Independent Devs Wiping the Floor with EA, Ubisoft and Activision.

Apart from sh*t ton of marketing, these guys got nothing on what's coming out from Independent Developers. I mean, WTF? What's the point of all these overpriced games that lack basic features? What's the point of reskins. I don't understand.

What EA, Ubisoft and Activision are up to?

• Mass Effect... Too bad Bioware's last few "RPGs" were outclassed by other Devs.
• Need for Speed... Half assed game currently around 70 on MC and lacks manual transmission.
• Battlefront... Overpriced half assed game.
• Rainbow Six... No campaign.
• Call of Duty... Rehash.
• Splinter Cell... Generic Action Movie now.
• Assassin's Creed... Rehash.
• For Honor... Lol.
• Destiny... Joke of the decade.

Independent devs are real "AAA" devs, that actually offer more content for less price. They are offering more variety. They deserve your support.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Video

Shadow Warrior 2

Video

Eversoace

Video

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Video

Cyberpunk 2077

Video

Squadron 42/Star Citizen

Video

Prey for the gods

Video

Silence: The Whispered World 2

Video

Angels Fall First

Video

Inner Chains

Video

Mount and Blade 2

Video

The Bard's Tale 4

Video

Cossacks 3

Video

And so on.

All of this without DLC, money whoring, DRM, season passes and cash grabbing. I rather support these guys instead.

Discuss.

Call of Duty this year is not a rehash, it's something far worse. It's plagiarizing other games, IE Titanfall.

What's wrong with For Honor, it looks good so far from the trailers. We still don't know much about it to be honest.

I love both indie and big budget experiences.

But seriously, some companies need to stop having such incredibly high sale prospects for games in order to earn back their insane marketing budgets.

Yup. I'm very happy indies exist so that we can enjoy some good games while being bombarded with high budget, cheesy, content starving, overpriced, rehashed, buggy crap games from the big companies. I really hope people stop buying Ubisoft, EA, Activision games soon, so that we gamers can show game makers we don't like crap.

+1

Why post a bunch of games that aren't out yet, that clearly could still suck, and not just post games that are actually really fucking good, and out now?

-Rocket League
-Ori and The Blind Forest
-Divinity Original Sin
-Wasteland 2
-Cities Skylines
-Banished
-Hotline Miami 2
-Invisible Inc
-Shadowrun Hong Kong
-Pillars of Eternity
-Soma
-Running With Rifles
-Undertale
-Infinifactory
-Crypt of the Necrodancer
-The Banner Saga
-Door Kickers

Oh and Legend of Grimrock 2, The Talos Principle, and Shovel Knight.

Almost agree with your list.

Mass Effect 4 seems promising and For Honor may surprise us ..

Splinter Cell Black List was a good game and there's hope for the franchise.

And indie devs are lovely and i hope they keep up the good work ....but the thing is high profile companies like EA will probably buy them hence the cycle of rehash.

100% true. smaller developer making more innovative quality games.

The sad truth is simply that "marketing sells". Quality is simply another route, and big corporates have come to the realisation that bad games with lots of marketing sells more easily and more consistently than high budget games with weak marketing.

I should mention though that Cyberpunk 2077 is not an indie title. CD Projket is no different from EA, Ubisoft or Activision in terms of structure - they are all public corporates.

I tend to be more hyped about high budget AAA games(then disappointed after release), but I have more fun with indie games.

They continue the trend because they need to make money back and sometimes investing in new IPs is a loss. If you want to blame anyone....blame the gamers that don't support new ideas but keep buying the same series.

I would first like to say lets separate out developers of Kingdom Come and games like that out to a new category call small developer. They are creating a game slightly more ambitious that a typical indie game. Back on topic yeah I'm trusting more of the small developer and games that are trying some new more that the old faithfuls. Now some of them aren't doing bad. I know people will hate me for saying this but 343 is doing alright minus the Master Chief collection. But yeah I need more creative stories and world build these day IMO.

Hmm needs M&B

How comes Destiny isn't on the list of overpriced games wiki thing, didn't they say they spent some stupid amount on that.

Indies are the future of this industry. They will eventually become the big developers and publishers of tomorrow.

OP you forgot Alekhines gun which will be hitman style stealth game by indie developer

Good. The more people realise this, the better.

I think AAA in some ways offer things that indie can't so I'm glad both exist. Take for example GTA. The detailed city, the action setpieces and overall production values. I thought it was an enjoyable package despite the gameplay being very shallow. Another example would be something like God Of War for similar reasons.

What disapoints me about recent AAA games is not a lack of content. On the contrary I think many of them have way too much content. They are getting more and more massive, designed to keep the player engaged for a very looong time which hopefully will generate microtransaction sales.

Thats some big budget indie games if you ask me.

They have their place and add to the variety for sure. But the ones I have any interest in are few and far between. At the end of the day, I'll take my big budget games 7 days a week and twice on Sunday over shit like Octodad or Rocket League.

Then people look down on Indies like its some nasty garbage cause it's not mainstream enough or not on their preferred platform.

people are fucking stupid

Or because they are not the kind of games that they like to play. Like I said, there are definite gems that pop up from time to time and the added variety in general is a great thing indeed. But on the whole for me, there are far more games being pumped out of the big publishers that I want to play. I did not buy a PS4 and Xbox One to mainly play games like 1001 Spikes and Octodad.

