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105-408: TIGSource , short for The Independent Games Source , is a news blog and Internet community centered around the creation of independent video games , founded in 2005 by Jordan Magnuson but soon taken over by Derek Yu , both independent game developers. The site has been described as having been an important "cultural nexus" for the creation of indie games development in the 2000s and early 2010s, and

210-481: A retro style of the 8-bit and 16-bit generations , with simpler graphics atop the more complex mechanics. Indie games may fall into classic game genres, but new gameplay innovations have been seen. However, being "indie" does not imply that the game focuses on innovation. In fact, many games with the "indie" label can be of poor quality and may not be made for profit. Jesper Juul , an associate professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts that has studied

315-598: A stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Independent video games Indie game development bore out from the same concepts 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. So-called bedroom coders, particularly in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, made their own games and used mail order to distribute their products, although they later shifted to other software distribution methods with

420-445: 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 well 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 innovative concepts of small game developers. The market also became fractured due to

525-411: A direct, do-it-yourself manner allowing creative distribution. There is the potential for artists to gain large numbers of streams on Spotify if their music are included in certain popular playlists. For both independent and major labels, the label generally owns the copyright to the sound recording. Artists who maintain their copyrights usually must sacrifice other parts of their deal, and must give

630-593: A distinct musical style found in indie music, which was influenced by post-punk and new wave . Important albums that contributed to this style include Joy Division 's Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Depeche Mode 's Speak & Spell (1981). Released on Rough Trade, Inflammable Material (1979) was the first independently-released album to sell over 100,000 copies. By the 1980s, the indie pop band The Smiths , signed with Rough Trade, "came to exemplify indie both musically and culturally" according to The Conversation . The Smith's authentic sound contrasted with

735-519: A further boost by the use of crowdfunding as a means for indie developers to raise funds to produce a game and to determine 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

840-525: A game as indie is from its innovation, creativity, and artistic experimentation, factors enabled by small teams free of financial and creative oversight. This definition is reflective of an "indie spirit" that is diametrically opposite of the corporate culture of AAA development, and makes a game "indie", where the factors of financial and creative independence make a game "independent". Developers with limited ability to create graphics can rely on gameplay innovation. This often leads to indie games having

945-472: A game developed by two people. Microsoft continued to follow up on this promotion in the following years, bringing in more games onto XBLA such as Super Meat Boy , Limbo , and Fez . Sony and Nintendo followed suit, encouraging indie developers to bring games onto their platforms. By 2013, all three console manufacturers had established programs that allowed indie developers to apply for low-cost development toolkits and licenses to publish directly onto

1050-433: A gaming platform. At the time, shareware was generally associated with hobbyist programmers, but the 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 current, common understanding of indie games on personal computer took shape in the early 2000s from several factors. Key was the availability of online distribution over

1155-481: A hobbyist programming magazine that users could share their programs with. Over time, ASCII saw the opportunity to publish game development kits, and by 1992, released the first commercial version of the RPG Maker software. While the software cost money to obtain, users could release completed games with it as freeware or commercial products, which established the potential for a commercial independent games market by

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1260-415: A key player in changing the perception of independent video games as merely casual games to that of an art form. Its forums were the launchpad for several award-winning games, including the best-selling video game of all time, Minecraft , BAFTA -winning dystopian immigration officer simulation Papers, Please , viral phenomenon QWOP , puzzle-platform game Fez , and Yu's own Spelunky . The site

1365-624: A long history of promoting developments in popular music, stretching back to the post-war period in the United States, with labels such as Sun Records , King Records , and Stax . In the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s, the major record companies had so much power that independent labels struggled to become established, until the launch of new labels like Virgin Records . Several British producers and artists launched independent labels as outlets for their work and artists they liked;

1470-425: A message related to these factors, something that could not 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 be seen as a supporting offshoot of the mainstream works. Indie games saw a large boost in visibility within

1575-705: A number of dedicated investor-based indie game funds have been established such as the Indie Fund . Indie developers can submit applications requesting grants from these funds. The money is typically provided as a seed investment to be repaid through game royalties. Several national governments, through their public arts agencies, also have made similar grants available to indie developers. Prior to digital distribution, hobbyist programmers typically relied on mail order to distribute their product. They would place ads in local papers or hobbyist computer magazines such as Creative Computing and Byte and, once payment

