i really hate indie culture so much

[nsequeira119]

It still means you have to know how to write, don't you think? You are only winning this one because writing is a skill that is considered absolutely necessary for everyone nowdays.
Even then, it is rather arguable. OK, you can write a spy thriller set in a Soviet block-type country which kick's Paper's, Please's lame ass. Can everyone thought? Doubtful. You do not only have to know how to write, you gotta know what to write. There are techniques in writing too, you know, and some people do actually learn them, just like they could've learn some basic programming and try to make their own game.
Otherwise all you can write is probably trash.


It's near. Once again, it is year 2024 for all that's holy. It is probably harder to learn to use guitar - and definitely harder to learn any instrument that has keys - rather than to learn some basic programming skills. A lot of people on this forum have websites - well, guess what, every single one of them can make a video game. In fact, I know some of them did.


Entirely subjective take. Thank you very much for your opinion.


Hardware, you, insufferable... And movies you've praised are restricted by visual capabilities of hardware. You can especially notice it somewhere in the 70's, where movies started to move from tapes to digital mediums - and that resulted in a huge drop of video quality. There's also a reason a lot of old movies are restored and otherwise "upgraded" for modern re-releases.
Why the fuck should I care about visual restrictions either way? I'm what they call a retro-gamer, I play old games, I do not even want "less pixelated" games, I'm fine with pixels. This goes hand in hand with the same ability to visualise things that you use when you read books.


Did we make a full circle or what? See


Once again: why do you feel the need to invade the scene you know nothing about?

I'm not responsible for the worldwide illiteracy epidemic.

 

[Venomnik0]

Off topic but i know that indie bands can variate from interesting to a drop dead rich kid clone of some major band. You dont need to look to hard to find the snobby nature of some indie bands or the fact that the industry dries up all the time because so many people wanna capture "the 90s". Through my own hearings through friends and such that the Florida/Miami scene is as dry as a desert.

Indie as a genre is often mislabeled and given to tiktok famous artists and whatnot. I do sound pretentious when I say it but I do feel it when i look into some indie bands.

 

[nsequeira119]

Off topic but i know that indie bands can variate from interesting to a drop dead rich kid clone of some major band. You dont need to look to hard to find the snobby nature of some indie bands or the fact that the industry dries up all the time because so many people wanna capture "the 90s". Through my own hearings through friends and such that the Florida/Miami scene is as dry as a desert.

Indie as a genre is often mislabeled and given to tiktok famous artists and whatnot. I do sound pretentious when I say it but I do feel it when i look into some indie bands.

You're completely justified in indie elitism. Of all the genres out there, indie is the one that needs to be gatekept the most if it ever wants to be saved.

 

[InsufferableCynic]

Not really. Unlike with writing a novel, where all you need is paper and a pen, or a movie, where all you need is a camera and a memory card, to make a video game you have to filter your artistic output through something like Unreal Engine. That needless layer of technological involvement, where every idea is needlessly filtered through an algorithm, results in a less authentic expression of human thought, and a fundamental distortion of reality.

Two words: Dwarf Fortress

your argument shows a distinct lack of understanding of how making games works.

I can see why you might have this opinion, there are a lot of """"indie"""" games now that are actually made by large corporations (everything by NightDive, Devolver Digital etc), and engines like Unity and Unreal have basically taken over the industry completely.

But there are still countless games that are truly indie. Most of them are also awful. From Minecraft to the random Browser games we all played as kids (remember Kingdom of Loathing, Runescape etc?), there have always been games made on pennies which fit the mould of what developers want without industry or corporate interference.

But even the "larger scale" indie projects are usually 5-10 people making a game in Unity, or some equivalent. For the most part their vision will remain intact, which is why there are so many good Indie games even if most of them aren't truly """"indie"""" because they are on Unity (seriously, what a stupid definition). Making a game in Unity requires no investment because the entire business model of Unity only charges you if you're successful, so the majority of indie developers will pay nothing. You can also subvert the vast majority of Unity's systems if you want to, and even if you don't, "the algorithm" doesn't apply when you're using engine features like colliders, raycasting, navmeshes, etc, unless you somehow think the existence of these features somehow "undermines" the vision of developers.

