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Are Indies Killing Gaming?

Are Indies Killing Gaming?

  • Yes

  • No


Results are only viewable after voting.

j0hnnix

Member
Nothing like a housing game called Building Relationships or a horror game with a character with amnesia and non binary - probably can't remember wtf they are.
 

Wildebeest

Member
They pad the show out so you don't notice how many paid ads there are for PC competitive games and mobile gatcha games.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Huh? No some indies are great and they are only taking stage time because there are no new big games right now.

Some of you would last 5 months back in the 8 and 16 bit era where there were no new games for months.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I disagree

Big Devs have a "we don't need to show up" attitude now so that's a problem

But the real problem is SGF is just a big pay to feature advertisement special. They aren't picking the best 10-20 games possible to show, they are picking the ones who pony up cash to be featured. And it's heavily slanted to indies who overpay to get a moment in the spotlight
Wait. You do know that a show about games is not 'gaming', right?
 

March Climber

Gold Member
If they were saving the industry there wouldnt be a thread on the main page everyday about how this industry is worse than ever and how Geoff Keighley's indie filled shows are all Ds and Fs.
Even on SGF's best years, this type of response would be inevitable on GAF anyway. You as well as I know how difficult it is to appeal to this specific crowd.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Having a thread like this just a few days after Selaco's release sure makes me think some of you have tunnel vision when it comes to games.
Selaco sent me a wake up call that the games coming out today are nowhere near as good as games 15 years ago. They lack soul. Everything Selaco devs have poured into Selaco is easily worth the $70 price tag and it's on offer for $25. It was enlightening in a sense.

At some point graphics will cease to improve and fidelity won't be a factor anymore. It'll be if a game is fun engaging and has a vision instead of the overpriced Fast Food AAA devs want to shovel out at the behest of their Corporate Overlords.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Low quality indie games are taking more and more stage presence while high quality indie games are getting mixed in with low tier ones.
I think you have this one backwards man. Palworld was one of the more visually interesting trailers and its made by a small team of nobodies. Indies are going to take over even more in the future. Japan has still barely even started their indie scene for real, or China.
 

Lions Gate

Gold Member
too much indies, it seems everyone and their mother making cheap indies which most of them looks the same. peak indie was late PS3 early PS4 era, so many great AA indies
 

Quantum253

Member
These shows are terrible places to pick indie games tbf.
That some serious marketing problems when an indie show becomes a terrible place to find new and refreshing games. I found lots of fun indie games on PS3 and Xbox360 but not so much anymore
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Selaco sent me a wake up call that the games coming out today are nowhere near as good as games 15 years ago. They lack soul. Everything Selaco devs have poured into Selaco is easily worth the $70 price tag and it's on offer for $25. It was enlightening in a sense.

At some point graphics will cease to improve and fidelity won't be a factor anymore. It'll be if a game is fun engaging and has a vision instead of the overpriced Fast Food AAA devs want to shovel out at the behest of their Corporate Overlords.
Games sure were better back then. More variety, more risks taken, better ideas and more originality. Nowadays most games play the same, specially the big blockbusters exclusives.

Imo the pursue for realistic graphics is killing videogames at least in the west, and I sure hope you are right and this trend ends at some point in the future.

In the meantime, I'll keep playing some cool indies here and there, my collection of old games, and the occasional cool new game which more often than not come either from Japan or some country in eastern Europe.
 
Huh? No some indies are great and they are only taking stage time because there are no new big games right now.

Some of you would last 5 months back in the 8 and 16 bit era where there were no new games for months.

No patches or updates either. We just blew into a cartridge.
 

Blindy

Member
Nah they are saving the industry, a lot of the games I played this year are Indie titles from this year or years before and they stack up just as well as the big AAA games I have played during that same time span.

Tails of Iron, Ender Lillies are 2 of my 3 favorite games played this year for instance and can't wait for their incoming sequels.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
But the real problem is SGF is just a big pay to feature advertisement special. They aren't picking the best 10-20 games possible to show, they are picking the ones who pony up cash to be featured. And it's heavily slanted to indies who overpay to get a moment in the spotlight
yeah exactly!

People are missing this bit of nuance here and i'm suprised this moron of all people actually got it right

it's not that indies are some terrible gaming subsect as a whole
it's the fact that the only games that get shown at these showcases are often super samey pastel junk with deep sentimental stories that no one talks about in a year meanwhile Steam's indie showcases end up getting all the popular fun ones- either these showrunners have some deep connections to the devs in particular or they are PAYING to be there which is very un-indie. A whole bunch of nepotism the way I see it
 

Guilty_AI

Gold Member
That some serious marketing problems when an indie show becomes a terrible place to find new and refreshing games. I found lots of fun indie games on PS3 and Xbox360 but not so much anymore
You're better off searching for them on youtube or using steam search features.