1680-423: A partnership. One issue is that artists often forgo their mechanical royalties in 50-50 deals, and it can be more difficult to recoup the advance, meaning it takes longer to turn a profit. Some labels forgo a formal contract altogether, and their deals include few restrictions. Independent music is a broad category that is made up of distinct subgenres with influences from various other genres. Indie pop

1785-488: A popular form of distribution even with availability of bulletin board systems and the Internet. By the 2000s, indie developers relied on the Internet as their primary distribution means as without a publisher, it was nearly impossible to stock an indie game at retail, the mail order concept having long since died out. Independent music Independent music (also commonly known as indie music , or simply indie )

1890-429: A publisher. Indie games are distinct from open source games . The latter are games which are developed with the intent to release the source code and other assets under an open source license . While many of the same principles used to develop open source games are the same as for indie games, open source games are not developed for commercial gain and instead as a hobbyist pursuit. However, commercial sales are not

1995-406: A requirement for an indie game and such games can be offered as freeware , most notably with Spelunky on its original release and Dwarf Fortress , with the exception of its enhanced visual front-end version while its base version remains free. The onset of indie game development is difficult to track due to the broadness of what defines an indie game, and the term was not really in use until

2100-443: A service that included some indie games, though these drew little attention in the first few years. In 2008, Microsoft ran its "XBLA Summer of Arcade" promotion, which included the releases of indie games Braid , Castle Crashers , and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 alongside two AAA games. While all three indie games had a high number of downloads, Braid received critical acclaim and drew mainstream media recognition for being

2205-542: A single person, though often with support of artists and musicians for those assets. More common are small teams of developers, from two to a few dozen, with additional support from external artists. While it is possible for development teams to be larger, with this comes a higher cost overhead of running the studio, which may be risky if the game does not perform well. Indie teams can arise from many different directions. One common path recently includes student projects, developed as prototypes as part of their coursework, which

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2310-477: A variety of methods of distribution, with the label generally owning the copyright for the sound recording. They generally give smaller advances , or sometimes no advance, and some may offer higher royalty splits than major labels. Although "Indie" was first used to described music released on independent record labels, the term grew to describe a specific sound because of the creative freedom of its initial bands and artists. A defining characteristic of indie music

2415-492: Is a " I know it when I see it "-type assessment, since no single definition can capture what games are broadly considered indie. Indie games generally share certain common characteristics. One method to define an indie game is the nature of independence, which can either be: Another means to evaluate a game as indie is to examine its development team, with indie games being developed by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies that are often specifically formed for

2520-691: Is a broad style of music characterized by creative freedoms, low-budgets, and a do-it-yourself approach to music creation, which originated from the liberties afforded by independent record labels . Indie music describes a number of related styles, but generally describes guitar-oriented music straying away from mainstream conventions. There are a number of subgenres of independent music which combine its characteristics with other genres, such as indie pop , indie rock , indie folk , and indie electronic . The origins of independent music lie in British independent record labels, such as Rough Trade and Mute . In

2625-513: Is a style of folk music which originated in the 1990s with artists like Elliott Smith and Will Oldham . The genre grew from traditional and contemporary folk , but took a distinctly independent approach inspired by indie rock. The genre gained further popularity and support in the 2000s from labels such as Saddle Creek , Barsuk , and Sub Pop . Notable 21st century indie folk artists include Fleet Foxes , Bon Iver , Great Lake Swimmers , Sufjan Stevens , and Phoebe Bridgers . Indie folk

2730-451: Is a style of rock music and is one of the most popular independent music genres. It originally grew out of the alternative rock , punk rock , and independent movements of the 1980s, with local scenes emerging in many American cities and college towns . The New Zealand Dunedin sound of the 1970s and 80s was also influential in indie rock's development. By the 1990s, indie rock had separated from alternative rock and gained popularity in

