated from the wheat. there are lot of amazing games being made out there, but even more weak ones drowning everything.

Much like any other media industry, the gems will stick around and continue to be made. Plus you can't call them "rare gems" when they're consistently popping out as they are. The amount of bad music being made by everyone who makes music (not just big names) is astounding, but even the big names, mid names and small-name populations are making great music.

The point is, the medium that allows indie games is only a good thing. What we're seeing is people who can't make good games starting to leave.

Cause customers are getting savvy about this shit.

[Ryme]

I'm just waiting for someone to launch a gaming analogue of Spotify or Netflix and breath new life into the gaming industry.

[Jester Joe]

I'm just waiting for someone to launch a gaming analogue of Spotify or Netflix and breath new life into the gaming industry.

Gamefly is basically a lesser version of that, I'm assuming there's a reason why they're not allowed to stream games to people though.

I mean, Netflix started off strictly physical copies I believe? Like they'd mail you the movie, and then you'd mail it back.

[Deleted]

I'll probably get a lot of flak for this but I think 99% of indies are crap. This isn't the '90s when pretty much everything was indie and it worked because gamers had low standards and low expectations. Nowadays an indie doesn't stand a chance at being as fun and engaging as the big titles and the ones that somehow do, only keep it up for like a few hours.

Flame on!

[zealo]

Indie developers releasing quality products are not in any danger, but i support the downfall of developers sticking a price tag on a game which might as well have been a random flash game in a browser 10 years ago.

[donjn]

Jeff Vogel has well known to be a drama queen for some time now.
His games dont sell like they used to because he makes the same exact game over and over again.

[Kelimbror]

Jeff Vogel has well known to be a drama queen for some time now.
His games dont sell like they used to because he makes the same exact game over and over again.

Thus the irony of his article. It's hilarious that he has to make sure to state he's going to be fine and make plenty of money as he turns and says all indie developers are going to be left in the cold as the sky is falling. Almost like the whole article is a mantra to himself that he needs to feel ok. The first glaring problem is that he thinks the number of people in the indie game market is never changing. That's like the entire premise that he bases his theory off of.

Luckily for him, the number of potential buyers of indie games keeps going up. The number of Steam users has gone up. The number of them will continue to go up with the Steam Box. Pretty much his entire premise for why he believes this is a fallacy. At some point all markets become saturated and stabilize. Markets only crash when people do reckless and stupid things which isn't exactly possible in such a cheap market. They've made money from quantity over qualtity for some time and will continue to do so. Big whoop.

[Vespian]

Sooo, I read the entire thing (*smiles and taps feet, waiting for comments by the 70% that didn't read it at all*) and except for some minor things, I think the article is spot on. Even if X is a variable, the last few years Y has increased by such a tremendous amount, that either X, Y or Z (pricing point) needs to change, before indie development becomes as lucrative as it was in the past. This is simple economics and people disagreeing with it, should stay in class.

I don't know the guy, personally, but he's pretty much saying what people like TB and Jim Sterling have been saying for a year now. Death, obviously not meaning 'disappearance of', but 'less incentive to' and perhaps also less quality and thus less 'appreciation of'. Any sane, thinking, person would have already seen this coming a long time.

Gems will always get made, ideals do not go away, but getting noticed in this storm of indie, as is mentioned, will take either former success, connections or money, occasionally all three.

But it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Let it happen. The first few years will be rough, many indie dev's looking for jobs, justified or not, but in the end, the money will flow back into the pockets of the creative, who won't disappear in a flood of crap any longer.