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

By: Derek Yu

On: July 13th, 2007

I’ve seen this top 100 list posted in a number of places and everyone seems quite positive about it. Why is no one mentioning that half the links have affiliate referral codes in them? The more I think about it, the more I am horrified by it. What we have here is an indie gaming news site run by a Reflexive employee, hosted by a Pop Cap studio, running a list called “The Top 100 Indie Games” that is little more than a portal front page. What the goddamn hell?! Can someone explain this? Russ, c’mon now!

Jesus, Big Kahuna Reef at #25. A fucking match 3 with shitty graphics that even Mike Hommel declares to be “dull.” Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if I’m living in an alternate universe where bad, boring games are considered good. Seriously, someone who likes this game tell me what interests them about it. Tell me what is compelling about clicking clam shells to make them match up. The graphics are terrible. Anywhere else but in the independent gaming community, and this game would be laughed at. Quantum physics is easier to understand than why Big Kahuna Reef deserves to be the twenty-fifth top indie game of all time.

There are some good games in there, and I don’t want to devalue them. Unfortunately, they are already being devalued just by existing on that list with Big Kahuna Reef. And that goalkeeper simulator. That’s right, a text-based goalkeeper simulator made the list. And honestly, a text-based goalkeeper simulator could be fun, but I happen to know for a fact that this one is terrible.

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.

I don’t hate casual games. I hate the mentality that surrounds casual games. And I don’t want people to think that this is what independent games are about. I can’t believe people think this is alright. It’s like someone farted at the dinner table and no one wants to admit that it smells. Over at the Indiegamer forums I just know that the conversation is going like this: “Honey, this chicken is delicious!”

WELL YOU KNOW WHAT IT SMELLS TERRIBLE IN HERE AND IF THINGS KEEP UP THIS WAY NO ONE IS GOING TO WANT TO EVER HAVE DINNER WITH US.

Russ, I implore you… please take out the affiliate links and change the name from the “Top 100 Indie Games” to “100 Indie Games that Game Tunnel Recommends.” In the end, opinions are opinions. But at least that way it’s semi-honest.

EDIT: Guert from our forums started up a thread about a week and a half ago before GT’s Top 100 list about introducing people to indie games. In case you want some alternatives. And I really hope you do!

Posted in Casual, Community

Don

Derek: have my babies.
greg

_**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.
crackers

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

This view is not subjective.
http://www.planetfreeplay.com Mosh

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.
Zaphos

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’.
PHeMoX

*Iâ€™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.
Zaphos

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.
moi

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

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.
Twisted Rabbit

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

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.
http://www.planetfreeplay.com Mosh

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.
rinkuhero

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.
Rz.

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’.
PHeMoX

Rz. indeed …

*Mostly itâ€™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? ;)
PoV

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

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

ahuahua
Plastic Toad

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 :(
PHeMoX

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 sÃ³ 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…
LOL

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.
PHeMoX

*You donâ€™t need to ostracize other people to ensure the sanctity of your â€œinsideâ€ 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.
rinkuhero

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.).
rinkuhero

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.
Plastic Toad

“Youâ€™re right, but please explain why we arenâ€™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.

“Itâ€™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 donâ€™t think thoughtless â€˜I think this list is horrible too!â€™ comments are any worse than the thoughtless â€˜great list keep it up!â€™ 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.
Derek

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.
Plastic Toad

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

“Well that settles itâ€¦ [closes list, goes back to playing Halo]”
rinkuhero

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.
rinkuhero

(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).
http://www.funkylabs.com Anders Linder-Norén

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.
Derek

_”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. Thatâ€™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.
rinkuhero

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.
Pyabo

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…
Derek

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.
PHeMoX

*This is two-sided. Why canâ€™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 arenâ€™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 wÃ³uld 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. Thatâ€™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. :)
PHeMoX

*There is a lot of unashamed negativity in this discussion. And thatâ€™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.
Zaphos

“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?
Faunis

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.
http://www.wazooinc.com/blog wazoo

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.
PoV

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.
Hooker with a penis

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
http://blog.intuitiongames.com torncanvas

This article is a perfect model of why I visit this site. Thank you!
http://www.moonpod.com/ Fost

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

:)
Dan

Nick wins.
Jason Kapalka

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