The reality is, without tools like Unity the average Indie developer would be absolutely fucked, writing an engine from scratch is a big undertaking and not everyone has the time/resources/know-how to do it.

Hopefully I have explained in-depth why your position on this is completely invalid and is based on a complete misunderstanding of how game development actually works. You're essentially arguing the equivalent of "this indie musician owns a $2000 guitar and a $1000 amp which they bought from a large company, therefore they aren't truly indie", which is absurd.

This man wins the award for the most annoying voice of all time.

Anyway, this whole thread reeks of elitism. Instead of pointing out some genuine flaw with how the word indie has been misused, with examples, most posts here seem to be more interested in basically categorising everything as "not indie" except for some specific subset of things (usually what they personally like) as being "TRUE indie" based on arbitrary criteria, like "oh they aren't tied to THIS company in this one specific way".

I feel there's good discussion to be had about the corporatisation of indie culture (whatever the FUCK that is, we need to have that discussion first), especially with how sanitised a lot of it has become. But this thread is just a shit flinging contest.

Enjoy the music, games, and shows you like, and stop worrying about if it's "TRULY indie" or not. If it's made by people who care, and they are allowed to express their vision, it will be good and will have soul, which will be noticeable in the work. This is completely irrelevant to whether or not they are technically tied to a big publisher/label or not. Tool got better once they started doing it professionally, as did a number of other bands, and indie games are often too small to really realise a vision, while many "CORPO INDIE PRODUCST" are excellent. Hotline Miami is fantastic, both in terms of art-style and vision, despite being "not true indie" because it's owned by Devolver Digital. Please for the love of fuck look at this more objectively and less emotionally, and get over yourselves.

 

[nsequeira119]

Two words: Dwarf Fortress

your argument shows a distinct lack of understanding of how making games works.

I can see why you might have this opinion, there are a lot of """"indie"""" games now that are actually made by large corporations (everything by NightDive, Devolver Digital etc), and engines like Unity and Unreal have basically taken over the industry completely.

But there are still countless games that are truly indie. Most of them are also awful. From Minecraft to the random Browser games we all played as kids (remember Kingdom of Loathing, Runescape etc?), there have always been games made on pennies which fit the mould of what developers want without industry or corporate interference.

But even the "larger scale" indie projects are usually 5-10 people making a game in Unity, or some equivalent. For the most part their vision will remain intact, which is why there are so many good Indie games even if most of them aren't truly """"indie"""" because they are on Unity (seriously, what a stupid definition). Making a game in Unity requires no investment because the entire business model of Unity only charges you if you're successful, so the majority of indie developers will pay nothing. You can also subvert the vast majority of Unity's systems if you want to, and even if you don't, "the algorithm" doesn't apply when you're using engine features like colliders, raycasting, navmeshes, etc, unless you somehow think the existence of these features somehow "undermines" the vision of developers.

The reality is, without tools like Unity the average Indie developer would be absolutely fucked, writing an engine from scratch is a big undertaking and not everyone has the time/resources/know-how to do it.

Hopefully I have explained in-depth why your position on this is completely invalid and is based on a complete misunderstanding of how game development actually works. You're essentially arguing the equivalent of "this indie musician owns a $2000 guitar and a $1000 amp which they bought from a large company, therefore they aren't truly indie", which is absurd.



This man wins the award for the most annoying voice of all time.

Anyway, this whole thread reeks of elitism. Instead of pointing out some genuine flaw with how the word indie has been misused, with examples, most posts here seem to be more interested in basically categorising everything as "not indie" except for some specific subset of things (usually what they personally like) as being "TRUE indie" based on arbitrary criteria, like "oh they aren't tied to THIS company in this one specific way".

I feel there's good discussion to be had about the corporatisation of indie culture (whatever the FUCK that is, we need to have that discussion first), especially with how sanitised a lot of it has become. But this thread is just a shit flinging contest.

