Are most indie games more innovative, creative, etc, than most 3rd party games nowadays?

After that movie The Order: 1886, tell me that these games don't seem different and more creative than the average 1st/3rd person shooter or "cinematic experience".

True. I was mainly talking how about nice it looks when only 3 people made it. Blows my mind.

Of course, they have much more room for creativity because of tiny budgets (no publishers).

Most indie games are pretentious cashgrabs.

indies can be 3rd party or first party. your thread makes no sense. probably 99% of indies are 3rd party.

You forgot this war of mine.

Not like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Sega, WB, etc. Those are who I'm talking about.

I think by definition they can't be first party

Shame these amazing indie games will never get even 1/10th of the Hype something like the Order gets.

They don't get hype, but Steam does a pretty good job of giving indie games top billing right up there with AAA releases.

It isn't really something that you can have an opinion on, it is fact. I think Slashkice put it best.

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@pikachudude860

Mark my words. These indie devs are the future of the gaming industry. Imagine what they could do with a bigger budget?

This is something I'm more interested in, with crowdfunding independent developers can manage to get bigger budgets, just look at Mighty No. 9, but can independent developers be the future of gaming? If you mean as they are now, sure, but if you meant them becoming the core market, I'm not sure, probably not.

If you take it that way, then the thread makes even less of a sense lol. technically indie means independent so yes by pure definition, they can't be 1st party because. However lately in gaming at least, indie is used really as arcade, we call them indie games, but they are really arcade games as in smaller games ranging from 5-30 dollars, compared to the AAA budget 60 dollar ones. OP should have said are most arcade games more innovative and creative then big budget games.

What do you mean by that ?

I'm not saying Steam does a bad job. But lately, I just find I don't check a lot of indie games anymore because I check upcoming releases and there are just soooo much of them and I don't want to go over each and every one.

But steam does have a very good recommend system. And I get to see some great indie games by following curators I trust :)

Better than $60 cash grabs like Sony exclusives.

I think you have me confused for someone who'd actually get mad over this comment

I was just saying in general not aimed at u.

I mean I see as many indie games advertised at the top of Steam as I see AAA games.

Yeah, absolutely, I don't know why you narrowed it down to just third party games. Neither first party is as creative or innovative either.

No, I really don't think so. The whole retro-thing is what's holding indie games back in my opinion. Just drop the annoying pixel graphics and fake chiptune soundtracks already.

There is a variety of indie games that aren't pixel graphics and fake chiptune.

Absolutely, you make the game based on your own budget, ideas, mechanics, etc.

AAA games are too rote by nature.

Ive definitely been spending way more time with indie games lately than with any $60 release, other than Smash Bros.

There is actual gameplay, depth, and replayability. They arent just 6 hour movies that you have to occasionally hit a button to unpause.

Yes. Of course. The more money game costs to make the less likely it's creators are to take risk. It's just common sense.

So yes, indie games are on average more creative and innovative than big budgeted AAA titles. At the same though...small freeware games also tend to be more creative and innovative than commercial indie games.

for an indie game to succeed it has to be innovative and creative or else most people won't even know about it so indie devs put extra effort.

Just b/c an indie game is more creative or different doesn't mean it's better or even good.

There are so many indy games that are like nothing I've seen before...but are boring as shit.

Just b/c you have a good idea doesn't mean you're going to to strike gold....you have to execute the idea too.

Well most games are, as most AAA games fall under safe territory

Last years PC GOTY was an Indie game. :))

Shitload of indie games milk retro 2D platforming, rogue-likes, tower defenses, etc.

Most? No. Most of them are shovelware. A lot of them are more creative than big games though but not "most".

Larian Studios has made games in the past as well. I don't consider Divinity "indie" or "AAA". It can be placed between those two extremes.

The ratio is probably the same, I think.

That's very true. Didn't mean to generalize, but to be fair, there are A LOT of the ones I described in my post. It's of course a taste thing.

Most indie games are probably shit, then the best of it rises to prominence and people are like "indie games are the shit!!". But, in the sense that the successful games being a breath of fresh air probably comes from their ability as to be more flexible in their design approach. Larger budget games are probably more formulaic because publishers want to make a safe investment.

Give them huge budgets and they become just as bad as AAA published devs. The high profile ones already are and they don't even have pubs like EA or Activision to blame.

*sigh*

You know what depresses me about TO: 1886 getting such negative acclaim? Not that it's a bad game (didn't really appeal to me anyway). Not that it's ammunition for the console kiddies to sling more of their mud. It's that so called "gamers" will automatically jump to the mistaken conclusion that just because this game was heavily cinematically focused that that is where the inherent fault in its design lays, not the execution.

