Independance in the games industry is seen as the company being free from the shackles of a publisher, or major backer. In 2007, the game developer Bungie bought out the majority share of their company and went independent, saying it would allow them to bring out ‘‘an emotionally creative point of view’’ in their work. Microsoft also said it would ‘‘be in our best interest to allow Bungie to return to their independent roots.’’. Independance for Bungie and Microsoft is seen differently here, while Bungie sees it as an opportunity for creative freedom, Microsoft looks at the business opportunities from their new found freedom. Microsoft would be able to hold onto the Halo IP, due to holding a huge share in the property, and also get access to any new Bungie properties made in the future.
Furthermore, Bungie witnessed a new sense of freedom from going independant more recently after departing from Activision to instead publish their games by themselves. This was something that was seen and praised by many in the gaming community.
Independant developers, or more commonly known in the games landscape as 'indie' developers, are companies that have no fiancial backing from a larger company, normally a publisher. This means they publish their own games. Well known indie games are, Minecraft, Undertale, Stardew Valley and Super Meat Boy. All of these games were made my small groups and released with little to no help from outside. Indie games and heavily marketed games, dubbed 'AAA' by the games industry, are 2 completely different markets. AAA games typically repeat the same recipe and structure, because they know it will sell well, while indie games will innovate due to the creative freedom they have. This is why indie games get such high praise and put in the spotlight for a long time, e.g. Minecraft.
There are many limiting factors when it comes to making a game as an indie developer, from the lack of experience the developers have to the technology. The most successful indie games that have released have been fairly simple from a designs stand point. Undertale is a 2D game with turnbased/bullet hell hybrid gameplay and is much less detailed compared to the typical AAA title. The reason they tend to be simple in aesthetics is due to graphics and audio taking up the most file size in games, and also taking a long time to make. By making the game as simple as possible aesthtically, the devs can put more time into making the gameplay enjoyable for the small time that an indie game takes a user to play.
Another reason for making them look as simple as possible means they can work on the games on very low spec computers as they won't need to render highly detailed models. This means anyone could make a game and then sell it with a simple PC build.
In the current day games industry, there are many engines you can use to develop games. There are even free ones like Unity and Unreal engine 4 which allow you to sell your games using their engine, Unreal, however, will take a 5% cut when you earn over 3000$ in revenue from the game.
Technology
When creating a game, devs have to think of many different aspects of their game that they want to make. Indie devs have to try to not be overly ambitious because they have a limited budget and not many members in their team. A key thing that devs have to think about is how their game will be distributed to their consumers. This has become easier in the past few console generations thanks to digital distrubution, and even easier now that download speeds and servers are constantly improving allowing much larger games to be distrubuted through digital platforms. Releasing a physical release of a game requires a large budget to make, which means it's not something that an indie game will get normally, unless it's bought by a publisher later down the line.
Digital distribution has helped developers reach niche markets with their games, as they don't need to spend money to have their game on a digital platform, they only need to pay a small percentage of sales to the platform they sell on and possibly the engine they used to make the game. Another way niche markets is reached through digital sales is games from around the world being able to be released in any country (unless the game breaks the law of a country). An example of this would be the ability to buy japanese games in english digital stores. Japanese games tend to be for different markets than the games released in the west, however there are still people in the west that would buy these game and digital distribution allows devs to sell their games to this market.
Another part of game development that developers have to think about before starting development is how the game will look and sound. Both graphics and audio are the parts of the game that can take the longest to make and will constantly be changing to make sure they look as good as possible. These parts of the game also take up the most space in the file size of a game. Unfortunately, graphics and audio are not easy things for indie devs to make if they don't have a lot of experience with them and if they don't have the people for it, that's why some of the most popular indie games tend to have very low quality graphics and use royalty free audio.
People tend to judge games heavily by their graphics and think that if it doesn't have the best graphics it's not improving the games industry. However, history has proven that the most popular games don't always have the best graphics, instead they tend to be indie games that are passion projects of the devs that made it and have really interesting and original mechanics and/or story. Examples would be games like Five nights at freddy's and Among us. Five nights at freddy's garnered a cult following through it's interesting point-and-click gameplay and intriguing story about murdered children in a haunted pizzaria, and Among us has recently blown up on the internet for it's gameplay based around deceiving your fellow players to be the last person, or people if in a team, standing while the rest of the players try to find out who is killing everyone.
The devs of today used to be indie devs in the past, and the game engines used to build games now were made by these same devs, for example, Unreal engine was made by Epic games. However, with the current landscape of the games industry, and how most people gravitate towards the engines already in use, it's not a likely thing that indie devs will make their own. Although, if they do decide to, they can then commercialise it later down the line and make money off of it.
Law and Regulations
In the games industry, companies will find a sponser to fund their game. This can be a major publisher like Activision, or a console manufactuer like sony. Normally, these publishers will dictate the terms of ownership over the IP and control the majority of the value of the game product. This publisher will also have rights towards any assets created for the game, this includes all art and audio that was made specifically for this product. If an indie developer decides to sign their IP to a publisher in order to get it funded they aren't truly an independent company anymore and wouldn't class as an indie game. Indie developers also have to think thoroughly before signing their IP to a publisher because this will mean any further work, be it movies, spin-offs, sequels/prequels or even books are partly owned by the publisher of their IP and will have to give them a percentage of profits and also tell them what is being done. Lower level employs in a project hierarchy have little control over any and all work they do after it has been created and implemented in the project in any way.
