March 6, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.12 has been released.
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True I guess the other possibility is that "Indie" will just start to bleed and people will stop thinking it is so cool in the same way that "Indie" music and "Indie" movies have often started to seem a lot less special (even though "Indie" is STILL considered to be a genre of music)
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QuoteI do think that indie games are a lot better than mainsttream gaming though (yet another modern shooter? lol) so meh, could be worse.
Perception bias mostly. A lot of indie developers are looking at the popularity of indie games and abuse it through "retro" games or by remaking already free flash games/series and remarketing it for a price.
As for holding Indie games up to a higher standard then other games. For good reason since the ENTIRE point people even argue that "Indie games rock" is that they are supposed to be crystal snowflakes each original and brilliant in their own right.
While I hold free games up to a different light then ones I buy (unless they are good enough to compete), I don't give Indie games any leeway and thus I can see that a lot of them are really lackluster oversimplified retro-puke.Quoteto say that indie developers are perfect despite the increasing stagnation is to give un-due praise.
Actually that is the reason WHY indie developers are stagnating. They put out games and all that needs to happen is someone has to punch in a sign saying "Indie" and suddenly a game that would be considered only mediocre is suddenly selling a lot of copies.
People give them undue praise.
Mind you I am sure we will eventually have an Indie Game crash. Just like the Wiimote eventually people will catch on that "Ohh... the Wiimote doesn't make everything better".
QuoteUnambitious indie developers have three bad habits. One is to try and imitate the indie games which have been successful...
She implies that these are bad habits when practiced by indie developers, as if it is merely expected behavior from larger devs.
QuoteFor a genre that should be all about innovation its output is remarkably homogenous and low-risk.
She repeats the false assumption that having a different business model/lower funding somehow affects the way in which the developers work, or the ideas they create, beyond simple financial constraints. All game devs largely stick to 'low-risk' and more of the same, not just mainstream ones. If there are more indie devs who are willing to experiment, it is because they don't have as much to risk.
QuoteThere’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but unless the developer becomes interested in the game as its own entity that lack of passion will be a noticeable weak point.
As if indie devs have a responsibility to be more attached to their games than normal developers are.
QuoteEveryone expects humorous games to be a little weak – really, the writing standards in this industry are appalling – but an atmospheric horror game can’t coast by on low standards. Write the horror game that’s in your head. If it isn’t there? Don’t write it. The successful titles of other indie developers are not your template
Starts with a faulty generalization, continues to state that indie devs are somehow supposed to be more original than mainstream devs and not reuse good ideas.
QuoteNone of this would be as infuriating if I didn’t actually like humorous fantasy, and it’s not like I’m hard to please. Kobolds Ate My Baby can keep me entertained while sober, for crying out loud, this is not a high bar to hurdle. It has the advantage of other players. You have the advantage of pre-scripting. Unlike the horror-clones, the ‘ironic’ fantasy developers can’t fear risk because they’re not creative enough to find it. Pushing the boundaries would require nudging the middle first.
She assumes that she doesn't like games like this because the developers are lazy and unimaginative, rather than examining the standards she is setting and the alteration of her perception of it based on her own opinions.
QuoteBy contrast, the nostalgia market is terrified of risk. Not to absolve them of laziness, mind you; if the best thing you can say about your game is that it’s out of date you’re not weaving wonders here, but many developers seem more comfortable borrowing from the past then betting on the future.
More assumptions and generalizations, both in accusing indie devs who return to beloved mechanics and themes of laziness and lack of imagination (or guts), and starting with the basic assumption that old = bad, which is patently false.
QuoteRetro has its own appeal, but there are far more of them than the genre deserves – especially when you can play the originals for free on half a dozen websites.
The fallacy here is that if something has been done once, it should never be done again--another example of an obviously flawed thought process. If this were true, we would have perhaps half a dozen games from each genre, the last of which would have been created several years ago.