2835-598: Is a style of pop music that originally grew out of British post-punk in the late 1970s. Indie pop was one of the first independent music genres, and was initially synonymous with "indie". Indie pop is characterized by a focus on melody , arrangements, and harmony , with less angst and distortion as compared to indie rock . It features the homemade intimacy commonly found in independent music. Notable subgenres include chamber pop , which adds lush chamber orchestration , and twee pop , which features "primitive simplicity". Indie rock (also referred to as simply "indie")

2940-404: Is distinguished by its acoustic instrumentation – and often consists of just vocals and acoustic guitar – although some artists experiment with more diverse instrumentation. As well, indie folk artists are often singer-songwriters . Indie electronic , also known as indietronica, is a broad categorization of music that combines independent and electronic music styles. It is not considered

3045-530: Is primarily referred to as an "indie game" because of its success in the Western market. It is one of the most influential indie games, also contributing to the resurgence of the Metroidvania genre. Doujin games also got a strong interest in Western markets after some English-speaking groups translated various titles with permission for English release, most notably with Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale ,

3150-554: Is simply those with little to no experience in the games industry, although they may have computer-programming skills and experience, and they may come in with ideas and fresh perspectives for games, with ideas that are generally more personable and close to their hearts. These developers are usually self-taught and thus may not have certain disciplines of typical programmers, thereby allowing for more creative freedom and new ideas. However, some may see amateur work less favorably than those that have had experience, whether from school or from

3255-443: Is some debate as to whether independent game development started prior to the 1977 home computer revolution with games developed for mainframe computers at universities and other large institutions. 1962's Spacewar! was not commercially financed and was made by a small team, but there was no commercial sector of the video game industry at that time to distinguish from independent works. Joyce Weisbecker , who considers herself

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3360-420: Is that artists have less to pay back, and therefore can begin to profit quicker. There are a number of ways that an independent label may structure their contract. Some independent labels have contracts that are essentially equivalent to major label deals. On a major label, a typical royalty rate (what the artist takes) is 13% to 16%; however, some independent labels offer 50-50 splits, which functions more as

3465-540: Is that artists retain much more creative control over their music as compared to major labels. Bands often have small budgets, and employ a do-it-yourself ethos which influences their sound. Indie music generally represents guitar-oriented music which strays away from commercial conventions. It often features lyrics that are earnest and emotive, with many cultural and sociopolitical references. Many artists signed to major labels have retained creative control and are still considered indie artists. Independent labels have

3570-513: The Five Nights at Freddy's series, Undertale , Cuphead , and Among Us . The term "indie game" itself is based on similar terms like independent film and independent music , where the concept is often related to self-publishing and independence from major studios or distributors. However, as with both indie films and music, there is no exact, widely accepted definition of what constitutes an "indie game" besides falling well outside

3675-615: The Atari Program Exchange in 1981 to publish user-written software, including games, for Atari 8-bit computers . Print magazines such as SoftSide , Compute! , and Antic solicited games from hobbyists, written in BASIC or assembly language , to publish as type-in listings . In the United Kingdom, early microcomputers such as the ZX Spectrum were popular, launching a range of "bedroom coders" which initiated

3780-882: The ID@Xbox program or the iOS SDK . While most indie games lack a publisher with the developer serving in that role, a number of publishers geared towards indie games have been established since 2010, also known as boutique game publishers; these include Raw Fury , Devolver Digital , Annapurna Interactive , Finji, and Adult Swim Games . There also have been a number of indie developers that have grown large enough on their own to also support publishing for smaller developers, such as Chucklefish , Coffee Stain Studios , and Team17 . These boutique publishers, having experience in making indie games themselves, typically will provide necessary financial support and marketing but have little to no creative control on developers' product as to maintain

3885-783: 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 cost 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 offer their products at low or no cost for indie development, in addition to open source libraries and engines. Dedicated software like GameMaker Studio and tools for unified game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine removed much of

3990-413: The seventh generation of consoles in 2005, each platform provided online services for players–namely Xbox Live , PlayStation Network , and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection –which included digital game distribution. Following the increased popularity of indie games on computers, these services started publishing them alongside larger releases. The Xbox 360 had launched in 2005 with Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA),

