Indie game

An indie game, short for self-employed person video game, is the video game typically created by individuals or smaller developing teams without the financial together with technical assist of a large game publisher, in contrast to nearly "AAA" triple-A games. However, the "indie" term may apply to other scenarios where the developing of the game has some measure of independence from a publisher even if a publisher lets fund and distribute a game, such(a) as creative freedom. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not normally afforded in AAA games, and may study the medium to hold unique experiences in art games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to lack of publisher support. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums.

Indie game development bore out from the same abstraction of amateur and hobbyist programming that grew with the introduction of the personal computer and the simple BASIC computer language in the 1970s and 1980s. requested bedroom coders, especially in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, filed their own games and used mail order to hand sth. out their products, later shifting to other software distribution methods with the onset of the Internet in the 1990s such(a) as shareware and other file sharing distribution methods, though by this time, interest in hobbyist programming had waned due to rising costs of development and competition from video game publishers and domestic consoles.

The advanced take on the indie game scene resulted in a combination of numerous factors in the early 2000s, including technical, economic, and social theory that presents indie games less expensive to create and distribute, but more visible to larger audiences and offered non-traditional gameplay from the current mainstream games. A number of indie games at that time became success stories that drove more interest into the area. New industry opportunities arose since then, including new digital storefronts, crowdfunding and other indie funding mechanisms to support new teams get their games off the ground, low-cost and open-source development tools available for smaller teams across all gaming platforms, boutique indie game publishers that leave creative freedom to the developers, and industry recognition of indie games alongside mainstream ones at major game award events.

Around 2015, the increasing number of indie games being published led to fears of an "indiepocalypse", referring to an oversupply of games which would make the entire market unprofitable. Although the market did not collapse, discoverability retains an issue for nearly indie developers, with numerous games not being financially profitable. Examples of successful indie games include the Touhou Project series, Cave Story, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft, Fez, Shovel Knight, Undertale, and Cuphead.

History

The onset of indie game development is unoriented to track due to the broadness of what defines an indie game, and the term was not really in ownership until the early 2000s. Until the 2000s, other terms like amateur, enthusiast, and hobbyist software or games were used to describe such software. Today, terms like amateur and hobbyist development are more reflective of those that create mods for existing games, or work with specific technologies or game parts rather than the development of full games. such hobbyists usually produce non-commercial products and may range from novices to industry veterans.

There is some debate as to whether indie development started previously PCs with games developed for mainframe computers at universities and other large institutions. Games such as 1963's Spacewar! were not commercially financed and were made by a small team, but there lacked a commercial sector of the video game industry at that time to distinguish from independent works. However, one of the earliest required examples of games developed on contract for these systems was that of Joyce Weisbecker, who considers herself the number one indie designer, as she had created several games for the RCA Studio II console in 1976 as an independent contractor for RCA.

When the number one personal computers were released in 1977, they each included a pre-installed version of the BASIC computer language along with example programs, including games, to show what users could do with these systems. While the manufacturers also had released commercial games that could be purchased for computers, the availability of BASIC led to people trying to make their own programs. Sales of the 1978 rerelease of the book BASIC Computer Games by David H. Ahl that spoke the source code for over one hundred games, eventually surpassed over one million copies. The availability of BASIC inspired a number of people to start writing their own games.

While the commercial sector of the video game industry was focused on the growing home video game console market in the slow 1970s to early 1980s, a number of games for personal computers were released by one- or two-man teams, self-distributed in stores or sold through mail order. This was particularly true in the United Kingdom, where video game consoles had not gained as much traction as in the United States. There, the early microcomputers such as the ZX Spectrum were popular, launching a range of "bedroom coders" which initiated the UK's video game industry. By 1984, the United Kingdom's game industry had become crowded with many efficient development teams making games at a large pace. Game developer Chris Crawford warned potential small developers away from the commercial prospects of the field in slow 1984:

I will module out the sad truth. We have pretty much passed the period where hobbyists could add together a game that would have commercial prospect. It's much more unmanageable to break in, much less stay in. right now ... I would discourage anyone. If you want to do a game, do it for fun, but don't try to do game designs to make all money. The odds are so much against the individual that I would hate to wish that heartbreak on anyone.

During this period, the idea that indie games could provide experimental gameplay concepts orniche arthouse appeal had been established. Many games from the bedroom coders of the United Kingdom, such as Manic Miner 1983, incorporated the quirkiness of British humour and made them highly experimental games. Other games like Alien Garden 1982 showed highly-experimental gameplay. Infocom itself advertised its text-based interactive fiction games by eschewing their lack of graphics in lieu of the players' imagination, at a time that graphics-heavy action games were commonplace.

