i really hate indie culture so much

[i_am]

an indie creator will go big and suddenly develop one of the most loyal fanbases that resemble cults. i dont think indie is as innocent as people perceive it as, people love comparing it to the soulless big corps who have 1 trillion dollars and have 500000 wagies but i think this is making people blind to how awful indies tend to be. Like at the end of the day, most indies are just as greedy as companies except with less power.

So many times indies go full moneymaxing by feeding their fanbases mulch, making giant paywalls, begging for donations and often creating parasocial relationships with the indie fans. There's also this perpetual notion that the indie is a small dog in a big pond despite their success, and regardless of whether it's propagated by the indie themselves; people will believe it. LIKE MY DUDE BROKSIES FNAF AND MINECRAFT ARE MEGA CORP SLOP GAMES WHY ARE WE STILL ACTING LIKE THEYRE HIDDEN INDIE GEMS ON A $5 BUDGET.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?

 

[Pangolin]

an indie creator will go big and suddenly develop one of the most loyal fanbases that resemble cults. i dont think indie is as innocent as people perceive it as, people love comparing it to the soulless big corps who have 1 trillion dollars and have 500000 wagies but i think this is making people blind to how awful indies tend to be. Like at the end of the day, most indies are just as greedy as companies except with less power.

So many times indies go full moneymaxing by feeding their fanbases mulch, making giant paywalls, begging for donations and often creating parasocial relationships with the indie fans. There's also this perpetual notion that the indie is a small dog in a big pond despite their success, and regardless of whether it's propagated by the indie themselves; people will believe it. LIKE MY DUDE BROKSIES FNAF AND MINECRAFT ARE MEGA CORP SLOP GAMES WHY ARE WE STILL ACTING LIKE THEYRE HIDDEN INDIE GEMS ON A $5 BUDGET.

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?

A lot of indies remain true to their vision and their cheapo game absolutely ravage the corpo-soft game that 1,000s worked on.

One of the best examples of this is the Hollow Knight game. I think its simply amazing and fresh. It has a simple cohesive vision because its driven by people who care. Whereas Ubisoft has mostly automated their games and figured out how to get people to buy them on command like trained dogs. However, on the other end you have those indies like Mojang with minecraft that end up selling to the software-devil and everyone starts wondering why the game starts its death spiral. Simple answer: Mega-corps are made to maximize profit at any cost. This runs counter towards making a quality product. You might say: "But pang these make quality products." No. You pay for what you get, but I promise you that their products arrive with corners cut and min maxed. Min in cost to manufacture, and max price they can sell it to you. Thinner metals, cheaper components, less reliable components (to get you to buy a replacement sooner.) In the software realm they start looking for ways to squeeze out extra profit out of their new purchase which usually leads to a decline in quality or payment requirements when things used to be free.

The biggest innovation to come out of the corporate thought space was to just buy the successful small fry. Absorb them, ruin them and what made them great, and then wonder why they aren't as performant anymore. Sometimes, they do it just to make sure that only they can have access to patents and other various legal trickery. Great job guys, now nobody can innovate because the field is shat up with patent moats.

There are also those who make indie games and then immediately sell out, which to be fair is the expected outcome. I would much rather that people attempt to make a game and pour their heart and soul into it and make it great and awesome all in search of that big payout from the corpo-giant. Its a bit perverse, but people need to strive for something and while yeah making games is great and all. It apparently doesn't make much in terms of profit at the lower ranges. I would much rather see an indie group sell out and become absorbed into a mega-corp than to not have any games from them at all. Change is constant and I would rather have more games than a few from corporate vendors. I am also not going to pretend that their labor of love isn't also a labor-for-money. We aren't at the technological stage to enable everyone to work and not have to pay for things and resources.

I guess this kind of touches on multiple aspects of things. In particular mega-corps aren't that good at making games, but sure every so often they might score some sort of big win but by and large they don't make anything good.

