Talk:Indie game development

I made the 'list of independent game developers' but the article got voted for deletion, so maybe this link should be removed? -Fixed. Changed to List_of_indie_game_developers which is an already existing page that seems to have been deemed ok to keep.

REED: Added Well-known indie games section, because many of the most influential indie games have been one shots, it makes more sense to have a section about individual games, rather than just companies.

Shareware in the 90s
"During the 1990s, indie games were most commonly distributed as shareware or shared from friend to friend and therefore known as "shareware games". [original research?]" But if you read history of shareware they rather mention shareware as a model for established game companies (and small companies alike). The sentence may be removed? Trilarion (talk) 14:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

April 2006
User:Knoland recreated List of independent game developers in March 2006. When I found it, it mentioned PopCap Games and Flying Lab Software. I've added Flying Lab to List_of_indie_game_developers (PopCap was already there) and changed List of independent game developers into a redirect to List_of_indie_game_developers. —Chris Chittleborough 10:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Differentiation between Independent and non-Independent needed
This article needs to indicate what differentiates an independent developer from a non-independent. Size can't be it. Whether or not you publish your own games or not can't be it surely? Is Nintendo an Independent developer? Who do they depend on? Is a 1 man developer / publisher non-independent because they are also a publisher? The article as it stands is a lot of waffle without justification as to what an independent developer really means. ZhuLien 01:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.32.141.11 (talk)

Contradiction
The first paragraph states that indie developers originated as a reaction to the established industry, even making it a requirement for the term "indie", whereas the second paragraph claims both originated at around the same time. This contradicts strongly. Wouter Lievens 08:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Its not necessarily a contradiction, in that they do not refer to the same thing. The term and community of "Indie" developers would have defined itself as a result of the industry, but Indie games themselves are only referred to in the first paragraph.  The second paragraph relates to a pool of un-hired/unorganized talent. - Guy who doesn't really get how to sign this thing (user )


 * I think I've resolved this as part of a general cleanup, so I removed the contradiction tag. -FunnyMan 06:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Great work! Well done. Thanks, FunnyMan! CWC (talk) 10:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

October 2006 edits
I've just reorganised the "See also" section to use 3 columns. I noticed that we have articles about Game Tunnel and Independent Games Festival but only mentioned them in External Links, so I added "See also" links to those articles and dropped GT and IGF from external links. I also added a link to Manifesto Games.

In addition, I changed the descriptions of all 4 remaining links. Note that my descriptions of GameTrove and madmonkey are rather uninformative. (I just grabbed the first halfway decent quote I found on their websites.) Someone please put better descriptions into the article.

Cheers, CWC (talk) 09:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

cheapass games
while Cheapass Games is a great company, "independent tabletop game development" is the rule, not the exception, and pretty much every single tabletop game developer (with the possible exception of Wizards of the Coast and other developers owned by Hasbro) falls well within the definition of what would be considered "indie" in the video game industry.

Therefore I removed the section about them (and "indie tabletop gaming" in general) from the intro. Luvcraft 00:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Spam?
Are some of the links questionable or is it just me? They're all about Indie games, for sure, but some of them seem a bit too much like free advertising. Also, some of the sites may not be notable. Anyone have an opinion? Should I remove the tag? -- Solberg 09:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)Solberg
 * Two of them were pretty much entirely not notable, and I removed them. The other links are all good indie gaming websites and well-known by those in the indie scene, so I kept them there. I'd want someone else to look over it for a second opinion, but I think the link problem is fixed. Simply MP (talk) 04:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Categorize
I recommend we develop a category for Indie Games, the list on the page is only going to grow and become unwieldy. Instead the list can be used to summarize the most notable Indie Games, and the category will contain all of them. If nobody minds, when I get around to this, I'll try to do exactly that. -- Solberg 04:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)Solberg

Where are the forums? It is so hard to find an indie game forum nowadays.

This article is of quite poor quality not even to have decent forum links. How can someone get a sense of the indie experience without knowing where its players are?


 * I did some categorization work with the links, and linked to three of the biggest forums for independent game developers. Hope this helps.

Source Citing, Quality etc.
The article very clearly needs to cite more sources, and makes many bizarre assertions - why 'up to 10' developers? Why are 'RPGs, roguelikes or Flash games' easier than other genres/mediums? And, knock me down with a feather, more complexity takes more time - who'd have thought? Dan MacDonald's articles at Gametunnel may be a help with regard to the dearth of sources, and it would be helpful if similar commentary on the industry was added to the talk page to provide further - and more diverse - material. - AlKing464 (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose xpogames.com, the multyplayer site nonoba.com, the $50 per game site hallpass.com and the Mochiads exposing site konkrgate.com should go into the list of independent game development exposure platforms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.146.97 (talk) 09:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

VG Industry box
Added the "part of the video game industry series" box, as surely this fits right in. I don't know why it wasn't there in the first place. Not sure if I have to announce anywhere that I added it. — H3llkn0wz ▎talk 01:58, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

More in depth analysis of the culture and its benefits
I don't think enough has been provided on independent video game culture which has a very large following as the scene offers a lot of new, fresh ideas to the industry at large. There are a lot of great popular indie games that could also be included as references to how the scene has created such great innovation. It is also slightly lacking on the history and a lot more could be said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwrightau (talk • contribs) 15:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Source
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6298425/index.html?tag=nl.e578 Enjoy! Axem Titanium (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Five reasons why Steam will destroy the PC games industry
This article was outdated and ill-researched when it was published and is even more so now. Some points made show the author's lack of knowledge in regard to Valve's policies and he covers these holes with logical fallacies to boot.

I shall not delete it, yet, but highly recommend it be replaced with a more appropriate and neutral article.

PinothyJ (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)…
 * I did go as far as deleting it. The text on this article, "it is becoming increasingly difficult for PC developers to make a profit" is not supported by the source, and the source is so far away from a good or reliable one that there's no justification for including it anywhere. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:35, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Overlap with indie game
The definition of "indie game" is vague, as stated in the indie game article. I've tried to align the opening with that article, but that brought up another thought: what exactly is this article doing that indie game isn't / can't do? They're repeating much of the same sorts of information, but this article has far less citation coverage. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Independent video game development. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110421074810/http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/download-distribution-opening-new-doors-for-independent-game-1409285.html to http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/download-distribution-opening-new-doors-for-independent-game-1409285.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:45, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Independent video game which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:01, 16 July 2019 (UTC)