Saturday, October 3, 2009

Why do Indie Game Creators Do What They Do?

Simple question: Why do indie game creators do what they do?

There are many types of indie game creators right now. Upon observation, I found three types of game-makers:
1. The bulk of creators are people who produce one or two indie games using game-making engines (e.g. Game Maker) to satisfy their curiousity.
2. Commercial indie makers - There are actually two variants to this. The first is the individual who uploads his game for pay on Xbox Live or PS3. The second group are those that set up companies to make games.
3. The ardent freeware indie game maker. These guys spend long hours (sometimes taking them as full time jobs) to release the games for free.

Question for #3: Why?

Jason Rohrer is one indie game producer I admire for the dedication to the craft. He details clearly on his blog how he cuts back on his expenses to maintain his work. I would quote an extract here:

Our life right now is an experiment: how much we can trim our spending, consumption and ecological footprint while still surviving in relative comfort. Each day, we trim a bit more. Here is what we have done so far...

From interviews, I also recognize Edmund Mcmillen to be such an individual.

In some sense, this could be become a debate on conventional/unconventional lifestyles; passion/reality, etc... That is not my intention. Nobody needs to justify their lifestyle choices (unless of course, they break laws); my question stems from a real deep curiousity - a curiousity that may be challenging, but hopefully not overbearing. Beyond this, there is also a point of reality check - with even games online becoming commoditized (see post 1), what kind of commercial independence can we reasonably expect?

Do commercialization of the Kongregate kind help developers, does it harm them? What kind of future can be expected if these sites model after them?

I am passionate about some things, but I would be less inclined to make major lifestyle shifts to accept these passions. Are indie game creators #3 different?

Labels:

Posted by Ren at 4:23 AM

0 comments