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[Column] General: Is Star Citizen Indie?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
What defines an indie game? This is a question that has many answers depending on who you ask. To some it’s indie if it has a tiny budget and non-traditional funding source. To others a game can be considered indie if the studio that made it was put together specifically to make that game. While others will disqualify a game from being indie simply because it has a major industry veteran at the helm. What indie means is different for every person. This brings me to a question I’ve had on my mind for some time. Can we really still call Star Citizen indie?
Read more of Shannon Doyle's Independency: Is Star Citizen Indie?
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I have one simple criteria for indie that may not be correct since its just a nickname for "independent" and anyone who hasn't been swallowed up by one of the giant game conglomerates technically qualifies...
It's simply this: do they have office space? If the answer is yes, then no it isn't and indie studio according to the warm and fuzzy way I think of them.
I know the crew who has been developing Crypt of the Necrodancer for a couple of years. They all work out of their homes in several different cities in North America. That's a truly indie development process.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It's all about the publisher for me. Cloud Imperium Games has no publisher or investors. The only people they have to answer to are the fans. Also, they don't seem to be building it for a big payout.
Granted they are probably gonna make boatloads of money on this game when it finally comes out. The game is very obviously not being designed as a cash cow, being available at times for as little as $20 for the complete experience.
It's almost like a cult-classic in the making. It started out as an underdog, being rejected by the big names and mass media. Then it started to gather fan(atic)base (like myself) who threw money at their screens. Now there are big name publishers crying themselves to sleep at night because they can't figure out how to cash in on the success.
Let's all just hope that Star Citizen isn't bought by Disney or EA sometime in the far future.
(I rambled incoherently for a bit. Sorry)
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
I actually like this definition. If your company's address is the same as the Founder's address, then you're indie. Unfortunately, we're on this indie kick right now where we associate indie with edgy and cool, so everyone wants to be indie.
Crazkanuk
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Oh dear, here we go again....
First we discovered that sandbox is an illusive concept.
Then we found that MMO doesn't mean what we thought it meant.
Next, we redefined what "pay-to-win" really means. Several times in fact, as the goalposts moved.
Latest topic for the revisionist discussion: "What does 'indie' really mean ?"
Originally, I believe that "indie" meant independent studio (i.e. not funded (or controlled) by a publisher or gaming conglomerate).
This usually meant that they were small and operated on a shoestring budget. Those are common features of independent studios, but not the reason why they are called independent.
There are some logical problems with this article.
Independent anything (film, music, art, etc.) is by definition independent of the field's mainstream structure. In other words, it is a project judged too risky, unappealing or downright strange for a major studio, production company or art house to fund with any reasonable expectation of getting their money out of it.
For that reason the projects are self- or donation-funded and so generally are low budget and thus small in scope. If SOE funded a small development team to make a low-budget game, that wouldn't make it an indie project would it?
Likewise, the success of a project doesn't make it any less independent. The Blair Witch Project grossed $248 million on a small budget (though the exact figures seem to be in doubt). That doesn't mean that Blair Witch suddenly became a mainstream movie - it is simply a very successful independent film (a very low odds proposition).
Star Citizen is a project being funded independent of a major game studio - thus it is an independent game. It's backers are effectively donating money to the development process (with no recourse if Chris Roberts decides to bugger off to Tahiti one day) in hopes of getting a good game to play at the end - they have no official say in the outcome of the game and thus bear no resemblance to a publisher.
Indie means
NO fat stock market publisher behind
NO investors looking out for profit, lobbying for dumbing down the game or nickel and dime microtransactions
NO optimizing a game to lowest common denominator for a quick buck
NO shareholders
It means independent of everything that has not to do with making the actual game.
So yes CIG is absolutely the dictionary example of "indie" as they are completely independent from everything, except their backers who only want a good game at the end. There are no shareholders, no investors, no fat publisher behind.
Compare to Frontier who throw an unfinished game on the market for Christmas to make a quick buck and please their shareholders, and their shareholder company co-owner fans marketing the game to make profit. Cancelling offline mode for anti piracy DRM, lying to backers. That´s no indie, they wear the shackles of profit hungry people like any other non-indie developer and it shows.
I dont think where you work make you indie or not. I think its where the company started. In a guys office or at a corp meeting. When a company gets to keep its grass roots and not have corp hands all over them. IMO this still is in the indie camp. Even then, indie companies can lose their grass roots and just become another whack a mole generic face in the crowd.
I think its ultimately going to come down to a discussion of 'Independent' vs. 'Indie'
To me, indepentent is a more broad term, meaning they they are making a game by themselves, outside of the financing and structure given and imposed by a publisher.
Indie, immediately conjures images of small studios working on small scale focused projects on a limited budget.
I think it may be a bit soon to call on the only one game thing. After all, they've just started, and apparently are no where near completing their First game, the game to which all that money was raised for. If they decided to move money to another project they would probably anger a lot of their 'investors'.
Let's see what happens after (feels like an 'if') they ship Star Citizen.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Is the Pope catholic? same question type
If a studio has no publisher, no shareholders, no investors, then it´s as indie as indie can be.