It will just add more fuel to the belief that there's something objectively wrong with such a design approach, that no matter how well executed, it stands as the antithesis of what a game design should be. We have seen cinematic themed games done properly (TLoU) and now poorly (1886). Unfortunately, 1886 will now become the poster boy to point to in validation that that particular type of game's design is flawed, and that competent execution of it had very little to do with it, only that the formula lay at fault.

Oh yeah, I thought you were referring to that.

Would be great that if a well known indie game launches on Steam that it would have some banners on the store like AAA games (Dying Light and Atilla to give recent examples). Though I doubt that is steam's doing and is just paid by huge marketing budgets.

I think the OP is doing a bit of stealth trolling that no one really picked up on.

"most" indie games aren't particularly original or creative, "most" aren't even particularly good, simply because there are 1000's of them. There's alot of dross out there.

If the the TC is talking about the top few tiers of indie games I'd undoubtedly agree with him though. I also must disagree with creativity for the sake of creativity though. Even if you don't love it others may, but more importantly different developers may stand on the shoulders of others work and ideas and make something greater.

Ea is the biggest offender as well as Activision. When it comes to stale same,old same old yearly rehashes giving bad name to the rest But nope most indie games are boring

The indies are way more innovative than 3rd parties nowadays. I remember I used to go crazy over 3rd parties games on the super nes but now the just follow trends like a boring wrpg about dragon or some shooter. I am glad I own a wii u and PC.

I hear you. Honestly, I don't have a problem with the whole "cinematic" type of game. For me, if a game is fun, IMO, I'll play it. If The Order: 1886 had the kind of enticing gameplay to go with all of the cutscenes and QTEs, it would of been an amazing game. The fact that it was acinematic focused game wasn't it's problem.

I think what most gamers problem with the cinematic styleis...We've seen it before...A lot of times. Almost every deveolper I've bothered to listen to talks about the "immersion", and how their games look real, and they have real life like characters and stories. (Just giving an example)

I don't have a problem with that personally. But when you look at the majority of 3rd party games, or the main 3rd party games that people, commercials, and gaming sites mainly pay attention to, all of them go for the same style. A realistic looking game with realistic characters and/or storytelling. Most of said games have cinematic cut scenes.

With hardware power getting stronger and stronger, and graphics getting better and better, you can't really blame people for thinking that most of these games with a large focus on cinematic gameplay/cut scenes and storytelling seem more like movies than video games.

indies are just hybrids of different gaming mechanics from different genres. They experiment a bit more, but i still see a lot of 2d platformers...how innovative is that?

I think indie devs are quite clever. They nick a game idea from the Commodore 64, rename it, pass it off as 'different' and game sites give them 9 out of 10 generally the worst you make the graphics the more the reviewers feel like 'cool happening dudes' for showing what true gamers they are by scoring them really high. Hilarious. Then the gamers get involved too 'IT'S NOT ABOUT THE GRAPHICS' they scream while playing a load of utter shoite on their 2k PC systems or the 'next gen' console they just bought.

Comedy gold.

The core market? Hmm....No, I don't think so.

What I ment was...If indie developers can make more money off of their games, they can afford to make bigger budget games, since their games, (I assume), don't cost much to develop. If an indie dev had enough money, they could open up an independent studio. Assuming they keep making enough money, those studios could eventually become brand new 3rd party publishers/developers. Which is why I say that those indies devs could the future of this industry.

Now, all of that can happen to an indie dev only if 3 conditions are met.

1. If Indie devs actually want to become big developers one day.
2. if indie devs make enough money to stay in business
3. If indie devs make enough money to pay bills/employees, etc.

2 out of those 3 will not be easy. But with the talent that most indie developers nowadays have, I have no doubt that they can make great games...Now will their games make them enough money ? I dunno. That's up to them.

If indies devs can successfully do everything I mentiond above, then they are the future. If not, then the gaming industry is doomed.

They have to be in order to get people's attention

Right, but I think you're essentially describing what the independent development already is. Budgets are not the difference between independent development and general development, the difference is a publisher. Outside of crowdfunding it it unlikely for an indie developer to get the proper funding for an exceedingly large team because publishers are very important in the profit development teams manage to make. This is why most AAA games are as uncreative as they are as publishers' input is generally geared toward making money, not making games. So like you said, lightning could strike, but it is very unlikely.

I don't think that, with such an occurrence being so rare that indies in general-- at least, not as they are now-- could be the future of gaming. I also don't think that gaming is doomed without indies at the lead, AAA games are still good, maybe not so creative, but we still get the occasional gem, and on top of that there are still the developers in between-- so to speak.

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After thinking some more about this I think Minecraft would be a good example of lightning striking, but since then not much has been done for Minecraft to really make it outstanding now that it is so self-sustaining. I believe-- if I remember correctly-- that there were even expected additions for the game that were abandoned by the time of the official release.