Split off from the Dead Island topic, here's the two posts:
Started as a console war but I'm slowly realising it's just my gripe with most mainstream development.




I'd say thatgamecompany is certainly an exception to the rule, especially considering they're an indie developer.

Here's a comparison of the up and coming xbox releases vs front page tigsource.

gamereleases.teamxbox.com/ front page


tigsource.com front page


Iunno Contrary, I think you might be right about a lot of indie games being rehashes of old, originally mainstream games, however there's more of them, and I think that amidst the crap you can find a higher absolute number of innovative titles. I guess it's the same as usercontent in games - ~1/3 of people will try to make penises, >1/2 will try to make good stuff but be average at it, and whoever's left over will create the occasional gem.

I know the AAA side of things do make good games (Assassins Creed, Battlefield, COD + Halo (I guess, not my cub of tea but CoD's certainly yours, and Halo's certainly Dauss'), everything Valve makes, Crash Bandicoot 1-3 + Twinsanity) and I'm not disrespecting that, but considering the cost of innovation vs the easy money of just polishing what you already have (See: COD4 -> MW2) most AAA's would rather sit in the money shower. I understand that, and more power to them (in this example, they mixed an FPS with a fast turnaround time, mechanics you can master and a pile of guns, = gaming crack).

Indies don't have a money shower (unless they're notch et al) so they either A) copy something else or B) have fun innovating, and the outcome of both is fairly random (could be sell 10 copies and cry yourself to sleep or sell 15000 copies and die of euphoria). Most of the indies that stick around for longer than a year tend to be attempting the latter.

Also, borrowing mechanics doesn't mean a game isn't innovative. Ace of Spades is innovative because it mixed minecraft with guns and took out the craft bit. Noone had done that before, and the AoS dev managed to point enough people to his game for it to take off.
In comparison, modern AAA shooters (for the most part) aren't making new mixes, they're using the old ones that they know work and spit shining them for all it's worth.

I'm sick of typing this now so you can have a turn.

I'm going to agree with Contrary. In my opinion, you'll find just as many gems amid the ♥♥♥♥ in mainstream as indie. I don't feel like typing more, but that's my thought.

Honestly I couldn't give to shits. A large percentage of 'indie' games are, to me, pretentious hipster bull♥♥♥♥.

Just as many mainstream/console games are vapid, contentless, fun bull♥♥♥♥.

That's a key difference. I enjoy virtually any game, but the AAA titles are almost universally ENJOYABLE, regardless of your opinion of their "creative" merit. So I say, ♥♥♥♥ it. Buy what you feel like buying, support who you feel like supporting, and stop enforcing this idiotic lexicological gulf so that 'indie' and 'mainstream' games become irrelevant distinctions.

ALSO! My other biggest issue with the whole goddamn mess is the absolutely mandatory sixty dollar price point for mainstream games, and the not-quite-so-mandatory-but-very-nearly-so twenty dollar price point for indie games.

Is every AAA title really three times 'better' than every indie game? ♥♥♥♥ no! But you'll still shell out the money for one, and then moan if an indie game costs more than twenty. Obviously there are exceptions, vastly more on the indie side, but it's still ♥♥♥♥ broken. Even when a AAA title is released at a lower price brand new, it's instinctively branded as inferior, despite perhaps just being shorter in quality or more simplistic. A game can be fun without needing to cost nearly as ♥♥♥♥ much as something else.

You actually done it Geti lol
On Topic: Indie games can be as good as mainstream games I sometimes would prefer to play Cortex Command(when it worked) over Left4dead 2 and Indie games are able to be changed to a users wanting by modding and you can't do that for most mainstream games. I believe that big video game companies(EA,Activision,etc) are running out of ideas for great games. Indie games can use an Idea and change it when ever they want for example there in the middle progress making the game and they change it from a Platformer to FPS ti's just fine.But EA can't by that time they've probably already released teasers and trailers and only way to change is to cancel game causing disappointment.
Does everyone get what I'm saying?
Btw well said Grif I forgot all about pricing.

Um, not to be a total ♥♥♥♥, but I don't see anything terribly "innovative" in that list from tigsource. Cept maybe that top one, but that just sounds confusing.
RPG and puzzles have been bedfellows forever and a half, roguelike or not, I'm pretty sure nobody is going to argue that bullet hells are innovative, and sounds being liked to shapes is pretty old. At least as old as Electroplankton, which was a big company game.

I won't argue that there aren't a lot of cash-in games, but I would like to point out that indie developers tend to make as many look-alikes as mainstream devs, they just happen to advertise them less and thus don't haunt your every footstep through town.