QuoteOr, with artful weasel-wording, I didn’t, as this flaw is one that spreads its necrotic tentacles across tiny and towering alike: writing is still devalued in gaming culture.
It’s the core problem behind every nostalgia-grasping mediocrity and clownish hack ‘n slash. The games industry can’t improve until it sees writing as more than the paper around the gift, because no-one will have a story they care about enough to work for. And for all their protestations of art, your average indie developer is no better.
Again, she makes faulty, subjective assumptions about the industry as well as holding indie developers to a higher standard.
So we should hold games developed in the indie market to lower standards just because they are indie?
It is essentially what you are saying. These forums are full of people criticising mainstream gaming for lacking innovation and being just a parage of yet more modern shooters (CoD clones and the like) so why is it wrong to level the same criticism at the indie market? They are falling into the same trap, afterall.
No, I'm saying we shouldn't hold indie devs to any special standards just because they are "indie", when all that means is that they haven't got a big name publisher. It's okay to say "the game industry is too monolithic", it's foolish to say "indie devs should be especially innovative just because they are indie". She's putting demands and expectations on indie devs that has nothing to do with what it is to be an independent developer, and that makes her pretentious.
But a lot of the criticism aimed at the games industry as a whole is about its lack of creativity and this blame is regularly put on the publishers. If it is true that the publishers are to blame, why isn't the indie market any better?
If you think she's pretentious and demanding, go tell her that. You won't change anything arguing with a random dude on a forum.
Bricktop
He didn't start arguing with you, he contested some of the points she raised and you jumped in to defend them.
Also: Most of the criticism I see is directed at game developers, except in cases where the publisher is doing something stupid, like dropping a popular series or creative team. And yes, the fact that she is applying different standards to indie developers does make her pretentious; most indie devs are basically what larger developers would be if they didn't have established bodies of work or contracts with well-known publishers. She treats "indie" as if it were an indicator of quality (it isn't--see Sturgeon's Revelation), and this makes her pretentious for the same reason that people who like bands that aren't well known think they're good because they aren't well known.
Unrelated: You don't need to sign your post. We're all bright enough to glance over to the left and notice who wrote a post, even if we couldn't tell from the tone.
So we should hold games developed in the indie market to lower standards just because they are indie?
It is essentially what you are saying. These forums are full of people criticising mainstream gaming for lacking innovation and being just a parage of yet more modern shooters (CoD clones and the like) so why is it wrong to level the same criticism at the indie market? They are falling into the same trap, afterall.
No, I'm saying we shouldn't hold indie devs to any special standards just because they are "indie", when all that means is that they haven't got a big name publisher. It's okay to say "the game industry is too monolithic", it's foolish to say "indie devs should be especially innovative just because they are indie". She's putting demands and expectations on indie devs that has nothing to do with what it is to be an independent developer, and that makes her pretentious.
QuoteYou can't define "indie" as a genre, because it isn't an indicator for what kind of content the game has - it's a business model.
But that is how the article defines indie games... by their business model. Right there, in the 2nd paragraph.
You miss my point. It's not a genre. You can't assume any special kind of content from "indie" games, so you can't use "indie" as a genre. Regardless of how she says she defines indie in that paragraph, she spends the rest of the article stating what kind of content she expects from such games. And that is dumb, bordering on being a True Scotsman fallacy. It's like saying that carpooling developers should produce a certain kind of games.
Even the emphasis on good writing is a flawed idea at the heart of it; the best games are not those in which the railroad tracks are gilded. The vast majority of games which I adore either are completely open-ended (see: Aurora, Cataclysm, DF, any RTS, TBS, or 4X) have fairly open-ended gameplay in which the main plot exists as little more than a trail you can follow for a bit of extra loot and experience (see: Elona, Morrowind, Fallout: NV, etc.)
You can't define "indie" as a genre, because it isn't an indicator for what kind of content the game has - it's a business model.
Apart from this discussion, OP needs to learn how to use dwarf therapist/burrows to make his broker do the stuff he want him to do.