4095-674: The "indie" nature of the game. In some cases, the publisher may be more selective of the type of games it supports; Annapurna Interactive sought games that were "personal, emotional and original". The lack of a publisher requires an indie developer to find means to fund the game themselves. Existing studios may be able to rely on past funds and incoming revenue, but new studios may need to use their own personal funds ("bootstrapping"), personal or bank loans, or investments to cover development costs, or building community support while in development. More recently, crowd-funding campaigns, both reward-based and equity-based, have been used to obtain

4200-401: The 1970s, these labels contributed to the emergence of a distinct sound, influenced by post-punk and new wave . NME released the influential compilation album C86 in 1986, and helped with indie's spread and development. American independent music first emerged in the 1980s, and was spread via college radios . Styles that evolved out of indie music and reached wide commercial success in

4305-430: The 1978 rerelease of the book BASIC Computer Games by David H. Ahl that included 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. Many personal computer games written by individuals or two person teams were self-distributed in stores or sold through mail order . Atari, Inc. launched

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4410-586: The 1990s include grunge ( Nirvana , Pearl Jam , and the Smashing Pumpkins ) and Britpop ( Blur , Pulp , and Oasis ). In the 21st century, due to the internet, indie music saw a global spread in popularity, as music fans were no longer dependent on physical publications to find new music. Independent record labels , important to the development of indie music, are characterized by their smaller operations, lower funding, and greater creative control as compared to major labels . Independent labels use

4515-612: The UK's video game industry. During this period, the idea that indie games could provide experimental gameplay concepts or demonstrate niche 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 emphasizing their lack of graphics in lieu of

4620-493: The UK, this music was not referred to as "indie" until the 2000s. Indie music reached wide commercial success in the 1990s, especially with Britpop bands like Blur , Pulp , and Oasis . As well, American grunge bands like Nirvana , Pearl Jam , and The Smashing Pumpkins received mainstream success. In 1991, the Grammys added an Alternative section to its awards ceremony, for "non-traditional form[s]" existing "outside of

4725-399: The Western regions, bringing more interest to doujin games as legitimate titles. The Tokyo Game Show first offered a special area for doujin games in 2013 with support from Sony Interactive Entertainment who had been a promoter of Western indie games in prior years, and has expanded that since. The distinction between Japanese-developed doujin games and indie games is ambiguous - the use of

4830-473: The Year . Several other indie games were released during this period to critical and/or commercial success. Minecraft (2011), the best-selling video game of all time as of 2024, was originally released as an indie game before its developer Mojang Studios was acquired by Microsoft in 2014 and brought into Xbox Game Studios . Another indie game, Terraria , was released that same year and has become

4935-433: 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 changes also led to the use of indie games not only for entertainment purposes but to also tell

5040-449: The approval of a publisher, as mainstream game developers usually do. Design decisions are thus also not limited by an allocated budget. Furthermore, smaller team sizes increase individual involvement. However, this view is not all-encompassing, as there are numerous cases of games where development is not independent of a major publisher but still considered indie. Some notable instances of games include: Yet another angle to evaluate

5145-401: The bounds of triple-A video game development by large publishers and development studios. One simple definition, described by Laura Parker for GameSpot , says "independent video game development is the business of making games without the support of publishers", but this does not cover all situations. Dan Pearce of IGN stated that the only consensus for what constitutes an indie game

5250-444: The chances of greater success. There are a few ways an independent label may go about distributing its music. Some independent labels are owned by major labels, who carry out the distribution for them. Other labels instead go through independent distributors. Many current artists use their own resources to produce, record, market and release music through Spotify , SoundCloud , and other streaming platforms with social media in

5355-631: The common highly produced pop music of the time. The UK Indie Chart was first compiled in 1980, and independent distribution became better organized from the late 1970s onward. In 1986, NME released the compilation album C86 , which was influential to the development of indie music. In the United States, independent music was first spread by in the 1980s by college radios and thus dubbed college rock (also later termed modern rock and alternative rock ). Defining American albums of this era include Sonic Youth 's Daydream Nation (1988) and Pixies ’ Doolittle (1989). However, unlike