@DAME: Could you please learn to use punctuation and spacing, at the least? I don't mind some misspelling but I can't read it when it's all mashed together like that.

Duh your the second one judgeing my typing I will space more lol I type really fast.

This is pretty much my view on the subject.

I type really fast too, but I'm capable of doing two things. A) Inserting punctuation as I type and B) looking over what I've typed before I hit the submit button.

But back to topic. I'll agree with Grif. Even if the mainstream games aren't bastions of creativity and originality, that doesn't make them "bad games". They're fun. Maybe they're just fun because they have bloody and visceral graphics, but they're fun nonetheless.

K I already got stabbed with the point 5 times k

On Topic: I believe all games are good as long as time and skill was invested in them.

...time and skill is invested in every game.

I Know but some weren't given in some areas on some games( not gonna make a list )
^what I meant on my last post
Some games seem like they've just been crafted with hardly any skill like some Japanese to America games.

Thirding it. But allow me to elaborate.

In the end, as much as we'd like to say stuff like "indies are the only innovative dudes everyone else is leashed by capitalist pigdog laws", it's not as black and white as that. Sure, AAA teams have to attend to marketing team demands and producer constraints, something that's much less of a concern to indies. And sure, an indie game's development is much more of a freeform project, giving more room for innovative ideas to develop.
But hey, simply having the freedom to do something doesn't mean you're gonna do it well. Countless are the indie games that have fallen prey to lack of experience or planning.
In the same way, some people use being "indie" as an excuse for not being able to make good games or making games at all. "Oh you see, I didn't have a team of programmers like those AAA guys" and "Well, I decided to code my 3D platforming FPS-RTS-dating sim in FORTRAN, because that's the indie way" are excuses many times pulled by developers who were, in fact, less concerned about making a game and more about looking like kewl indie hipster dawgs to impress da laydeez.

Now it may look I'm just bashing indies and being just another random Halo fan out there. Not at all.
The mainstream game industry is riddled with terrible, terrible pieces of software. Once again, being paid by some big studio doesn't really mean you have any special skills, or that you're capable of making something truly groundbreaking. Or even mildly entertaining, for that matter.

What I'm trying to get at is, when I play a game, I care about the game itself, not if it was made by a 500-man team directed by Bill Gates himself or a lone swede who lives in the top of a mountain and codes using a sophisticated abbacus in place of a computer. Today, I've played Metro 2033, made by the giant THQ, and Iji, made by probably the indiest guy who's ever lived. And I enjoyed them in the same way, devoting quite some time to each one. Also, I watched the gameplay demos for both Strike Witches in TIGs and Dead Island in Gamespot, and reacted in the exact same manner: saying a deep, bored "meh".

So don't judge a book by it's cover. Don't judge a sandwich by it's packaging. Don't judge a game by it's maker.






Also, this was probably a rant post and didn't really add much to the discussion. Alas, being concise is way beyond my writing capabilities.

I'll agree with that, Paul.
Especially this, actually:

As well as what Areku's written above me.

Bleh, this is likely going nowhere fast and the topic probably shouldn't have been made, feel free to trash it.

I would agree that it really doesn't matter who makes the game. People working in big-company-funded studios are not necessarily more or less skilled than people working alone in their homes, though it could be said that they are luckier to end up in such a place.

A good game can come from either, and a bad game can come from either.

I ain't saying there aren't any good indie games, certainly not, mainly I'm arguing against this line:


and the accompanying smugness


In all honesty I don't know how you can argue that there aren't innovations being made in mainstream games. I know you can point out examples of commercial games which are to a large extent rehashes of old formulas, but there are as many if not more indie games that do exactly the same, often with being less fun as Grif pointed out. Paul Eres pointed this out on TIGSource, many indies will "innovate" the exact same ♥♥♥♥ over and over (how many times have you seen the idea "shmup with no shooting?") and in the end nothing new will be created.

Yes, indies don't have tried and trued cashcow money grabs like mainstream games, but a lot of them do have money as a major motivation and as I said they are not necessarily always creative. I don't know why you say that polishing old formulas is a bad thing, in fact I think it is as much a necessary part of quality as innovation. Fact is that most innovative games don't do it perfectly the first time. You are a developer, I think you've seen how even adding minor elements within an existing game can go wrong initially and require polishing. The same holds true for entire games. Look at Cortex Command. Many great innovations, but as many of us come to realize also many fatal flaws at a fundamental level. The ideas of Cortex Command could use someone copying it and refining the formula.

Also, wasn't it not too long ago you were lecturing me on my rants on petty game label ♥♥♥♥?