 

[MySpace Tom]

A lot of cultists want to be a big fish in a small pond. Notice me, senpai!

Though I can't say I've seen this happen too often with indie games. Most of them just implode. Pic related

 

[GENOSAD]

i dont think indie is as innocent as people perceive it as, people love comparing it to the soulless big corps who have 1 trillion dollars and have 500000 wagies but i think this is making people blind to how awful indies tend to be. Like at the end of the day, most indies are just as greedy as companies except with less power.

I beg to differ, purely because it's easier to expose corruption in indie teams than it is in big game companies. Blizzard can have over 9,000 sexual harassment allegations come after them and just shrug it off because of how much power they have in terms of money and influence. Indie developers don't get off so easy because any accusation against them will directly affect the sales of their game, and they'll promptly be flushed out of the industry. If an indie dev is hit by any accusation at all, it's going to stick to their name forever. YandereDev comes to mind, although his "game" isn't (and won't be) finished.
So, yeah, indie devs tend to be pretty big cunts, but at the end of the day I think that the wheat and chaff can be separated easily enough. "Voting with your wallet" leaves a much bigger impact on individuals than on companies.

 

[imnotdeadyet]

LIKE MY DUDE BROKSIES FNAF AND MINECRAFT ARE MEGA CORP SLOP GAMES WHY ARE WE STILL ACTING LIKE THEYRE HIDDEN INDIE GEMS ON A $5 BUDGET.

We are? Don't think anyone above fetus level still cares about FNAF especially considering that last game was a buggy mess (security breach or smth) and anyone that plays Minecraft regularly hates Microsoft for the lackluster updates and wishes for bad guy Notch back. Don't think anyone sees these as small indie devs anymore.

I do get what you mean by cultish behavior, I think with indies its the fact that people are so starved for good games that as soon as an indie dev makes a half decent one everyone flocks to call them the best ever. Many indies nowadays also touch upon personal battles (see quirky earthbound styled RPG) which further strengthens the cult like bond with said dev. Despite that I can't say that I've seen many indie devs try to wring their fans out of money all that aggressively. Sure there's FNAF and "modern horror mascot" ""games"" but those are played mostly by kids and the indies are doing the equivalent of taking candy from a baby. Sure it's immoral but it's a sound strategy used by everyone because kids are dumb and it's on the parents to prevent. In the end is a money maxxing game indie or not and it's up to you to give your "5$" or not.

 

[InsufferableCynic]

The reality is that most indie games are trash. There are a few standout exceptions that everyone mentions, but most indie games are either worthless "interactive stories" with no gameplay, shitty "art" games that justify their shittiness by pretending to be deeper than they are (and claiming you just "don't understand it" when you can't see what's not there), or are average hipster-pixel platformers or boomer shooters that do nothing unique or interesting.

Honestly, I see the indie obsession with boomer shooters and metroidvania roguelikes to be exactly the same as corpo's obsession with open worlds and crafting systems. Nobody has any unique ideas.

The only difference between indies and corpos is that when corpos release shit it's all over the front page for being shit. People laugh at them. Shitty indie games just get forgotten instantly. As a result, we only see the good indie games float to the top and only see the worst of what corpos have to offer.

 

[Antoine]

There are what like, three games mentioned in this thread? It's very easy to write in generalities like this and not very useful. How well does any of this thinking apply to even one picked example?

For my answer here, I think that indie games (by which we mean the american indie scene) has come to resemble startup culture. Just another one of the ways American video games are cursed by their proximity to silicon valley and STEM-insectoidsubhuman culture. Starting an INDIE project is shopping around for patrons. Only instead of tricking retarded boomers into thinking you've invented the next twitter you convince retarded children that your pileup junkyard creation of stuff you played when you were 12, your sexual fetishes, and the last 5 successful INDIE hits is the hottest shit on the planet everyone else can't handle and that they should totally get in on and snowball this COMMUNITY.