In a way, indie games that are funded by a kickstarter or community fund aren't truly indie either. Even if the IP is still held purely by the developer company and they have the final say on the course of the game, the comunity that funded the game are expecting what was shown to them in the kickstarter and any changes to that plan must be brought up to the community when you do them.
The transfering of IPs and the signing of development contracts brings the need for professionalism to independent game development. "Flow, a game that originated as an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) project by student developers, is an example of the possibility that digital distribution provides in empowering independent developers when addressing more exclusive markets." (Martin & Deuze, 2009). The game benefited from a community that were interested in the game as a form of art and its developers were able to use this talk of the game to strike a publishing deal with Sony when they were looking for exclusive content for the launch of their new download service on the PS3. They were able to get a deal thanks to their game being pretty much finished, and Sony wanted to profit off of the public awareness the game had at the time.
Another example of an indie project being noticably popular, due to it's out of this world promises given when the game was showcased at an expo, is no mans sky. The company had only worked on small projects before starting to create no mans sky which meant they were rather inexperienced with a game on this scale and the attention they would soon garner. They promised a procedurly generated space game with multiplayer features allowing you to play with other players as a trader, space pirate, and many other roles.
After starting a huge buzz from their reveal, Hello games announced they had partnered up with Sony to publish the game on the PS4 and PC, giving the game a finacial backer, the ability to produce physical copies and even a collectors edition of the game, effectively giving them the AAA treatment when they were simply an independent developer before. Unfortunately, due to a lack of professionalism from the project lead Sean Murray and the rest of the team, the game released a buggy mess missing the majority of the promised features and wasn't even multiplayer. Sean Murray had gone on multiple interviews prior to release hyping up the game mentioning features that never ended up in the game, and due to his introvert personality appeared as a lier to everyone through his body language during these interviews. Hello games also refused help from Sony when the Hello Games office was flooded, causing all their equipment to be broken. However, despite all this Hello Games gained a sense of professionalism and continued, and still do to this day, to work on the game for free, and have made the game be even better than they had originally promised it would be.
Industry Structure
The industry favours the existing titles that are proven to generate a huge profit from an investment. A new idea could win over the market, or it could flop entirely, this is a risk that big publishers don't want to take. Not only could they lose money from investing in these projects, they also have to deal with the mark on their companies history if things go wrong. Using No mans sky as an example again, to this day Hello Games still have a mark on their history for the game, even if they have fixed it now.
In the past, independent games were not worth investing in even if they had an idea already planned and with a test game ready. However, in recent years publishers have started to see the finacial benefit of snagging up indie games early in their life or even development and pushing them further to generate more money and even franchise the IP. Five Nights at Freddy's was just a simple game when it began and went on to have many titles. The game was only made by one man, Scott Cawthon, and has gained a following that rivals many AAA titles. Funko, a well known product manufactuer, managed to buy a portion of the rights to Five Nights at Freddies and are the only legal company to make merch for the franchise.
Organizational Structure
Organizational structure refers to the hierarchy of employees within the company and how they interact with each other and the project. In a small indie team, made from a group of friends, everyone will normally give input into the project and work on multiple sections as they're not split into teams based on what they work best on. In larger indie development company, that aren't made by a friend group and instead you get employed for, it's more likely they will have a system of teams that are made from people that fit certain roles based on what they're best and they then respond to a team lead, like the lead artist, that then respond to someone above them. This means that the lower level employees on the project are less likely to get their thoughts heard and implemented in the game and their assets are but a small part of the whole product.
Another form of organzational structure on a game project would be outsourcing work to another company, getting them to work on small sections of the game, animate a scene, motion capture for a scene or art assets. However, by outsourcing work the company wouldn't truly be an indie developer as the work is being done by other company and isn't an "independant" company working on a project.
Occupational Careers
A person looking for a job in the games industry could go one of two ways, join a well known, large company, or join a small indie team. When you join a large company you are placed within a project heirarchy and work towards a goal given to you which means there may be a lack of personal investment in the project. Some people that work for these large companies lose interest in having no personal attatchment in the project and will leave to find work at an indie company where there input will be taken on board and they can gain a personal interest in the project and get some job satisfaction.
Working for a large company can feel like you're working on an automated line of work producing a product for retail, while working at an indie company can feel like you work at a company that produces goods on order for one customer in the way they ask for it. When you work for a major game company you work to make sure the game sells and makes the company money and can lose the sense of joy from seeing the product you made be finished. In an independant company you will see the project through the whole time you're there and be happy with what you make by the end, even if it doesn't sell as well as you may have hoped.
Market
There are many ways to market a product in the current age of gaming we are in, anywhere from billboards to talking on twitter. The most effective way games, and specifically indie games, have managed to gain an audience and sell their game is through being vocal to their community and welcoming to new people. Helltaker, a small free game that was released on steam and consisted of short puzzles that blocked you from getting demon girls to join your "harem", is an example of a game that gained an audience simply through being passionate about their project and sharing it with the internet. Other ways companies can market their games would consist of sponsering public figures, something indie devs would struggle if they have no funds for it, making a youtube channel showing the game, or going to expos where they show indie games.
Indie developers should make sure they don't go into an oversaturated marker simply because it makes money, they should find something they are passionate about and make it, this way if it makes money then great but if it doesn't you have still had a good time doing something you're passionate for.
Bibliography:
The Independent Production of Culture: A Digital Games Case Study (June 2009, Chase Bowen Martin & Mark Deuze)