Game Tunnel’s Top 100 Indie Games… Makes Me Sad

I like the way you knock these guys down to win some fans over, yet you’re the one working for the same bunch of devils.

‘Smooth Criminal’.

Werd.

“Derek Yu Joins GameTunnel”
I think not…

Who’s working for anyone? I’m not getting paid. And if I’m given the opportunity to go in there and express my opinion, I’ll take it, and I don’t think that has anything to do with how I should feel about the top hundred. At least this way I can make a difference to the site, instead of being forced to just whine about it all the time. And I admit, I am whiny about it. But if someone else said something, I wouldn’t feel like I have to.

And what makes you think this would win me any fans? All it seems to be doing is getting me hassled by you!

Don’t feel like there’s any kind of conspiracy here. I just write whatever I’m feeling at the time, and sometimes I go off on a rant. Deal with it.

Most indie games suck anyway.

Of course, I wouldn’t blame Russ at all if he didn’t want to have me on the panel next month because of what I say about the top hundred. But I’d still be happy to be there, and while I’m there (just one month, to clarify), it will be about the games and what I think of them and not about what I think of the site.

In both cases, I’m just expressing my opinions and trying to change the way people view the community.

>I’ve heard some people say that they wished Cave Story on there. I don’t. That would be like saying you wished your best friend was on a list of the “top one hundred greatest people” but at #25 was that guy who killed Jon Benet Ramsey.”

Hahaha! Brilliant. There’s something almost Dennis Miller about it.

its not a real “top 100 anything” if cave story aint there

A lot of the games on the list definitely don’t deserve to be there (Kahuna among them), but I don’t think it’s true that the bad eggs spoil the rest. If the top 100 movies of all time includes Titanic or something stupid like that, the rest of the list would still be worth looking into.

I agree, rinku. A good number of those games deserve to be on a list of good games and my intention was not to dissuade anyone from trying them.

What frustrates me is that it’s called the “Top 100 Indie Games,” which implies that this is the best independent gaming has to offer. And that would be… Big Kahuna Reef? I don’t understand how anyone would think to put that game there. It looks mediocre even for a casual game.

Glow Worm, which I reviewed for IGF two years ago, is a matching casual game that is a million times better than Big Kahuna. The presentation is amazing and the mechanics are actually something to write about. I scored it well, so don’t think I hate on every casual game that comes out.

So what gives?

Then you see all the affiliate links and honestly, whatever the real reasons are, it just makes everyone involved look really bad. That includes you and me, independent developers who are going to be lumped together with this whole affair by people who don’t know any better.

And I’m extra miffed because Guert started that thread last week that I feel comes from so much more of a pure place than this…

LOL! Great post, Derek. I was mystified by some of the entries on that list meself, but hadn’t noticed the affiliate link things.

Wow, I just looked up Glow Worm and you’re right, it looks really nice. *downloads*

FUKEEN SIGNED!!!
SHILLS!!!!!!

That site has always used affiliate links, so it’s nothing new. I’m not too chagrined about them, virtually all sites that review shareware games use them. I prefer when there’s full disclosure though, something like an “(affiliate link)” tag after each.

And — stars are turned into italics? Boo.

What are the affiliate links? The links to the websites? That seems kind of standard.

Back when I had a blog, and Gibbage was in their round up, I published a comment about how I found it ‘a bit off’ that they slagged off my game, and then asked to be an affiliate twenty minutes later.

Somewhat hypocritical, perhaps.

Russ had a proper go at me in the comments section, telling me he considered it a personal attack on his character or some such.

GameTunnel is terrible in so many horrible horrible ways, and people need to stop assuming it’s the be all and end all of Indiedom because it’s not, it’s shit.

Wait, I don’t get what you’re saying Dan. Could you break it down for me? ;)

Amen to this post, Derek! Right with ya! =)

Derek, I like the cut of your jib.

This is the comment Russ left on the old Gibbage.co.uk blog about affiliates…

> For the record I try to affiliate every game in the round-up. That affiliation goes beyond the round-up to reviews and any other feature we may do. Game Tunnel takes a tremendous amount of work. My guess is that Gibbage saw some sales due to the round-up. I don’t have a problem with not getting affiliation on every game (usually affiliated games are in the minority on the round-up, check the history, though they are certainly a big piece of what makes GT go…since we aren’t funded primarly by ads like other major game sites) or taking some shots at GT (after all we take shots at the game, it’s fair turn-around), but the statements about the affilation piece (as they were never addressed thusly with me) I believe would have been better addressed with me personally as they appear to be a personal stab.