All online-centric pop media (especially from america) feels like startups now. I get the sense that the score and payoff is this pre-emptive hype and community building moment, with the actual game or whatever being a kind of victory lap and/or religious prophecy. Starsector I think did this by accident, now everything feels like this. Stuff like Hazbin Hotel, the mario party 8 creepypasta cg cartoon thing, having a COMMUNITY form around a premise, or more accurately, a pitch feels normal now.

When people are complaining particularly about big and public facing INDIE culture I think they're mostly mad at this. The term INDIE is a problem because there are so many ways and reasons works get made, even outside of the CORPO hive (there is more than one corporate structure so this is also a problem. Most CORPO downsides don't apply in Japan so the problem is clearly not essentially CORPO and we are talking about something else).

OP in particular I think is talking about startup media. I hate that culture too for the most part, but at least a lot of people seem to be having fun even if the work is shit. It's basically an excuse to throw internet parties and then sexual misconduct allegations (the REAL party).

 

[llillilll]

an indie creator will go big and suddenly develop one of the most loyal fanbases that resemble cults. i dont think indie is as innocent as people perceive it as, people love comparing it to the soulless big corps who have 1 trillion dollars and have 500000 wagies but i think this is making people blind to how awful indies tend to be. Like at the end of the day, most indies are just as greedy as companies except with less power.

Literally the worst indie game controversies are nothing compared to the average sexual misconduct commited in a large game company.
Majority of indie games also are published as non-drm to some capacity.
The real issue is that most people just don't give a shit about a game if it has no cult following(you are most likely one of them), if you like a game that isn't famous just play it. They won't beat you up in a parking lot if the game you play doesn't have a active subreddit.

Nobody has any unique ideas.

You just don't play games with unique ideas, more likely.

 

[RisingThumb]

LIKE MY DUDE BROKSIES FNAF AND MINECRAFT ARE MEGA CORP SLOP GAMES WHY ARE WE STILL ACTING LIKE THEYRE HIDDEN INDIE GEMS ON A $5 BUDGET

Because in my heart... Minecraft is still an indie game.
Well... if you play Beta Minecraft it is. Modern Minecraft is corporate slop
Imagine playing modern minecraft and calling yourself an indie game connoisseur

 

[llillilll]

Because in my heart... Minecraft is still an indie game.
Well... if you play Beta Minecraft it is. Modern Minecraft is corporate slop
Imagine playing modern minecraft and calling yourself an indie game connoisseur

What is the indie game connoisseur game then?

 

[RisingThumb]

What is the indie game connoisseur game then?

Someone who plays niche russian games by literal whos. My favourite indie game is Tetris, you guys should check it out

 

[llillilll]

Someone who plays niche russian games by literal whos. My favourite indie game is Tetris, you guys should check it out

I only play hentai games made by anonymous internet users(CoC is fun as a non-porn game i am not joking), tetris is too casual for me.

 

[赤い男]

Tbh the only thing that bothers me is how hypocritical people can be, we bitch about every single thing in modern gaming because we ask "more quality in the media we consume" yet we look at the other side when an indie game does the most mediocre cashgrab attempt ever, just because it was made by "a single individual" and not a billion dollars company, and that is the sole justification to consume the same mediocre content of what they complaint about with AAA companies, it never made sense to me.

I have never been a big fan of mod communities, because most of them are toxic festivals full of piranhas going unto eachother throats, i was a dev for HOI 4 mods and trust me, the community is cancer, it made me not want to produce mods for the game anymore, and if not is that is just Ivan from belarus releasing the most cringe inducing jank mod for an obscure game from the early 2000s that is unstable as fuck.

 

[Fairykang]

Indie game scene doesn't really seem important enough to get worked up about.

Majority of indie games also are published as non-drm to some capacity.

This and native linux releases are a plus for me.

There are also those who make indie games and then immediately sell out, which to be fair is the expected outcome.