Indie developers are also the ones supporting Steam Machines, while big marketing budget game developers are still mostly holding back, not taking any risks.

I've had way more fun with indies than big budgeted games this gen. It gives you a idea of where gaming is heading.

I can't take your argument seriously with such half-assed criticism that just screams "LOOK AT ME, I HATE POPULAR TITLES". And please don't take that personally, it's just how I'm interpreting your argument here.

I'm all for indie games and most of the games I play regularly are from smaller studios, but I also understand where the big publisher backed games fit into the scene. There is a reason why Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, and others keep selling over and over. It's not because they are advertised to hell, it's because people actually enjoy them. People don't just buy a sequel to a game they didn't like just because the sequel was advertised a lot. Even your average consumer isn't that thick. These franchises have all established themselves with some great games and many are still doing very well today. The newest Assassin's Creed is scoring very well and fans of the series apparently really enjoy it while Destiny continues to expand its playerbase despite all of the hate people give it.

Lumping together AAA budget titles and giving them very vague criticisms without even giving them a fair chance is just as bad ignoring indie games because they don't advertise on TV. It's being narrow minded and sheltered. Making threads like this just comes off as pretentious as well.

There is no reason to hate. AAA budget and indie games can live side by side and both keep the other in check.

I'm playing Angels Fall First right now and it's a buggy, unopitmized, unbalanced, and kind of poorly made mess. It's got a ton of potential but it's extremely rough right now and will be for the considerable future. Compare that to a game like Star Wars Battlefront which I know will be polished and fun to play the day it comes out with much higher production values. Sure AFF has more depth, but that won't be realized for months if not years while I can pay my money and start having fun with Battlefront the day it comes out. You can't just ignore that.

Small budget games and indie games are great, don't get me wrong, but there is a lot there that isn't great. Don't gloss over the fact that the majority of indie games suck while shitting on AAA games that are scoring decently well and are continuing to sell a lot to people who enjoy playing them. We may be in a golden age of independent developers but it's only because the volume of indie games being developed is so much higher that we are seeing so many good ones. The ratio of good to bad indie games is still the same but the numbers have increased. Just take a look at the weekly Steam releases to see that there are still volumes of poor indie games.

Also Cossacks 3 is a remake of the original. Let's not be bashing games for being a rehash and then use Cossacks 3 as evidence that indie games don't remake/rehash ever.

CD Project Red is also not what I would call "indie", neither is Cloud Imperium Games or even Warhorse, at least not when compared to a lot of the other indie devs out there. These devs are technically independent, but they are in the realm of AAA budget games. These devs have big (even massive) budgets and are catering to a much larger group of people than your typical indie dev has too.

I am just saying "Independent Developers" which includes both small indies and mid-tier devs as well that can go toe to toe with big publishers when it comes to production values but also offer more content.

They can, they do and they will. The end.

We don't know much about most of the games he hypes to be the second coming of Jesus. So that's how serious you can take this thread.

Not published by Ubisoft, EA or Activision.

People who made games in the 1990's:

People who make games now:

So true OP, AAA devs are little beyond a fucking joke which is why I simply don't buy them. I'll take the "indie" game almost every single time.

Not that I disagree but not much love for MMOs on your list. Some interesting titles there, thou I'd add Crowfall, Camelot Unchained, Albion Online and 5-6 other incoming indie MMOs.

Edit: LOL at that CoD budget vs marketing ratio !

Apologies friend.

Call of Duty is pretty good, and what's wrong with For Honor? :/

Modern AAA is dogshit.

News at 11

I love the Mass Effect series and Blacklist was the best Splintercell since Chaos Theory.

but yea, I'd agree that the major publishers are stuck in the past in regards to game pricing and marketing practices. I bet games like Titanfall, Evolve and the upcoming R6 Siege would have sold way more and ultimately been more profitable with price tags around 30-40 dollars.

compared to independent MP-only games like Natural Selection 2, Chivalry, RO2 and Insurgency which are cheaper up front and give you a ton of DLC for free the value is just terrible and it will be hard for most series without established fan bases to foster a decent community.

Hell, even Hardline struggled on PC despite there being a large fanbase for the series.

@uninspiredcup said:

People who made games in the 1990's:

People who make games now:

Pretty much this.

Indies make games for the love of making games. The big 3 publishers might have some enthusiastic developers but their ambitions are stifled by overzealous publishers.

You can't just throw money at a product and expect it to be good. I'll take a lovingly crafted and creative RPG Maker game over a 200 million dollar blockbuster any day.

I do enjoy both big publisher and indie games. I just wish that indie games would get more attention. I recently played SOMA and it is a great experience. I am also really liking Insurgency which is much better than COD.

That's why I miss Sierra so much. One of the biggest loses of game industry. Man I hate 7th gen.

@Cloud_imperium: All great TC, but CDPR isn't exactly indie. They have an investor who poured loads of cash into the studio.

Success often breeds complacency. If those companies don't have to do things differently in order to get high sales, their products will suffer in the end.