For the sake of petty argments, Gibbage saw no discernable boost in sales because of GameTunnel, either the round up or the full review… I’ve had precisely zero hits from them in months.

Well hmm, Derek was obviously kinda angry when he wrote this, and I see his point. But there are a lot of good games on the list that actually deserve some visibility. The guys at Moonpod are some of the coolest indies around and I have no problem seeing Mr. Robot at the top of the 100 games in that list. I have to admit I was surprised to see a game I developed at #17 :| Regardless of the merits of what games are and aren’t included in the list, it will give some visibility to a lot of deserving Indies (and some not so deserving)

Why feature the shitastic games at all then?

Why not create a list that has some kind of consistent logic to it?

Theres something wrong with an “indie” top-100 list that doesn’t have Cave Story in at least the top 10.

Ironically, someone just yesterday tried to tell me that relexive is a haven for original puzzle games. I laughed, but the joke stopped being funny after the 100th match 3 game.

No cave story OR
Lyle in cube sector OR
Within a deep forest OR
knytt OR
A game with a kitty OR
it’s sequel?
What IS this?!

Aren’t they just going by their panel review scores? I don’t think Cave Story was reviewed in a panel, so it naturally wouldn’t be on the list. And the rest of the list would be about as valid as the panel’s scores in general.

This is just not the way top N lists are done, properly, since they’re better if constructed with a consistent viewpoint and an eye to what was temporarily exciting and what was long-lasting quality.

But aside from them having their heads far enough up their asses to label it the “Top 100 Indie games from the last 3 years!” instead of the less dramatic but honest “top scoring games that we gave panel reviews in the past 3 years” … well, it’s not a surprising list. The problems with it are the same problems with gametunnel panel reviews in general.

http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=333&tab=3
That, was there (pathetic) review.

Zaphos is correct, it is purely based on the subjective reviews of the panel members and only contains games reviewed by the panel.

ayye, this PC Zone top-101 list made sense to me
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=164289

I think that’s because it was debated between a group of people that play games and not necessarily review them for a living.

I agree with Zaphos completely, but that aside: who’s visiting game tunnel regularly anway? I mean, how much impact does their opinion really have on the community? Maybe I have the wrong picture of GTs potency, but is it worth spending energy on an output that is know to be hard to take seriously and rigid in it’s ways?

King-N, just to be clear, that’s not a “panel” review.

Regarding the affiliate links. Does anyone remember when GameTunnel first started several years ago they wanted you to PAY them to review your games?

Yeah, that always seemed a bit …I don’t know, corrupt?

Heh! A little snark is good for the soul.

I agree with Russ on the affiliation deal, for what it’s worth.

But seriously, look at it for what it really is… It’s a chance to re-use some old work and content (3 years of monthly round-ups) with a SEO-ized title to improve traffic.

So it’s all based on previous review scores, from what I can tell. There’s no wrongdoing with him ‘sneaking’ a Reflexive game up in the top quarter. If you’ve got a beef with this, then it’s with the earlier reviews… not this summary.

In my conversation with Russ last week, he mentioned some frustration about getting and keeping an audience for the “real” indie games on GT. He said the indie game features, in spite of his best efforts, are losing traffic (and downloads), while the casual games section (which he does almost nothing to promote) keeps growing in terms of traffic, downloads, and conversions.

He expressed a strong desire to fix this, to get more attention on the indie games (even he is beginning to distinguish the two as separate categories). This sounds like one of his efforts.

So yeah, some criticism is fair (and warranted), but I do believe he’s trying to improve the visibility of “indie” games in general (and, from a less altruistic angle, the visibility of GT specifically… not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

Cool, this and Sony bitching out Microsoft has made my day great. GO Derek Yu and Peter Dille!!

Cool, this and Sony slapping Microsoft in the face has made my day great. GO Derek Yu and Peter Dille!!

I agree with Derek, this is a terrible list. I mean “Mexican Motor Mafia” at number 5! why? I could have made a better game blind folded. But there are some decent games on there like Geneforge 3….but there seems to be a lack of the games that, to me, are no-brainers: Chalk, Echoes and Democracy to name a few. But hey, I’d take TIGS any day over Game Tunnel so I guess it’s just a matter of good taste lol.

