Hello everyone,
I'll do a short post today, since I've discussed some really dense topics the past few days. Recently I've been continuing development of my first game, X-Squadron, and I've become more and more aware of the rising indie game development industry. I've found an article on how Microsoft is helping small indie game developers launch on their platforms, such as the Xbox One.
It seems to be that the new trends in gaming are the rise of the indie game developers, VR, and next-gen consoles (at least within the last few years!)
But why are some developers choosing to go indie? I've done some thinking and some research, and I've found that a lot of triple-A game companies tend to want to deliver content quickly rather than creatively. In ways, this is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing about delivering games faster is the fact that they can reel people into the action quicker, hype up the features, and make a lot of money at the same time with less content. In other words, they give a viable product for the user with a minimum time cost, which also means they can focus on making other games sooner! The bad thing about this approach is that these triple-A game companies sometimes are not able to pack a lot of creative genius into the story, gameplay, or environmental attributes of the game, given their time constraints and their need of money to pay the bills. I'm not saying that all triple-A companies neglect creative content, but some of them out there only want rapid content to stay in business. And that is perfectly fine!
Indie game developers (or even smaller game companies) tend to pack a lot of creative power into their games because they envision their products in different ways. They think about adding an interesting mechanic into their games, such as using a screwdriver in first-person perspective to escape a room. These developers tend to focus on how they would respond in a given scenario in their game. These types of developers try to do as much as they possibly can to make the game that much more interesting, and most of them have a lot of extra time to experiment with "never before seen" content. As I've learned from being an indie game developer, you can have a LOT of fun brainstorming creative, and sometimes even crazy, ideas with your fellow coworkers! But hey, sometimes even the craziest ideas change the gaming world for the better! New algorithms, creativity and new ways of thinking are rising with indie game developers. That's why I think more and more companies, like Microsoft and Sony, are pushing for more indie game developers.
Here is that article I was talking about too