Enjoy the music, games, and shows you like, and stop worrying about if it's "TRULY indie" or not. If it's made by people who care, and they are allowed to express their vision, it will be good and will have soul, which will be noticeable in the work. This is completely irrelevant to whether or not they are technically tied to a big publisher/label or not. Tool got better once they started doing it professionally, as did a number of other bands, and indie games are often too small to really realise a vision, while many "CORPO INDIE PRODUCST" are excellent. Hotline Miami is fantastic, both in terms of art-style and vision, despite being "not true indie" because it's owned by Devolver Digital. Please for the love of fuck look at this more objectively and less emotionally, and get over yourselves.

What's the novelist equivalent of Unity? Paper?

 

[llillilll]

What's the novelist equivalent of Unity? Paper?

a fancy dictionary

 

[llillilll]

I don't know anything about indie vs. triple A video games- I argue that video games can never actually be indie because all video games require money and technical knowledge to make, and therefore require third-party investors,

Admitting you don't know something doesn't make your wrong opinion less wrong.
I have been playing the game below for quite some time, for referance.

GitHub - rapiz1/DungeonRush: A opensource game inspired by Snake, written in pure C with SDL

A opensource game inspired by Snake, written in pure C with SDL - rapiz1/DungeonRush

github.com

 

[nsequeira119]

Admitting you don't know something doesn't make your wrong opinion less wrong.
I have been playing the game below for quite some time, for referance.

GitHub - rapiz1/DungeonRush: A opensource game inspired by Snake, written in pure C with SDL

A opensource game inspired by Snake, written in pure C with SDL - rapiz1/DungeonRush

github.com

I don't know about the names and specs of any specific indie games, or triple-a games, because I don't get invested in any of them. I just view the entire gaming industry as a third-party neutral observer. Kind of like how you can criticize the NFL for promoting concussions without knowing the name of the Baltimore Ravens quarterback.

 

[llillilll]

I don't know about the names and specs of any specific indie games, or triple-a games, because I don't get invested in any of them. I just view the entire gaming industry as a third-party neutral observer. Kind of like how you can criticize the NFL for promoting concussions without knowing the name of the Baltimore Ravens quarterback.

Here is the thing, you aren't "observing as a third party" you are making shit up as you go, your "observation" might as well be fiction.

 

[nsequeira119]

Here is the thing, you aren't "observing as a third party" you are making shit up as you go, your "observation" might as well be fiction.

Wow, thank you! I'm a novelist so being able to make shit up on the fly is important. I'm glad you appreciate my storytelling prowess!

 

[CognacDefender]

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.

nemesis system

 

[llillilll]

Wow, thank you! I'm a novelist so being able to make shit up on the fly is important. I'm glad you appreciate my storytelling prowess!

The parts you made up are awful too.
As a example İskender Pala wrote about ship maintanance, illusions, 1820's Ottoman politics and soo much more in his books. He surely didn't know every subject he wrote about but he knew how to write the subject in a way that hid everything he didn't know but highlighted things he knew.
You on the other hand consistently bring up things you don't know. You don't know movie making just like you don't know video games but for some reason you keep bringing up movie making (a subject you don't know) while trying to prove your point in about video games(which is also a subject you don't know).
Movie making is far harder than making one simple game without resources.
You should have just stick to music and book as simple industries to get into and build your argument from there.
You don't have to know video games nor indie movie making but if you are gonna write in the forum, at least look a little closer to the subject you will talk about.

 

[CognacDefender]

It's easy to win an argument when your opponent is made of straw!

Uhm it's actually a logical fallacy to point out a logical fallacy.

 

[nsequeira119]

The parts you made up are awful too.
As a example İskender Pala wrote about ship maintanance, illusions, 1820's Ottoman politics and soo much more in his books. He surely didn't know every subject he wrote about but he knew how to write the subject in a way that hid everything he didn't know but highlighted things he knew.
You on the other hand consistently bring up things you don't know. You don't know movie making just like you don't know video games but for some reason you keep bringing up movie making (a subject you don't know) while trying to prove your point in about video games(which is also a subject you don't know).
Movie making is far harder than making one simple game without resources.
You should have just stick to music and book as simple industries to get into and build your argument from there.
You don't have to know video games nor indie movie making but if you are gonna write in the forum, at least look a little closer to the subject you will talk about.

