Wired Likes Independent Gaming

By: Derek Yu

On: January 24th, 2008

Wired’s Clive Thompson has written a nice article about the surge in independent game development in recent years, and how it’s made writing his “best of” column more difficult:

Two years ago, the number of people making genuinely polished indie games was pretty small, numbering in the dozens or scores. A single columnist could reasonably hope to sample the year’s offerings and make some picks.

To help explain the popularity of indie gaming these days, Clive points to the over-saturation and over-commercialization of mainstream gaming, as well as the influx of new tools for making games. True dat!

On top of that, I noticed that Clive has an article on his personal blog titled “”http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2007/09/do_you_work_fro.html">Stigma of the home office vanishing." Nice! I didn’t even realize there was a stigma (scratches butt through underwear).

(Thanks, Glen McKnight!)

Posted in Community

Benzido

Suuure it was through your underwear.
Splinter of Chaos

Benzido:
What are you insinuating?! After he’s nearly single handedly kept this site running by consistently posting SOMETHING about indy games even when nothing interesting is happening.

I’m dam sure it was through his underwear, if not hit pants! Or at least an arbitrarily placed piece of cloth.
http://mybrain.ej.am/ AdamB

Personal story alert: The only reason I stayed through all of high school is because I “didn’t have anything better to do”. As soon as I left, I sat on my backside then somehow fell off it and landed a job reviewing games. I just have to download ’em, play ’em and write about ’em.

Every SINGLE other person I went to high school with has been thoroughly pissed off that their horrible wage paying labour intensive job isn’t as cushy as mine. Plus, now with kids, I get to be the stay-at-home dad.

P.S. If the original reviewer had washed this week, I’m sure he’d still be wearing a towel. Either way, there is no finger/ring connectivity, and that’s what REALLY counts!
BenH

I recently landed myself a job while sitting around on my backside, too. Whats up with that?
Chris

Although this is not very constructive criticism (and I apologize for that – this is no criticism of the article directly) – who cares what Wired thinks of independent gaming? Wired is one of the least independent, most mainstream magazine out there. Is the goal of indie gaming to gain the respect of people lacking good taste? Who knows – Clive Thompson seems to have some decent taste as a gamer, but he represents a far less legitimate institution that celebrates mainstream garbage in every issue. Don’t we want respect from other indie developers with better taste?

If indie games want to remain independent, I think that working *outside of the mainstream* (rather than becoming swallowed by it, and a part of it) is the only thing we could hope for. Or do indie developers just want their 5 minutes of fame in the spotlight? Does this make sense to anyone else?
Lorne Whiting

Do we want respect at all?
Captain Bible

Lorne Whiting: No, we should be treated like slaves!
Derek

Personally, I don’t think indie developers should feel like they have to work inside or outside of anything. Whatever works for you, basically. That’s kind of the beauty of it. Being isolationist is not only impossible, but I feel like it’s kind of daft, since we all play mainstream games (granted, I don’t play as much as I used to).

Likewise, I’m interested in what everyone across the board has to say about the independent scene. It definitely doesn’t hurt to hear something positive from Wired. I like their mag, and Game|Life is a pretty indie-friendly blog.
http://www.the2bears.com the2bears

Hmmm… Stigmata of the Home Office would make a great game theme.

Bill
Splinter of Chaos

Chris:
I think (and maybe we should make this a forum discussion) indy means doing what you want, whether it’s what the statistics agree with or not. It’s such a double think to say that you should make what you want to play, and then change it based on what some publisher thinks.

So, I say talking about indy shit, especially in a mainstream magazine, is the embodiment of indy itself for being against the grain and what he wants to do.
Shih Tzu

Ow! My stigma!
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