By the mid-1990s, the recognition of the personal computer as a viable gaming option, and advances in technology that led to 3D gaming created many commercial opportunities for video games. During the last element of the 1990s, visibility of games from these single or small team studios scene wanes, since a small team could not readily compete in costs, speed and distribution as a commercial entity could. The industry had started to coalesce around video game publishers that could pay larger developers to make games and handle all the marketing and publication costs as living as opportunities to franchise game series. Publishers tended to be risk averse due to high costs of production, and they would reject all small-size and too contemporary concepts of small game developers. The market also became fractured due to the prevalence of video game consoles, which required expensive or difficult-to-acquire game development kits typically reserved for larger developers and publishers.

There were still significant developments from smaller teams that laid the basis of indie games going forward. Shareware games became a popular means to hand sth. out demos or partially fix games in the 1980s and into the 1990s, where players could purchase the full game from the vendor after trying it. As such demos were loosely free to distribute, shareware demo compilations would frequently be included in gaming magazines at that time, providing an easy means for amateur and hobbyist developers to be recognized. The ability to produce numerous copies of games, even if just shareware/demo versions, at a low make up helped to propel the idea as the PC as a gaming platform. At the time, shareware was generally associated with hobbyist programmers, but with releases of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 and Doom in 1993 showed the shareware route to be a viable platform for titles from mainstream developers.

The common take on indie games on personal computer took variety in the early 2000s from several factors. Key was the availability of online distribution over the Internet, allowing game developers to sell directly to players and bypassing limitations of retail distribution and the need for a publisher. Software technologies used to drive the growth of the World Wide Web, like Adobe Flash, were available at low symbolize to developers, and provided another means for indie games to grow. The new interest in indie games led to middleware and game engine developers to ad their products at low or no cost for indie development, in addition to open source library and engines. dedicated software like GameMaker Studio and tools for unified game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine removed much of the programming barriers needed for a prospective indie developer to create these games. The commercial possibilities for indie games at this detail helped to distinguish these games from any prior amateur game.

There were other shifts in the commercial environment that were seen as drivers for the rise of indie games in the 2000s. Many of the games to be indie games of this period were considered to be the antithesis of mainstream games and which highlighted the independence of how these games were made compared to the collective of mainstream titles. Many of them took a retro-style approach to their design, art, or other factors in development, such as Cave Story in 2004, which proved popular with players. Social and political restyle also led to the ownership of indie games not only for entertainment purposes but to also tell a message related to these factors, something that cannot be done in mainstream titles. In comparing indie games to independent film and the state of their respective industries, the indie game's rise was occurring approximately at the same relative time as its market was starting to grow exponentially and seen as a supporting offshoot of the mainstream works.

Indie games saw a large boost in visibility within the video game industry and the rest of the world starting around 2005. A key driver was the transition into new digital distribution methods with storefronts like Steam that offered indie games alongside traditional AAA titles, as well as specialized storefronts for indie games. While direct online distribution helped indie games toplayers, these storefronts allows developers to publish, update, and advertise their games directly, and players to download the games anywhere, with the storefront otherwise handling the distribution and sales factors. While Steam itself initially began heavy curation, it eventually allowed for indie publishing with its Steam Greenlight and Steam Direct programs, vastly increasing the number of games available.

Further driving indie game growth in this period came from the departure of large publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision from their smaller, one-off titles to focus on their larger, more successful properties, leaving the indie game space to afford shorter and more experimental titles as alternatives. Costs of developing AAA games had risen greatly, to an average cost of tens of millions of dollars in 2007–2008 per title, and there was little room for risks in gameplay experimentation.

Another driver came from discussions related to whether video games could be seen as an art form; movie critic Roger Ebert postulated in open debates that video games could not be art in 2005 and 2006, leading to developers creating indie games to specifically challenge that notion.

Indie video game development saw a further boost by the use of crowdfunding as a means for indie developers to raise funds to produce a game and to establish the desire for a game, rather than risk time and investment into a game that does not sell well. While video games had used crowdfunding prior to 2012, several large indie game-related projects successfully raised millions of dollars through Kickstarter, and since then, several other similar crowdfunding options for game developers have become available. Crowdfunding eliminated some of the cost risk associated with indie game development, and created more opportunities for indie developers to take chances on new titles.

With more indie titles emerging during this period, larger publishers and the industry as a whole started taking notice of indie games as a significant movement within the field. One of the first examples of this was World of Goo 2008, where its developers 2D Boy had tried but failed to gain any publisher support prior to release. On release, the game was recognized at various award events including the Independent Games Festival, leading to publishers that had ago rejected 2D Boy to ad to publish it.

Console manufactures also helped to boost recognition of indie games in this period. By the alongside two AAA games. While all three indie games had high number of downloads, Braid was a critical darling and drew mainstream media recognition for a game developed by only two people. Microsoft continued to adopt up on this promotion in the coming after or as a calculation of. years, bringing in more games onto XBLA including covers several of the games that flourished from this period.

The single best-selling game of all time, Minecraft, was also originally released as an indie game during this period, though in 2014 Microsoft purchased Mojang, the developer behind Minecraft, and brought them into Xbox Game Studios. Other successful indie games during this perod include Terraria and Shovel Knight.