Indie development research pt1
This year I am a 'coal miner' I need to start digging until I hit gold and keep on going. In other words I need to research into my interest this year until I find exactly what I want to base my MA on. To start off my research I am looking into Indie development.
So what is indie development? what does it mean?
To me:
An Indie developer is a small company that produces game by them selves without a help of a publisher.
Dictionary definition (wikipedia definition as its not in the dictionary):
Is the video game development process of creating indie games; these are video games, commonly created by individual or small teams of video game developers and usually without significant financial support of a video game publisher or other outside source. These games may take years to be built from the ground up or can be completed in a matter of days or even hours depending on complexity, participants, and design goal. [1]
However because 'Indie development' is such a vague term it can mean lots of things, It can mean 1 person or a large team as long as they are producing games independently. It could mean a person that contracts others to make the games for them; Its so open, some games take a couple days to make and some up to 3 years. There is no set type of Indie company; therefore I am just going to start off looking at 4 of my favourite indie company's and see how much information I can find about them and the game/s they have made. (I will be using Wikipedia for the moment to get the main bullet points as it's the quickest but if I want to delve deeper later on I will be using other sources)
Thatgamecompany:
Founded in 2006 by University students. [2]
They were final year master students. [3]
The company doesn't want to make large AAA games due to them believing that "pressure for high sales would strife innovation". Wikipedia (2016, para. 2) [4]
Contracted to produce 3 games by Sony for the upcoming PlayStation network distribution system. [5]
Made a game called Cloud in Uni with several other people and decided to move on and make a company. [3]
Flower [19]:
6-9 people were involved in the making [6]
Jenova Chen (co-founder) took the role of creative director [6]
The music was composed by Vincent Diamante [6]
Game was developed for 2 years [6]
3/4 of that time spent on development was on prototyping [6]
The rest of the game was developed in 6 months [6]
Won "best independent game of 2009" at the Spike Video Game Awards. Wikipedia (2016, para 2) [7]
Won "Casual Game of the Year" award by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Wikipedia (2016, para 2) [7]
Metacritic score of 91 [8]
Estimated to have sold at least 100,000 copies [9]
Currently sells for £6.49 on the PlayStation store [10]
Flower [46]
Journey [20]:
Developed by a team of 18 [11]
The game was in development for 3 years [12]
I was originally expected to take 1 year [12]
Over the course of the game the company increased their employees from 7 to 18 [13]
'Jenova Chen was the creative director'. Wikipedia (2016, para. 8) [11]
'Nick Clark was the lead designer'. Wikipedia (2016, para. 8) [11]
At the D.I.C.E. Awards 'Journey won 8 awards, the most honors received of the night (which includes "Game of the Year", "Outstanding Innovation in Gaming", "Casual Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction", "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction", "Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay", "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition", and "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design")'. Wikipedia (2016, para. 19) [14]
'At the Spike Video Game Awards, Journey won awards as the best PlayStation 3 game,the best indie game, and the game with the best music' Wikipedia (2016, para. 20) [15]
'It won five awards at the 2013 British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards: Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Game Design, Online Multiplayer and Original Music, and was nominated for Best Game, Game Innovation and Story.' Wikipedia (2016, para. 20) [15]
Metacritic score of 92 [16]
'4000 units sold in its first week after release' Wikipedia (2016, para. 17) [17]
Currently sells for £11.99 on the PlayStation store [18]
Jouney [47]
Toby Fox: Undertale [21]:
Produced by one person (Toby Fox) [22]
Toby Fox was the designer, Artist and composer [23]
Was developed over 2.7 years [24]
Was financed through crowdfunding via Kickstarter [24]
Outsourced some additional art work but everything else was done by him [23] [25]
It won Game of the Month from Rock, Paper, Shotgun in 2015 [26]
It won Funniest Game on PC from Rock, Paper, Shotgun in 2015 [26]
It won Best Game Ever from GameFAQs in 2015 [26]
It won Game of the Year from The Jimquisition in 2015 [26]
It won Best PC Game from Destructoid in 2015 [26]
It won Game of the Year from Zero Punctuation in 2016 [26]
It won PC Game of the Year from IGN in 2016 [26]
It won Best Story from IGN in 2016 [26]
It won the Audience Award from Independent Games Festival Awards in 2016 [26]
It won the Most Fulfilling Crowdfunded Game from SXSW Gaming Awards in 2016 [26]
It won the Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award from SXSW Gaming Awards in 2016 [26]
Metacritic score of 92 [27]
Has sold around 2 million copies [28]
Currently sells for £6.99 on Steam [29]
Undertale [48]
Campo Santo: Firewatch [30]
First game from Campo Santo [31]
2 of the founders Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman, were the creative leads of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead [32] [33]
11 people worked on it [33]
They have a dev blog
Was in development for more than 2 years [34]
Nominated for Unity Award for Best Desktop/Console Game in 2016 [35]
Won the Unity Award for Best 3D Visuals in 2016 [35]
'Nominated for the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards for Best Original Game, Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Best Indie Game and Playstation Game of the Year.' Wikipedia (2016, para. 16) [35]
Sold 500,000 copies in its first month [35]
Metacritic score of 81 [36]
Currently sells for £14.99 on Steam [37]
Firewatch [49]
Mojang: Minecraft [38]
Originally made solely by Markus Persson [39]
Mojang was created during the development of Minecraft as Persson needed more people [40]
Within a year of starting the company it had grown to a size of twelve employees [41]
After being a hit on PC it was moved to mobile devices and consoles
He stated "The sales curve has always been extremely tightly connected to the development speed. The more I work on the game and talk about new features, the more it sells." Handy, A. (2010, para. 16) [42]
Persson sold Mojang to Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion [41]
It was listed as the 4th best game to play at work by PC Gamer in 2010 [42]
It was chosen as the Best Downloadable Game of 2010 by Good Game [42]
It was named the '8th best game of the year' as well as the '8th best indie game of the year by Gamasutra [42]
It won Game of the Year from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. [42]
It was awarded the Indie of the Year Award in 2010 from Indie DB. [42]
It won the Game of the Year from PC Gamer UK [42]
It has also been nominated and won lots of other wards. [42]
Has sold more than 107.86 million copies [43]
Metacritic score of 93 [44]
Currently sells for £17.95 [45]
Minecraft [50]
After looking into some successful games and companies Its clear to see that there is no set number of people behind the making of a game and that the amount of people working on a game does not reflect its success. Next I am going to look into what makes a game successful and unsuccessful.
Bibliography:
[1] WIKIPEDIA (2016, para. 1) Independent video game development. [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_video_game_development [Accessed 08/11/16]
[2] WIKIPEDIA (2016, para. 1) Thatgamecompany. [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatgamecompany [Accessed 08/11/16]
[3] WIKIPEDIA (2016, para. 3) Thatgamecompany. [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatgamecompany [Accessed 08/11/16]
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