Or talking to people in forums. Here, recent stuff that looks interesting i've never seen in these shows







 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
It'll be if a game is fun engaging and has a vision instead of the overpriced Fast Food AAA devs want to shovel out at the behest of their Corporate Overlords.
"Fast Food" implies that the Devs are making anything quickly. We're waiting 4-7 years for more GaaS slop and sequels to get put out
 

KXVXII9X

Member
I'm mostly Pro Indie and smaller scale games but Indies get way too much of a pass and there have been a lot of passes for messy games just because they are indies. It is like people are afraid to criticize indies. If indie games were saving gaming as much as people say, I don't think Console launch windows would be met with so much "there are no games." Indies definitely help fill in a lineup of games, but I don't think indies alone are enough. VR has had people wanting more and more AAA level games for a while now. For every great indie that comes out, there are hundreds that fail and are just as guilty of trend chasing and scamming people.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
"Fast Food" implies that the Devs are making anything quickly. We're waiting 4-7 years for more GaaS slop and sequels to get put out
Fast food with long wait times and poor service. They aren't serving us Filet Mignon I'll tell you that right now.

And if they are serving us T-Bone Steaks we either get the bone or it's all fat.
 

Guilty_AI

Gold Member
I'm mostly Pro Indie and smaller scale games but Indies get way too much of a pass and there have been a lot of passes for messy games just because they are indies. It is like people are afraid to criticize indies. If indie games were saving gaming as much as people say, I don't think Console launch windows would be met with so much "there are no games." Indies definitely help fill in a lineup of games, but I don't think indies alone are enough. VR has had people wanting more and more AAA level games for a while now.
I mean, if we're gonna talk about slop and trend chasers, they've always been there. In large quantities and at every level.

For every great indie that comes out, there are hundreds that fail and are just as guilty of trend chasing and scamming people.
That's just the reality for entertainment in general. How many books come out a year or a month, how many of those are awful and just get forgotten. Books certainly aren't a dying medium.
 
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Griffon

Member
Doesn't help that SGF selects the most dogshit woke indies they could find. Look around outside the dumb Geoff show and there are plenty of bangers (Selaco being the latest good one).
 
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March Climber

Gold Member
I don't even know at this point. At first it was independently funded projects, then crowdfunded ones, and now ones funded by publishers that look 20 years late to the scene.
Some consider it all 3. This is why every single thing Engine devs (like Unreal) are doing to make gamedev as easy as possible (across all ends) on their engine, is a much bigger deal than people here give them credit for.

Some want better looking indie, but then the tools' ease of use has to match what a 5 to 20 person team can bring to the table, instead of needing 100+ people to make something decent-looking with an engine.

Like it has been said here before, eventually we will reach a point where the graphics don't matter anymore, but we have to get there first and we're literally in a growing pains stage with all of this.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
I mean, if we're gonna talk about slop and trend chasers, they've always been there. In large quantities and at every level.


That's just the reality for entertainment in general. How many books come out a year or a month, how many of those are awful and just get forgotten. Books certainly aren't a dying medium.
Right, but from all the excessive indie praising over the past few years, it seems like the trend chasing and the bad games are ONLY an AAA issue when it is a more complex and widespread issue across multiple industries.
 

Guilty_AI

Gold Member
Right, but from all the excessive indie praising over the past few years, it seems like the trend chasing and the bad games are ONLY an AAA issue when it is a more complex and widespread issue across multiple industries.
The problem is there are very few redeeming AAA games. Usually from JP and asian studios.

Another issue is that many AAA devs go above and beyond just making mid or mediocre games. Like selling said games in +$100 packages or filling SP titles with MTX alongside a mandatory online connection and so on.
 
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Dunderpatrullen

Neo Member
Go play Animal Well or Tunic. Or Outer Wilds or Disco Elysium. A lot of games today are really really good, we just need to look for them harder. The gaming industry today are such a big thing that we are approaching Hollywood crap standards. The games are out there, you just need to look a bit harder
 

mortal

Member
No, indie games are not killing gaming. That's a silly argument.