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5460-443: The console manufacturers as well as mobile device operating system providers released special software-based SDKs to build and test games first on personal computers and then on these consoles or mobile devices. These SDKs were still offered at commercial rates to larger developers, but reduced pricing was provided to those who would generally self-publish via digital distribution on the console or mobile device's storefront, such as with

5565-482: The console's respective storefronts following approval processes. A number of "boutique" indie game publishers were founded in this period to support funding, technical support, and publishing of indie games across various digital and retail platforms. In 2012, Journey became the first Indie game to win the Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year and D.I.C.E. Award for Game of

5670-525: The cost of smaller budgets and personnel. They are often able to support artists working in niche styles of music, and rely heavily on personal networking, or word of mouth , to expose their acts. Indie labels are usually small operations, with almost no outside assistance and run out of tiny offices. Some artists choose to go from an independent label to a major label if given the opportunity, as major labels have considerably more power and financial means to promote and distribute products, sometimes increasing

5775-484: 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), whose developers 2D Boy had tried but failed to gain any publisher support prior to release. On release,

5880-491: The current mainstream games. A number of indie games at that time became success stories that drove more interest in the area. New industry opportunities have arisen since then, including new digital storefronts, crowdfunding, and other indie funding mechanisms to help new teams get their games off the ground. There are also low-cost and open-source development tools available for smaller teams across all gaming platforms, boutique indie game publishers that leave creative freedom to

5985-612: 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 that would make the entire market unprofitable. Although the market did not collapse, discoverability remains an issue for most indie developers, with many games not being financially profitable. Examples of successful indie games include Cave Story , Braid , Super Meat Boy , Terraria , Minecraft , Fez , Hotline Miami , Shovel Knight ,

6090-479: The development of one specific game. Typically, indie games are smaller than mainstream titles. Indie game developers are generally not financially backed by video game publishers , who are risk-averse and prefer "big-budget games". Instead, indie game developers usually have smaller budgets, usually sourcing from personal funds or via crowdfunding . Being independent, developers do not have controlling interests or creative limitations, and do not require

6195-523: The doujin soft community has generally been treated as a hobbyist activity up through the 2010s. Computers and bedroom coding had taken off similarly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the computer market was quickly overwhelmed by consoles. Still, hobbyist programmers continued to develop games. One area that Japan had focused on were game development kits , specialized software that would allow users to create their own games. A key line of these were produced by ASCII Corporation , which published ASCII ,

6300-451: The early 1990s, notably with the releases of Wolfenstein 3D and ZZT , "indie" games from fledgling developers id Software and Tim Sweeney (later founder of Epic Games ), respectively. Game magazines started to include shareware games on pack-in demo discs with each issue, and as with mail-order, companies arose that provided shareware sampler discs and served to help with shareware payment and redemption processing. Shareware remained

6405-479: The early 2000s, aligning with the popularity of indie games in the West. Like other Japanese fan-created works in other media, doujin games were often built from existing assets and did not receive much respect or interest from consumers, and instead were generally made to be played and shared with other interested players and at conventions. Around 2013, market forces began to shift with the popularity of indie games in

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6510-469: 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

6615-487: The eighth best selling video game of all time, as well the highest rated game on Steam as of 2022. Other successful indie games released during this time include Hotline Miami (2012), Shovel Knight (2014), and Five Nights at Freddy's (2014). Hotline Miami inspired many to begin developing games and contributed to the rise in indie game released during this time period, while Shovel Knight and Five Nights at Freddy's spawned successful media franchises, with

6720-411: The final game. This can provide funding midway though development, but like with crowd-funding, consumers expect a game that is near completion, so significant development and costs will likely need to have been invested already. Minecraft was considered an indie game during its original development, and was one of the first titles to successfully demonstrate this approach to funding. More recently,

6825-559: The first indie designer, created several games for the RCA Studio II home console in 1976 as an independent contractor for RCA . When the first 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. The availability of BASIC led to people trying to make their own programs. Sales of