Granted -- they have a bigger budget than any indie ever had, but doesn´t make it less indie.
The money is coming from gamers, who want the game produced, they basically preordered it.
I like the more literal and applicable meaning of the word.
so an indie group uses all their own software (or are not part of another group). And that definition can fit a broader group, but that's fine be me. If they are really using all their own software to develop a game then IMO it fits the definition.
maybe people want grassroots indie or some other word that becomes more descript. But indie is obscure and can mean something too extreme. Then in the extreme version of indie it becomes synonymous with under developed and a special kind of appreciation.
I think the way indie movies are categorized is the same way I feel the word can be used. Some high quality indie movies exist. So it can be the same for games,
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Pretty much this.
Interesting subject though, once I argued with a friend that Star Wars Episodes 1, 2 and 3, are the most expensive Indie films ever made.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
You forgot will never see the light of day as promised.
This game was promised as an EVE like universe and Chris Roberts is worried about where the Toilets are and hasn't developed one single Station let alone a single Star system. This is CHRIS WANTS TO DESIGN SPACE SHIPS. We want you to pay for it and we will never deliver what we originally promised. Squadron 42...Nope...Universe Nope...ARENA COMMANDER! YES....um Chris we didn't want that. of the SC's that are space sims. stick to Star Conflict. It delivers what it promised and for a lot less money you can customize a ship and not care where you S4!T!
Is it independent ? Yes, we are independent !
(and i consider myself and 725.000 other backers as much part of "we" as CIG and Chris Roberts are) !
Here is your answer.
On a personal note ... i hope this is the beginning of change in the gaming industry. When indie does no longer only mean 3 coders in a garage making a superb game. When innovation is again more important than shareholder ROI. When endless repetitions of the same formula simply don't cut it anymore, no matter how much cash you put into marketing.
Have fun
/thread
common sense wins.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Yes, it is.
Is the lead developer calling all the shots and taking all the responsibility for those decisions? Yes, that's what CR is doing, it's his game and always will be.
Does voting on various ideas to be added to the game give you some illusion of control when they were all going to be implemented anyway?
The only thing that has changed is the scope of the project from $500k to $69 million.
The only thing I really see in this article is an author trolling the internet because of money and that brings in hits. If all the discussion about SC's money were wiped, there would be very little left to read.
You know, it would be really f'ing hilarious if all those numbers on CIG's website were lies that just brought in a bunch of free marketing because people can't get over themselves about how much money someone else has.
Is SC indie (Independent)?
Answer: Yes
Why?
Because they are not being dragged around by a publisher telling them to add loading screens, filled with ads of Mountain Dew and Doritos whenever the pilot goes into their starship, or land on a Station.
Why?
Because they have to answer to the consumers directly that donate them money to fund their game while taking their time to get it right (or not at all) vs. appeasing some bean counting suit who in turn answers to a number of investors on if they can push the game out a year in advance.
Why?
Because traditionally, it is not in a big companies best interest to go all the way, To take a leap of faith risk while it is better to grab a known IP and slap the hero engine over it, have the marketing team do their magic, all the while they sit back and let the money roll in.
Why?
Because if they fail, then it is the consumers that are to blame, for also taking said risk and being on the losing end of the gamble, all the while having the indie industry as a whole to suffer a ever going feeling of distrust towards the scene as a whole, which in turn the creator him or herself, their name, identity, reputation, whether they have regrets or not of the outcome, is destroyed , forever disgraced and disgarded in the giant pile of shovelware and failed promises.
vs.
having the fault lay upon the feet of both the publisher and company, with their name being ran through the mud, but to have a glimmer of a chance to walk a long journey of redemption to correct their mistakes, and try again with a project that is funded by a possible new set of suckers they have to appease to. When a company says "project cancelled" , you normally do not have some picture of a row of developers lined up in firing squad format to know who we should never trust the next time we see their faces again, they are simply fired/laid off, business as usual - but in some cases, and with a bit of chance, they fight another day.
Im yet to see a any group that calls themselves Independent that has enough dough to go around, either to outright BUY a active IP, or buy up a even smaller indie group. No, they start from the bottom and build themselves up with time being their investor and stubborness being their employer.
Words mean stuff. "Indie" == "Independent"
A studio that didn't previously exist has taken off beyond anyone's dreams. Good for them. All of your other sophistry appears to be an attempt to redefine the word to something new that justifies a less appealing opinion of Star Citizen. If, after years of effort, Star Citizen is a success and goes on to create new game titles under the same CIG development studio... then it will not fit the name "Indie" because it is no longer an independent studio. It will have its own track record.
For now, for this one effort, it came out of the proverbial ether, so it fits the definition as an "indie" production.
As long as we are changing the meanings of words to mean what we prefer, I'm going to change a few myself:
No - will now mean 'yes'
Maybe - will now mean 'yes'
You're an ugly bastard, leave me alone - will now mean 'why yes you handsome devil, I would like to go to your place for some drinks'