Many of them arguably look boring or uninspired, but you can say that about many AAA games as well.
The barrier of entry is much lower in the indie space which means a lot of stinkers, but also a lot more cool, weird, experimental games that would not be made by AAA devs.
It's funny you blame indie games meanwhile these big companies are gobbling up so many studios only to shutter them, putting thousands of people who work in the gaming industry out of a job. I think that is killing gaming more than some small-budget games made by a couple dozen people.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
The problem is there are very few redeeming AAA games. Usually from JP and asian studios.

Another issue is that many AAA devs go above and beyond just making mid or mediocre games. Like selling said games in +$100 packages or filling SP titles with MTX alongside a mandatory online connection and so on.
It is probably due to me playing a lot of Japanese games to where I still find some AAA games I still enjoy. If someone didn't play much of any Japanese or Asian AAA games then yeah, it would be pretty grim atm. I am currently playing Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth and like it a lot, but even it is going a bit overboard on the feature creep and overall scope. I still mostly play Nintendo AAA games as well. One thing I do agree with most is not liking the trends that follow AAA game.
 

gpn

Member
Nope. There are good and bad indies just like there are good and bad AAA games. I played and finished Dredge this past week and enjoyed it a lot. I wouldn't want to lose games like that.
 

Deerock71

Member
When this GAAS/250 million $$$ gaming budgets craze sloughs off, you're looking at the next Capcoms/Konamis/Squeenix' of the gaming industry.
 
Shovelware will always exist. Indie games can be quite innovative, but that comes down to how dedicated the studio is.

Are they saving the industry? Yes and also no. Having variety is a good thing. Some indie stuff is great, other stuff is utter shit.

I feel indie in many cases has replaced the AA sector of gaming that was so prevalent in PS1 and PS2 days. AAA gaming is often played too safe these days because of how much of an investment it is to make such a game.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
The Indie scene seems diverse and vital. Meanwhile ever AAA game I see announced is the same fucking grimdark Soulsborne shit or multiplayer GaaS stuff.
 

yurinka

Member

Are Indies Killing Gaming?​

wtf lol!

No, at all. Gaming is bigger than ever in userbase, revenue, types of games and amount of games released.

But guess what, most people don't have the same tastes than you. And most games are not made for you or people with your tastes, but instead for people with other tastes.

And surprise, surprise: you not liking a game doesn't mean it's a bad game. It only means you don't like it. If you think that if you don't like a game it's a bad game in that case means you're deluded about yourself, your ego is too big.
 
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nial

Gold Member
Extremely weird take, since 'indie' is not something you can choose 10 or 11 games of, and pretend that it represents the entire collective.
People like the good and interesting shit, it's not rocket science.
 
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Kssio_Aug

Member
I can understand the frustration of a gaming show, such as SGF, focusing on indie titles. But blaming indies for that is turning our back to the real issue, which is exactly the AAA industry. They're the ones choosing to make generic games, copy and paste of one another, seeking that GaaS revenue, or choosing to make extremely expensive games that takes 8-10 years to produce, and then not having anything to show for the moment, and under delivering most of the time.

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of indie games being produced are going to be trash. But that's a reality for pretty much every product in existence. Most games, as a whole, are trash. But among these we have tons of great games too, and within the indie scene that's no different. Just take a look at Cocoon, Blasphemous, Jusant, Deep Rock, Hollow Knight, Disco Elysium, Braid, Undertale, or the recently released Selaco, and tons of others. These games are much better than 90% of high-budget crap, or even some highly praised expensive games.

At least some indie developers take some actual risk, and try to release something new. Most big devs don't have the balls to put millions on something truly ambitious, because they prefer to bet on formulas that have proven to make them money. That's why we're getting a lot of open-world, bloated games, full of artificial, useless and uninteresting content in order to take all the player's time and attention with minimal effort. These are the ones destroying gaming.
 
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Indies keeping the game industry alive:

Rushing Weekend At Bernies GIF by Laff


The game industry:

weekend at bernies GIF
 

Hoddi

Member
Yes, but in a good way. AAA has become much too bloated and indies are forcing publishers to scale back their budgets and development times.

I don't need perfect facial motion capture from a celebrity cast in my games. I also don't care that From Software sometimes reuses animations or if they reuse some stupid rock texture. All of that is just unnecessary bloat and it doesn't serve any real purpose if the dev time goes from 3 years to 6 years.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
That being said, i find it funny how the same people who bemoan and have a burning hatred for everything indie( SlimySnake SlimySnake , Represent. Represent. ) are a bad showcase away from selling their gaming equipment and turning to fishing meanwhile everyone who enjoys them are chugging along pretty happily

Seems like indies are saving the industry for people more than they are hurting it
 
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