Where the feck is Toribash??
And Crimsonland?? Evil Invasion can kiss my ***, Crimsonland all the way!

also, their layout sucks.

By the way, on affiliate links and portals–the developer sees the same percentage whether or not the sale is direct/affiliate. The affiliate commission comes out of the portal’s share (in this case, Reflexive).

… yeah… probably would have been less angering if it was called a “Top 100 Best of the Round Up”.

Some of you try to excuse the absence of Cave story by saying that they only put the games that they tested with a panel.
But, they only test commercial games anyway!(because it gives them a chance to affiliate) that’s the reason why there are no freeware games on their panels and thus on their list.
So yeah they have no excuse.

Wik: Fable of Souls at #11 ? Like Hell no, it should be high up in the top 5 somewhere! Didn’t Russel give it an
“Overall: 10″?

The whole affiliate thing makes it even more questionable, just look at games like Chromadrome, it’s by far not a near perfect game at all, even for a 2004 game…

As said before: it’s based on the panel scores in the roundups. No other games featured in there.

The more I look at this top 100, the less it all makes sense.

Fizzball, Oasis, Wik:FoS, Blast Miner, Chocolate Castle, Armadillo Run, Winds of Odyssey, Bullet Candy, Trash (at #100 can you believe it? It’s an awesome multiplayer RTS.) … aw man these are all way under-rated, heck even Darwinia deserves a higher place than #60 :S!

(yes, I think Darwinia was a bit hyped, but it’s still a really great game nonetheless.)

yep when the “rating” for a fucking game is either “pass”, “try” or fucking “BUY”, you know a site is ALL ABOUT THE SPONDULIX and not about the gameplay or whatever. Fucking moneygrabbing whores. Fuck you. Yes I’m drunk again.

Looks like this crap (http://www.qbicles.com) is better than Sam & Max: Episode 6… lolz

> yep when the “rating” for a fucking game is either “pass”, “try” or fucking “BUY”

Hahaha. Everybody else says the site sucked when it was handing out numerical score. :)

Wait… I missed the pun. Scratch that comment. :)

Derek: have my babies.

_**haowan**_ , fucking awesome. you said it. there are some crappy games out there. just to be fair, I’ll probably go through fudgetunnel’s list and _try_ as many as I can. but you gotta call em like you see em. people throw money at someone who _can_ make a game, but the rest of em need to use _tactics_ to attempt to get your cash.

I rate Game Tunnel’s site as a ‘pass’.

This view is not subjective.

Really the problem stems from the fact that they cover very little freeware stuff in the first place, which means a big portion of classic stuff is automatically missed out on because they’ve never reviewed it to begin with. I’ve never liked this.

There were some pretty crappy choices in there. I might try out some of the stuff I haven’t heard of though.

moi … “But, they only test commercial games anyway” … ?

I’m pretty sure they review the occasional freeware game. The Blob made it on to the list, after all.

Even so, you have a point — their under-representation of freeware games is pretty clear and totally undermines their claim to a ‘top 100′.

*I’m pretty sure they review the occasional freeware game. The Blob made it on to the list, after all.*

De Blob will be a commercial game actually, it’s already confirmed for Wii and that has always been the initial plan.

They should clearly never have named it ‘top 100′, because that implies that the #1 game is really the best indie game out, which when looking at others in the list is clearly NOT true. From both a subjective AND objective point of view that is.

Yes, The Blob is being reworked as a commercial release for Wii (named De Blob), but at the time it would have been on a panel review it was a free student project. Also on the list is Facade (though they will sell you CDs ‘at cost’). But aside from those two, I don’t (offhand) see anything free. Which is absurd, really.

Zaphos: Yes they occasionally review freewares, but not with the panel

moi, I was citing specific examples from the top 100 list of freeware reviews that came from the panel. Are you saying that The Blob and Facade aren’t on the list, aren’t on panel reviews, or aren’t freeware? Anyway, small details aside, I agree with you … it’s rare enough that they basically don’t review freeware on the panel.

HELLA comments. (look at me and my badass norCal hellaness)

Various freeware titles have been on the roundup panel over the years but very few. Mostly it’s because freeware games are just shit. Maybe someone could suggest to Russel to review NetHack and Cave Story in the panel next month, though I suspect Cave Story would get a very low score because of the hoops you have to go through to get it to run at all. I’ve never managed to get it to work.