6930-493: The first such doujin to be published on Steam in 2010. Mikhail Fiadotau, a lecturer in video game studies at Tallinn University , identified three primary distinctions between the established doujin culture and the Western idea of indie games. From a conceptual view, indie games generally promote independence and novelty in thought, while doujin games tend to be ideas shared by a common group of people and tend to not veer from established concepts (such as strong favoritism towards

7035-452: The full game from the vendor after trying it. As such demos were generally 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 cost helped to propel the idea as the PC as

7140-432: The funds from interested consumers before development begins in earnest. While using crowd-funding for video games took off in 2012, its practice has significantly waned as consumers became wary of campaigns that failed to deliver on promised goods. A successful crowd-funded campaign now typically requires significant development work and costs associated with this before the campaign is launched, in order to demonstrate that

7245-516: The game was recognized at various award events including the Independent Games Festival , leading to publishers that had previously rejected World of Goo to offer to publish it. The success of indie video games on crowdfunding platforms also inspired a wave of indie tabletop role-playing game developers to follow the same business model. Console manufacturers also helped increase recognition of indie games in this period. By

7350-400: The game will likely be completed in a timely manner and draw in funds. Another mechanism offered through digital distribution is the early access model, in which interested players can buy playable beta versions of the game to provide software testing and gameplay feedback. Those consumers become entitled to the full game for free on release, while others may have to pay a higher price for

7455-520: 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 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

7560-504: The indie game field since 2015, there are concerns that the market is far too large for many developers to get noticed. Very few selected indie titles get wide coverage in the media, and are typically referred to as "indie darlings". In some cases, indie darlings are identified through consumer reactions that praise the game rather than direct industry influence, leading to further coverage; examples of such games include Celeste and Untitled Goose Game . However, there are also times where

7665-599: The indie game space to provide 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

7770-664: The industry, relying on game development toolkits rather than programming languages, and they may associate such titles as amateur or hobbyist. Some such amateur-developed games have found great success. Examples of these include Braid , Super Meat Boy , Dwarf Fortress , and Undertale . Typically, a starting indie-game studio will be primarily programmers and developers. Art assets including artwork and music may be outsourced to work-for-hire artists and composers. For development of personal computer games, indie games typically rely on existing game engines , middleware and game development kits to build their titles, lacking

7875-447: The label a temporary license to the recordings. An advance is a pre-payment of royalties from the label for the artist to record the album; it is paid back through the album's royalties. Independent labels generally give out much smaller advances than major labels, if any. Additionally, some independent labels will cover an album's recording costs instead of proving a set dollar amount as an advance. One advantage of smaller advances

7980-417: The labeling of a game as "indie" still can be highly subjective and no single rule helps delineate indie games from non-indie ones. Games that are not as large as most triple-A games, but are developed by larger independent studios with or without publisher backing and that can apply triple-A design principles and polish due to the experience of the team, have sometimes been called "triple-I" games, reflecting

8085-422: The largest fan convention in the world, have allowed independent developers to sell and promote their physical products since its inauguration in 1975, allowing game series like Touhou Project and Fate to spread in popularity and dominate the convention for years. As the media shifted to higher-capacity formats and with the ability for users to make their own copies of programs, the simple mail order method

8190-447: The late 2010s. Several indie developers have found it critical to have a good public relations campaign across social media and to interact with the press to make sure a game is noticed early on in its development cycle to get interest and maintain that interest through release, which adds to costs of development. Several games during this time have still seen success, including games that were referred to as "indie darlings." Some of

8295-568: The latter becoming a cultural phenomenon. Mobile games also became popular with indie developers, with inexpensive development tools and low-barrier storefronts with the App Store and Google Play opening in the late 2000s. In 2012, a documentary, Indie Game: The Movie , was created that covers several successful games from this period. Leading into 2015, there was concern that the rise of easy-to-use tools to create and distribute video games could lead to an oversupply of video games, which

8400-701: The mainstream music consciousness". The internet 's ease of spreading information influenced indie music's popularization in the United States and global spread. Music fans no longer relied on publications or magazines to hear about new artists. At the beginning of the 21st century, the term indie came to describe a number of related but distinct subgenres . One example is indie folk , a stripped-back low fidelity approach to folk music , as seen in Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver 's first album, For Emma, Forever Ago . Widely popular indie rock bands of this era include Arcade Fire and Arctic Monkeys . By this time,

