2.5 Fears over saturation and discoverability (2015−present).2.4 Shifting industry and increased visibility (2005−2014).2.3 Rise of indie games from digital distribution (2000−2005).2.2 Shareware and chasing the console (1990s).
Examples of successful indie games include the Touhou Project series, Cave Story, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft, Fez, Shovel Knight, Undertale, and Cuphead. Although the market did not collapse, discoverability remains an issue for most indie developers, with many games not being financially profitable. New industry opportunities arose since then, including new digital storefronts, crowdfunding and other indie funding mechanisms to help new teams get their games off the ground, low-cost and open-source development tools available for smaller teams across all gaming platforms, boutique indie game publishers that leave creative freedom to the developers, and industry recognition of indie games alongside mainstream ones at major game award events.Īround 2015, the increasing number of indie games being published led to fears of an "indiepocalypse", referring to an oversupply of games which would make the entire market unprofitable. A number of indie games at that time became success stories that drove more interest into the area. The modern take on the indie game scene resulted in a combination of numerous factors in the early 2000s, including technical, economic, and social concepts that made indie games less expensive to make and distribute, but more visible to larger audiences and offered non-traditional gameplay from the current mainstream games.
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So-called bedroom coders, particularly in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, made their own games and used mail order to distribute their products, later shifting to other software distribution methods with the onset of the Internet in the 1990s such as shareware and other file sharing distribution methods, though by this time, interest in hobbyist programming had waned due to rising costs of development and competition from video game publishers and home consoles. Indie game development bore out from the same concepts of amateur and hobbyist programming that grew with the introduction of the personal computer and the simple BASIC computer language in the 1970s and 1980s. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to lack of publisher support. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games, and may explore the medium to produce unique experiences in art games. However, the "indie" term may apply to other scenarios where the development of the game has some measure of independence from a publisher even if a publisher helps fund and distribute a game, such as creative freedom. An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games.
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