Hmm…I got Cave Story working first time. I suspect most people did.

Freeware games are shit? Come on now. Let’s not generalise now shall we? That is just plain stupid.

Cas, take a look at the TIGSource list of most-favorite games: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=318.0

Seriously, try those out, and I’d bet you 10:1 (or is that 1:10?) you won’t still think they’re sh*t.

how the fuck can you not get cave story to run? i’d assume for the same reason you find freeware games to be ‘shit’.

Rz. indeed …

*Mostly it’s because freeware games are just shit. *

There are quite a few freeware games that are more fun than commercial games, especially in the physics games genre. So either you don’t know many freeware games or you have a bad taste, eey? ;)

Aww, boo Cas. You didn’t have to open that can, did ya? :)

Cas you need to uninstall Java, it’s causing to much instability in your computer ZING.

ahuahua

The negativity in the comments is disgusting. It DOES smell terrible, but you might want to demonstrate some manners and slather on some fucking metaphorical deodorant before you blame the cooking.

The game suggestion thread in the forum is stymied by hand wringing over genre classifications. There is a real push for discussion to stay open-minded. The message is that games should be considered as games, not implementations of genres. Oh, UNLESS the game in question fits the “match-3″ genre. Then burn it straight to hell! And crassly insult the artwork and people that made it! Fuck it! If I, a 20-something male, can’t enjoy it, then it isn’t indie! Period! But please don’t call these other games “platformers”. No, it’s not fair; they have subtle improvements past the genre definition and it would unjust to narrowly define their artistic greatness in those confines.

Real people enjoy ALL of the games listed on the GT list. And it’s not because they don’t know any better or because they’re stupid. I dare anyone who mocks the casual user to play the games they do. Download Azada from BFG or Dream Day Honeymoon from Yahoo. You’ll be frustrated and stumped within the first 15 minutes. The spectrum of quality doesn’t go from Casual < ---> Totally Awesome. Games can be different. Not the same thing, scored differently on a 1-dimensional spectrum, but DIFFERENT.

Finally, the let’s-hate-game-tunnel bandwagon is pathetic. If you guys want to improve indie news reporting, do something about. Derek does that here, and he does a good job (for the most part). I think Russell also does a good job (for the most part). And for the parts you dislike, fucking do something about it. The barrier to entry is, what, $2/month for hosting and $10 for a domain? Are you so lazy and spiteful that you’ll insult years of effort because you IMAGINE you can do better? Prove it!

Russ has done more evangelizing for indie gaming than anyone here. Consider his G4TV appearances if you don’t believe me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SIj5sbPJk). He’s a really nice guy and doesn’t deserve meritless critique solely because others will applaud you for it. Sure, speak your mind on how he could improve things, but for chrissakes don’t just bash him to stay hip with the “in” crowd. It’s really sad :(

Derek had an insightful comment during IGS: It was something about how everyone in high school tries to be the same, but then in college everyone tries to become different. The problem is, they’re trying to differentiate themselves from the same things, so they all end up becoming the same kind of “different”. I think the same is happening here. Indie is not a rebellion against the mainstream. And, even if it were, Game Tunnel is not the mainstream you *should* be rebelling against. We’re not some treehouse that requires a secret knock to get in. You don’t need to ostracize other people to ensure the sanctity of your “inside” status. If you do, you’re a damn asshole and you should think about how you define yourself. Please–I really don’t want the indie community to become a bunch of assholes :(

Perhaps you’re simply missing some points here Plastic Toad. :)

It’s not about Gametunnel bashing at all. I for one am one of it’s more regular visitors and I don’t care about what people think of that. Still, that doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say. Eventually it’s all the same to me; I simply like it when people write about games and their own experiences with it, even if it turns out to be a totally different view then mine lateron.

Still, it’s simply *sad* the way they made that list. Extremely subjective, in fact só subjective that you can not name it ‘the top 100 indie games of all time’ without making people like us scratch our heads wondering if the people at GT were on drugs or something. ^^

Some games scored a 10/10 and were placed lower than #20, isn’t that silly? And then I haven’t even talked about the affiliate thing, which I think ruins their credibility…

Better to be someone with standards who appears to be an asshole, than someone who appears to be “friendly” for business reasons and is really an asshole underneath.

*You don’t need to ostracize other people to ensure the sanctity of your “inside” status.*

You’re right, but please explain why we aren’t allowed to have an opinion that is different from yours or theirs? People here just happen to share the same opinion.