8505-494: The mainstream, pushed along by the popularity of Seattle's grunge scene, especially Nirvana . Notable artists of the 2000s included The Strokes , Yeah Yeah Yeahs , and the Arctic Monkeys , while some of the 2010s included The 1975 and Vampire Weekend . Indie rock went onto inspire a multitude of subgenres and derivative styles, such as dream pop , noise pop , lo-fi , math rock , emo , and more. Indie folk

8610-415: The majority failed as commercial ventures or were bought by the major labels. During the punk rock era, the number of independent labels grew. In 1977, Manchester -band Buzzcocks released Spiral Scratch , considered the first independently released rock release. In the late 1970s, certain UK independent labels (such as Rough Trade , Factory , Fiction , and Mute ) contributed to the emergence of

8715-502: The market in indie games is more competitive than ever but continues to appear healthy with no signs of faltering. Gamasutra said that by the end of 2016, while there had not be any type of catastrophic collapse of the indie game market, there were signs that the growth of the market had significantly slowed and that it has entered a "post-indiepocalypse" phase as business models related to indie games adjust to these new market conditions. While there has not been any type of collapse of

8820-471: The middle ground between these extremes. Ninja Theory 's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is considered a prime example of a triple-I game. A further distinction from indie games are those considered double-A ("AA"), tending to be from mid to large-size studios ranging from 50 to 100 team members and larger than typically associated with indie games, that often work under similar practices as triple-A studios but still retain creative control of their titles from

8925-400: The most played games of 2023. More commercially successful games from this time include Stardew Valley , Hollow Knight , and Cuphead . Indie games are generally associated with Western regions, specifically with North American, European, and Oceanic areas. However, other countries have had similar expansions of indie games that have intersected with the global industry. In Japan,

9030-486: The most popular indie games from this time were primarily popularized over social media and spawned cultural phenomena, such as Undertale (2015) and Among Us (2018), with the later being one of the most popular games during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 with half a billion players. A similar example is Lethal Company , which released in 2023 and was popularized through internet culture, becoming one of

9135-569: The onset of the Internet in the 1990s, such as shareware and other file sharing distribution methods. However, by this time, interest in hobbyist programming had waned due to rising costs of development and competition from video game publishers and home consoles. The modern take on the indie game scene resulted from a combination of numerous factors in the early 2000s, including technical, economic, and social concepts that made indie games less expensive to make and distribute but more visible to larger audiences and offered non-traditional gameplay from

9240-470: 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 part of the 1990s, visibility of games from these single or small team studios scene waned, since a small team could not readily compete in costs, speed and distribution as

9345-435: 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 distribute demos or partially complete games in the 1980s and into the 1990s, where players could purchase

9450-409: The programming barriers needed for a prospective indie developer to create these games. The commercial possibilities for indie games at this point 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

9555-701: The resources to build custom engines. Common game engines include Unreal Engine and Unity , but there are numerous others as well. Small studios that do not anticipate large sales are generally afforded reduced prices for mainstream game engines and middleware. These products may be offered free, or be offered at a substantial royalty discount that only increases if their sales exceed certain numbers. Indie developers may also use open source software (such as Godot ) or by taking advantage of homebrew libraries, which are freely available but may lack technically-advanced features compared to equivalent commercial engines. Prior to 2010, development of indie games on consoles

9660-579: The same basic concepts behind video game development for mainstream titles also apply to indie game development, particularly around the software development aspects. Key differences lie in how the development of the game ties in with the publisher or lack thereof. There is no definitive size for how big an independent game development studio might be. Several successful indie games, such as the Touhou Project series, Axiom Verge , Cave Story , Papers, Please , and Spelunky , were developed by

9765-454: The school demanded rights to the game. Another route for indie development teams comes from experienced developers in the industry who either voluntarily leave to pursue indie projects, typically due to creative burnout from the corporate process, or resulting from termination from the company. Examples of games from such groups include FTL: Faster Than Light , Papers, Please , Darkest Dungeon , and Gone Home . Yet another route