I prefer to be the modern-day Baron Munchausen

 

[Ross_Я]

and engines like Unity and Unreal have basically taken over the industry completely.

I do not think that choosing a corporate engine makes the game itself anyhow less indie... Well... uh, OK, it kind of put it into the corporate fold, but at the same time, not much. I mean, at this point it is, perhaps, possible to say that there are no indie games because a lot of them require Windows.

The reality is, without tools like Unity the average Indie developer would be absolutely fucked, writing an engine from scratch is a big undertaking and not everyone has the time/resources/know-how to do it.

Well... not absolutely. The very first indie developers went for text games, omitting engines entirely. I mean, it's a huge setback, but it is not impossible to go that way again. And then there are romhacks... But other than that - yes, the abscence of engines free for everyone to use has been the primary reason indie scene used to be so small and required so much tech know-how to get into. It had to use a lot of dedication to build a video game.

Enjoy the music, games, and shows you like, and stop worrying about if it's "TRULY indie" or not. If it's made by people who care, and they are allowed to express their vision, it will be good and will have soul, which will be noticeable in the work. This is completely irrelevant to whether or not they are technically tied to a big publisher/label or not.

That's the word.

I really only came into this thread because nsequeira119 posted. I knew it will be yet another bad take, and I've felt like I need to pick a bone with someone to make myself feel better. And I think it worked.

 

[Venomnik0]

This man wins the award for the most annoying voice of all time.

95% of that video was literally him spiraling into a mental breakdown about how indie culture no longer revolves around punk and how it should've been. If anything this guy reaks of elitism and should really be the example of what NOT to be. Especially as a music fan.

Honestly, it's funny how he's only ever brought up one genre in particular and nothing else. Why not indie rap or electronic music (IDM, etc) even metal. Nope its only punk and a bunch of rock music. It really proves your point that "its indie when my favorite bands play it" kind of mentality.

The corporatization and gentrification of the "indie genre" is a problem that should be addressed not which sounds more "indie".

 

[InsufferableCynic]

Speaking of Indie games being absolute shit, why is everyone so excited over Palworld? The game looks like absolute garbage, and I can say with confidence that within 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten about this abomination. You can send me a link to this and laugh if you want afterwards, but I guarantee I'll be right.

 

[Venomnik0]

it kind of put it into the corporate fold, but at the same time, not much.

I disagree really. Unity is a product so you're really consumer utilizing the intended method of unity. Its much similar to using a train really to get from point A to B. You can build your own train but that requires alot more man power and resources, many people which, do not have.

why is everyone so excited over Palworld?

To be honest, first thing i heard about the game was people saying not to play it.

 

[TheVisionist]

I think peoples obsession with everything indie>anything not is a bit much, but I do think on average most indie projects do tend to be better at listening to players or at least the outspoken majority. I believe that often people think they are not being heard(which could be fixed with communication but that requires admitting things) about certain issues however often a dev will know these issues are not possible to be fixed or too costly due to the scope of work so they have to be ignored.

I do also think that the cult like following that occurs is probably most of the problem here. People will absolutely adopt the mob mentality and attack others as if the game in question was their own creation and pride and joy, this is more of a cultural problem at the end of the day because we are seeing this unhealthy attachment and latching on to celebrities, brands, companys and of course shows, movies and games; its not a problem exclusive to gaming.

Speaking of Indie games being absolute shit, why is everyone so excited over Palworld? The game looks like absolute garbage, and I can say with confidence that within 2 weeks everyone will have forgotten about this abomination. You can send me a link to this and laugh if you want afterwards, but I guarantee I'll be right.

I believe this is probably just because it feels like a pokemon game missing a lot of the restrictions and formula that people have gotten tired of from Nintendo plus the stagnation of the pokemon franchise as a whole. IMO.

 

[ビンス]