*That* my friend should make you wonder why, instead of assuming that people here are just jumping the bashing bandwagon for no reason.

I think Kahuna is mediocre even for a match-3 game, though. I don’t think anyone here has thinks that match-3′s are inherently bad. But I agree that the insults against it were a bit much.

A lot of the people who disliked something about that top 100 list write reviews for other sites, too — I write (occasionally) for indygamer.blogspot.com, Dan does that Gibbage site, etc.

I don’t think thoughtless ‘I think this list is horrible too!’ comments are any worse than the thoughtless ‘great list keep it up!’ comments this list has also received (on indiegamer.com etc.).

Another thing — Tim W said this to me today, and I agree: that this politics stuff and which list is better and so on is all boring. It’s much more interesting to find new indie games and play them and write about them than to argue about this kind of thing.

There were some great new games released today, like Crypts of Despair. There are great new games release every day! I think those are much more worthy of attention than which best-indie-game list is more accurate.

“You’re right, but please explain why we aren’t allowed to have an opinion that is different from yours or theirs?”

This is two-sided. Why can’t GameTunnel have their opinion, too? If your opinion is protected than so is theirs. If someone can attack them I can attack that someone. If you are the gatekeeper on what is indie then so are they (and if they aren’t, neither are you).

It’s impossible to create an objective measure of the “top 100″, yet everyone is focusing on their failure to do so. Of COURSE such a list is subjective. How would it ever not be? The naming of the list is obvious; those sorts of “top X” lists spread very well through social networking sites. Such “arrogant” naming is the price to pay for effective exposure. Does describing things in objective ways–numbers, lists, and things–really piss people off that much?

“Better to be someone with standards who appears to be an asshole”

Sure, have standards. I think you should. But don’t have standards *just so* you can be an asshole (“shitty graphics”, etc). There’s a big difference there. If being an asshole is the price to pay for having standards, count me out.

“It’s not about Gametunnel bashing at all.”

There is a lot of unashamed negativity in this discussion. And that’s my whole point. I actually do agree with many of the points made here. What I disagree with, and strongly, is that they need to be made in such a negative and hostile way.

I’m not saying don’t critique at all–just don’t spew negativity for the sake of negativity. I think that’s a fair point to make!

“I don’t think thoughtless ‘I think this list is horrible too!’ comments are any worse than the thoughtless ‘great list keep it up!’ comments this list has also received (on indiegamer.com etc.).”

I do, and for one reason. The *work* that Russ put into this list should be applauded *regardless* of the outcome. The man spends his weekends working on it to spread the news on indie games. Efforts like that turn more people on to indie games and grow the audience. That’s awesome. Sure, it could be improved, but his efforts are producing new indie gamers, while negative comments on posts like this produce absolutely nothing.

No sane person will go, “Holy crap! What are all these games?? Mr. Robot looks awesome! Why haven’t I seen all these games before! Wait. Wait just a second–what’s this Big Kahuna Reef shit doing here? Well that settles it… “. That’s just not how the world works.

rinku, again, it’s not about accuracy, it’s about accountability (at least for me). It’s about being thoughtful of what you do and what the consequences are.

I love Tim, and Independent Gaming is a real treasure… but I want people to discuss and yell and argue on top of finding new games to play.

Er, that last line is supposed to read (guess it didn’t like angular brackets):

“Well that settles it… [closes list, goes back to playing Halo]“

I’m sorry to keep replying, I’m not following my own advice to play today’s crop of new games. I played 3 new games already today though, I’m taking a break… ^_^ — truthfully continuing discussions is alluring, and you make good points.

I applaud the work that went into it. I think the list is more good than bad.

I’m not sure I agree that negative comments produce absolutely nothing, though. Negative comments have an important role: they communicate that the way people act may not be the best way to act. In this particular case, the information is that the way this list was made may not be the best way to make a list.

(Wow, the replies are coming pretty fast here!)

Derek: I was using accuracy symbolically — there’s a lot more involved, yes. And I can’t say I don’t enjoy both kinds of posts (when you review games and when you talk about the “politics” of indie gaming).

I really don’t have a problem with what position X-game got in the list, my problem is that they sell the games. The top-100 list is fine, a great game to one person is a pile of stinking shit to another, and that’s just how it is.