9870-429: The students then take into a commercial opportunity after graduating from school. Examples of such games are And Yet It Moves , Octodad: Dadliest Catch , Risk of Rain , and Outer Wilds . In some cases, students may drop out of school to pursue the commercial opportunity or for other reasons; Vlambeer 's founders, for example, had started to develop a commercial game while still in school and dropped out when

9975-400: The term indie had transcended the definition of solely independently released music, and came to represent a "general resistance to popular and mainstream culture, evoking realism, independence and authenticity". An independent record label is one that operates outside of the funding and creative control of major record labels . Independent labels generally have greater creative freedom, at

10080-422: The term usually refers to if their popularity formed in Western or Eastern markets before the mid-2010s, and if they are made with the aim of selling large copies or just as a passion project; the long-running bullet hell Touhou Project series , developed entirely by one-man independent developer ZUN since 1995, has been called both indie and doujinshi. Meanwhile, despite being Japanese-developed, Cave Story

10185-469: 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 to reach players, these storefronts allowed developers to publish, update, and advertise their games directly, and players to download

10290-574: The video game market, wrote in his book Handmade Pixels that the definition of an indie game is vague, and depends on different subjective considerations. Juul classified three ways games can be considered indie: those that are financially independent of large publishers, those that are aesthetically independent of and significantly different from the mainstream art and visual styles used in AAA games, and those that present cultural ideas that are independent from mainstream games. Juul however wrote that ultimately

10395-904: The video game media may see a future title as a success and position it as an indie darling before its release, only to have the game fail to make a strong impression on players, such as in the case of No Man's Sky and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine . Discoverability has become an issue for indie developers as well. With the Steam distribution service allowing any developer to offer their game with minimal cost to them, there are thousands of games being added each year, and developers have come to rely heavily on Steam's discovery tools – methods to tailor catalog pages to customers based on past purchases – to help sell their titles. Mobile app stores have had similar problems with large volumes of offers but poor means for discovery by consumers in

10500-436: The well-established RPG genre). From a genealogical standpoint, the nature of doujin dates back as far as the 19th century, while the indie phenomena is relatively new. Finally, only until recently, doujin games tended to only be talked about in the same circles as other doujin culture (fan artwork and writing) and rarely mixed with commercial productions, whereas indie games have shared the same stage with AAA games. Many of

10605-528: Was highly restrictive due to costly access to software development kits (SDKs), typically a version of the console with added debugging features that would cost several thousands of dollars and come with numerous restrictions on its use to prevent trade secrets related to the console from being leaked. Console manufacturers may have also restricted sales of SDKs to only certain developers that met specific criteria, leaving potential indie developers unable to acquire them. When indie games became more popular by 2010,

10710-400: Was in 2009 referred to as "one of the primary sources of information about the indie scene on the web and host to one of indie's best forums, bringing creators and fans together to share novel new ideas and the greatest new games." In 2008, it was chosen as one of "100 top sites for the year ahead" by The Guardian . This article about a blog , vlog , or other Internet publication is

10815-465: Was received, fulfill orders by hand, making copies of their game to cassette tape, floppy disc, or CD-ROM along with documentation. Others would provide copies to their local computer store to sell. In the United Kingdom, where personal computer game development took off in the early 1980s, a market developed for game distributors that handled the copying and distribution of games for these hobbyist programmers. In Japan, doujinshi conventions like Comiket ,

10920-580: Was termed the "indiepocalypse". This perception of an indiepocalypse is not unanimous; Jeff Vogel stated in a talk at GDC 2016 that any downturn was just part of the standard business cycle . The size of the indie game market was estimated in March 2016 to be at least $ 1 billion per year for just those games offered through Steam . Mike Wilson, Graeme Struthers and Harry Miller, the co-founders of indie publisher Devolver Digital , stated in April 2016 that

11025-405: Was threatened since one person could buy the game and then make copies for their friends. The shareware model of distribution emerged in the 1980s accepting that users would likely make copies freely and share these around. The shareware version of the software would be limited, and require payment to the developer to unlock the remaining features. This approach became popular with hobbyist games in

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