A Look on Trends: The Rise of Indie Games

Over the past few years, big-name publishers such as “EA” and “Activision” have been showcasing a common trend of marketing the same cookie cutter “copy-and-paste” games, diminishing some value among the videogame industry. Through this, crowdfunding, and self-fulfillment, there’s been a rise a rise of popular games that weren’t aided by these big-named publishers called Indie Games (Independent Video Games), games created by either individuals or small groups of people.

                One of the main causes for the rise of these Indie Games would have to be from crowdfunding, the practice of funding a project by raising many small amounts of money from many people, most notably from Kickstarter, a United States based company started in April of 2009. As of 2013, Kickstarter has launched roughly over 107,000 projects, having a total number of dollars pledged being roughly $717 million. From these statistics, Indie Games such as “Shovel Knight” (crowdfunding $311,502), to games such as “Mighty No. 9” (crowdfunding $3,845,170), many of these Indie Game developers have felt that crowdfunding has helped in making their games possible in the first place, and thus normally resort to crowdfunding corporations when starting their games.

                Another cause for the rise of Indie Games would have to come from the feelings of self-fulfillment of developers when it comes to their projects. When it comes to Indie Games, one of the biggest reasons they aren’t aided by big-named publishers. This is mainly because many publishers don’t normally practice risk adverse, or are not willing to take risks on projects that may end up failing, and thus prefer games with larger budgets. It’s because of this, however, that the Indie Games are given a challenge to stand up to the big-named publishers in delivering a game that would surpass their expectations. From an interview about “Indie Game Development” on thecreatorsproject.vice.com, Kellee Santiago, an Indie Game developer for games such as “The Journey” said to the website the following: “I think there is very little in the way of a talented developer to become successful. Indie developers are an extremely connected and supportive community, and distributing your game is as easy as making a website.”

                Lastly, it’s through common trends of “copy-and-paste” games that would be another cause for the rise of Indie Games. With many of these similar types of games flooding the video-game marketplace today, sales have been seen decreasing for future instalments of the games. The biggest example of this comes from the popular video-game series “Call of Duty”. Looking at the total sales of “Call of Duty: Ghosts” released in 2013, the game has sold roughly 14,500,000 units worldwide. However, when compared to the game previously in the series, 2011’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2”, sales are seen to have been decreased, with “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” selling roughly “24,200,000” units worldwide. Just from these two similar game sales recorded alone, the decrease in creativity and continuation of “copy-and-paste” games may have led to Indie Games becoming more popular among games, as many Indie Games are seen to offer more creativity and innovation than many other games today.

                Overall, with the methods of “copy-and-paste” games, the feelings of self-fulfillment, and the help of crowdfunding services, Indie Games have been rising up from over the past few years. Perhaps in the future, if these causes were to remain true, Indie Games may even one day surpass and even create the new standards of how video-games should be created.