But when there is money involved… Disagreeing on a games value is fine, but when you make more money by having more affiliates on the list… No thanks.

_”The work that Russ put into this list should be applauded regardless of the outcome. The man spends his weekends working on it to spread the news on indie games. Efforts like that turn more people on to indie games and grow the audience. That’s awesome.”_

I agree. It’s difficult to always qualify your opinion, especially when you have a specific argument, but I definitely applaud Russell’s hard work.

I also feel like he hurts himself and the community immeasurably by how he goes about presenting his work.

One-sided negativity is something I try to avoid, but you’re going to catch me going off every now and then, because I actually do feel very strongly about these things.

When I asked if someone could explain why Big Kahuna Reef was a good game, I was serious. Game Tunnel’s reviews on the game do not make the game sound the least bit compelling. In light of that, I question the link between Russ’s working for Reflexive and that game being so high on the list. This is coupled with the fact that there are so many affiliate links all over that page.

If any mainstream gaming site had done something like this, it would have been considered completely unscrupulous. I expect (at the very least) comparable standards for indie gaming. The fact that “most shareware sites” do it just means that something is very wrong with that sector of the community.

Yeah, on second thought I agree about the affiliate thing. Not because I’ve anything against review sites making money, but simply because it subtly influences which games are reviewed; games which aren’t available to be affiliated or games which aren’t shareware could be glossed over. I think affiliation has its place, for example Hanako affilate-selling Aveyond because she likes the game is fine by me, but in a site which purports to be supporting independent gaming “more than anyone here” it weakens it to have it also serve as a mini-portal.

Derek, I don’t get why it’s such a mystery to you that Big Kahuna Reef is well-liked… I don’t like it either, but we’re living in a world where Super Collapse and Bejeweled are online best sellers. That’s right, it’s not a parallel universe… you are living in it. You are practically implying that there is something fundamentally wrong with indie gaming as a whole because some games you don’t like are on the list.

Some people like snails, some people like oysters…

Pyabo, please see my argument as a whole as a whole and don’t take the fact that I don’t like Big Kahuna Reef to be the sole reason why I’m angered by the Top 100 (like a number of people seem to have).

I’m saying multiple things here:

1. I think Big Kahuna Reef is an uninspired, mediocre game in an oversaturated genre = my opinion

2. Big Kahuna Reef being made by Reflexive and placing at #25 on a list of “Top 100 Indie Games” on a site run by a Reflexive employee = extremely suspicious (understatement)

3. Affliate links all over the page with no explanation = downright unscrupulous

4. The fact that all this seems to be acceptable or even the norm = I think there’s something wrong with _part_ of the indie game community

Bejeweled has more reason to be on that list than Big Kahuna Reef, by the way. It’s success is significant and I wouldn’t say undeserved.

*This is two-sided. Why can’t GameTunnel have their opinion, too? If your opinion is protected than so is theirs. If someone can attack them I can attack that someone. If you are the gatekeeper on what is indie then so are they (and if they aren’t, neither are you).*

True, but then again you were actually the one telling me *I* couldn’t say Game Tunnel’s list is wrong or sad or whatever. I’m allowed to disagree and so is GameTunnel, I’ve never claimed otherwise as far as I can see.

Anyways, in my opinion when you come up with a ‘top 100 list’, as in ‘the best 100 games ever’ (because that’s what they imply by using such a title), then it should be damn well taken serious!!

That means that they should rate it as objective as possible, or at least don’t change their complete view about a game. (that wóuld be okey as long as they provide an updated review or some extra comments explaining why they’ve changed their minds. The affiliate thing makes this part very suspicious, eventhough I don’t really blame them for doing so.)

*The man spends his weekends working on it to spread the news on indie games. Efforts like that turn more people on to indie games and grow the audience. That’s awesome.*

I don’t complain about that either; quite the contrary, I definitely applaud him for the work he does (for free!), same goes for the others over at GT regardless of their opinions, because it’s not just Russel doing all the work.
I’ve seen that video you’ve posted and he seems like a great guy. But again it’s not about him personally at all.

When looking at the scores GameTunnel *themselves* gave some of these games, it really seems to be out of order.

That brings me to the simple question of “How come???”. Now don’t hate me for wondering that. :)

*There is a lot of unashamed negativity in this discussion. And that’s my whole point.*

I’ve just looked through the first 50 replies and it seems to me you’re really exaggerating. There are about 3 posts that have pretty obvious hostility directed at GameTunnel, the others all tend to either say ‘yeah, i agree with derek’s article’ others are a bit more specific and come with arguments.