Can't blame a dev for going for financial independence.

 

[Pangolin]

I've been playing a lot of indie games. You can really tell that they put a lot of love into the games and they are usually reasonably priced at like $10.

 

[llillilll]

Tbh the only thing that bothers me is how hypocritical people can be, we bitch about every single thing in modern gaming because we ask "more quality in the media we consume" yet we look at the other side when an indie game does the most mediocre cashgrab attempt ever, just because it was made by "a single individual" and not a billion dollars company, and that is the sole justification to consume the same mediocre content of what they complaint about with AAA companies, it never made sense to me.

I have never been a big fan of mod communities, because most of them are toxic festivals full of piranhas going unto eachother throats, i was a dev for HOI 4 mods and trust me, the community is cancer, it made me not want to produce mods for the game anymore, and if not is that is just Ivan from belarus releasing the most cringe inducing jank mod for an obscure game from the early 2000s that is unstable as fuck.

Literally the worst cashgrab indie game ever is better than Todd reselling a Morrowing reskin nearly every fucking year.
Literally where is the indie game that does the most mediocre cashgrab attempt ever? That happens once in 100 games(there are FAR MORE indie games than people realise) at best while nearly every other AAA game is a shitty cashgrab.
I am not saying "weee, AAA is trash west is doomed" i am saying indie fucking rocks and produces good games as long as you don't have "must have a active twitter fanbase that will chimp out at random moments" as a requirement for a good game.

 

[赤い男]

Literally the worst cashgrab indie game ever is better than Todd reselling a Morrowing reskin nearly every fucking year.
Literally where is the indie game that does the most mediocre cashgrab attempt ever? That happens once in 100 games(there are FAR MORE indie games than people realise) at best while nearly every other AAA game is a shitty cashgrab.
I am not saying "weee, AAA is trash west is doomed" i am saying indie fucking rocks and produces good games as long as you don't have "must have a active twitter fanbase that will chimp out at random moments" as a requirement for a good game.

That has nothing to do to what i was talking about lmao, i'm talking about the hypocrisy in gaming community and the lack of a formal way to categorize indie games quality that is not based on circlejerking. (neither did you adressed the topic of the actual dev and modding community)

from every rimworld.

you have 10 Unity Porn Games or Amateur cashgrabs that makes the nintendo wii shovelware jelous.

man if i told you the amount of times i've been actually ripped off by indie development games you probably would understand why i'm not as eager to blindly support a project like you do, but trust me, no one is an angel, and if we are gonna judge games, we shall do them all under the same standards, is what i say, i don't even know what the fuck twitter and a fandom has to do with anything, i'm just talking about games per se, you should really leave the skooma n'wah.

 

[赤い男]

Marauder sucks ass and no one will change that ever.

If you feel suspicious about a product, pirate it, doesn't matter if it is AAA or indie, if the game sucks make those land lovers starve, yahaaar!

 

[InsufferableCynic]

Literally the worst cashgrab indie game ever is better than Todd reselling a Morrowing reskin nearly every fucking year.
Literally where is the indie game that does the most mediocre cashgrab attempt ever? That happens once in 100 games(there are FAR MORE indie games than people realise) at best while nearly every other AAA game is a shitty cashgrab.
I am not saying "weee, AAA is trash west is doomed" i am saying indie fucking rocks and produces good games as long as you don't have "must have a active twitter fanbase that will chimp out at random moments" as a requirement for a good game.

Fall guys, among us, ooblets, literally every dev who sold out to be an epic store exclusive. I can think of many examples.

Also, comparing the toxic sludge Bethesda puts out every few years to Morrowind is insulting.

 

[containercore]

Guys selling out is when you compromise your creative vision in exchange for money. Literally selling your soul. Signing to a publisher and making it an exclusive is not selling out if the vision stays in tact. Lots of general braindead ressentiment in this thread.