“When looking at the scores GameTunnel themselves gave some of these games, it really seems to be out of order.”

Hmm? It’s hard to tell, because they don’t put the scores in the list, but from what I checked it looked like they were sorting purely by average panel score (with presumably Russ deciding how to order games that tied). Is that not the case? What games are out of order?

Plastic Toad: PHeMoX is right. The very first post was critical of Derek Yu, not Russ Carroll. Doesn’t seem to be much of a bandwagon to me. A lot of people are just applauding Derek. Others either wish certain games were on the list, or explain the logic behind the rankings. That seems like pretty fair discussion.

As for the list itself, it just seems pretty poor to me. I’m not concerned with how it’s titled, I just think the rankings are way off, regardless of their origins. That and the affiliate issue make it seem pretty invalid.

Is it just me or does it sometimes feel like the Indie Community does as much infighting as the Linux community does within each distro…ah well.

Depends which koolaid one drinks I guess. It’s alllll good. Much better than the piss beer that the AAA community serves up…*wink*

Russ puts an extreme amount of hard work and time into GT, and I’m thankfull for it. I appreciate both GT and TIGSource as awesome information.

The “top-100″ doesn’t really bother me that much, because it’s like every other “top-100″ list; some you agree with, some are shite.

The affiliate links do kind of make that “grey area” crossover though. Perhaps there would’ve been much less of a flame-up if Russ had released 2 versions of the list:
one version posted on Reflexive, with the reflexive affiliate links, and the other on GT as a “sanitized” version..sans affiliate.

I don’t know..maybe it’s one of those things that you’re damned if you, and damned if you don’t.

But take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I failed the “Indie Gamer Litmus Test” because I never heard of Cave Story until today. Yes…I’m a n00b.

Indeed, there is a lot of infighting, especially given that we sometimes like to call ourselves professionals. I do think it’s a good thing though. We fail as an emerging mainstream media if we merely accepted everything, and didn’t learn from each other.

What we have versus every previous medium looking to establish ones self is powerful. We talk. Casual games have accepted themselves as a for profit medium, and that’s great for them. We can learn from them, and we do. We can learn from comics. We can learn from movies. We can learn from podcasting. We can learn from indie music, and whatever calls itself the new rock. We can shape the dominant development philosophy. We have the opportunity to be gaming. There’s also nothing that says we need to stop our conceptual growth at corporatization. We can devise new business models, new approaches. We can coexist with big budget gaming.

We are a global medium.

We don’t have 50+ years of corporate BS keeping us down. No territorial licensing crap, just distribution deals that limit exposure. We’re free of political taint.

hmm.. I really see that what Derek is implying here, and what i totally agree with, is that it’s not that the list would be somehow terribly wrong becouse of it has different opinions – but the huge likeliness that the order there could be corrupted by the income some participants make.

If that’s the case – and even if some good games can get advertisement on the side, to me it’s still wrong that some games get hailed as “better” for reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself.
And what comes to Popcap-games – it’s very possible their popularity isn’t based on the quality of their games, but their visibility. Note also I didn’t say they suck or shouldn’t be liked. just that s lot of people who are too lazy to search grab for the first visible thing that’s “good enough”.

This creates those problems some of us like to complain about: it’s unjust for the indie-gaming that some mediums give exposure to more mediocre and casual-like games, while the true power of the innovations from creative freedom gets un-recodnized.

ok.. um.. I hope I made any sense with my ghastly horible english =D

This article is a perfect model of why I visit this site. Thank you!

Woohoo! Mr. Robot’s at Number 1!! Thus fitting my criteria of it being a totally kick-arse list! (Yes, I’m shallow!)

:)

Nick wins.

I can’t comment on the accuracy of any such list, but I >can< say with absolute certainty that the Game Tunnel list is NOT “hosted by PopCap” or any affiliate or employee thereof. If it was, you would certainly have seen Bejeweled 2, Chuzzle, Insaniquarium and Peggle ranked somewhere there.

I have no problem with PopCap games being left off a list like this, for the same reason that we don’t enter our titles in the indie games awards category at the GDC… we may be small compared to EA, but as a 100+ person company we still shouldn’t be competing with <5 person studios.

Jason Kapalka
Creative Director, PopCap Games