Why were PC indie games neglected 10yrs ago?

Like, literally, no flying fucks were given about revolutionary games like Darwinia or Audiosurf outside the hermetic PC population. I feel the current market tendencies display a huge hypocrisy and are doing a huge disservice to all the great PC indie games which paved the way for what indie game market stands for now. Show PC some love. I just feel the majority of people believe X360 championed indie and now Sony has them on lockdown. Don't forget about Roboblitz or Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. Or countless others.

Indies didnt count as games because they werent on consoles that much, like MMO didnt count and RTS still doesnt count according to console gamers.

They were just games. PC gamers have always been into them. They were just games on Nintendo consoles too.

Indies weren't called indies until Sony and MS started trying to act like hipsters. Now the console community act like middle class wankers about them. "YAAA look at this cool little indie game I found... It's just sooo good, I'm like sooo obsessed with it... YAAAA".

Even on the 360 they were just called Arcade games, and Indies was a name given to the XNA (I think it's called) homebrew section I think. But shit got hip this gen when Sony made a big deal out of them. Now it's called the indie scene, and I throw up a little every time I say that.

Because "indie games aren't real games".

I remember playing heaps of indie games back in 2004-2005. They were free, easy to find, and could be transferred on USB sticks, so they spread pretty quickly at my high school.

I seem to remember they were pretty popular too...although it wasn't until Rag Doll Kung Fu hit Steam in late 2005 that 'indies' really took off.

Like some one said they probably weren't around and two lets be honest the PC wasn't nearly as big as it is now. Back then you Steam wasn't really a big deal or even around I think.

I don't know about all of that. The 360 was the home of quite a number of break out indie hits like Geometry Wars. That was something MS got really right last gen.

Videogamers tastes have diversified. Rather than waiting around for some multimillion dollar studio to get funding from a giant publisher so they can spent two or three years making a big $60 release or even $40 release, digital distribution and more liberal attitudes from the console makers towards these games have proven that they have a place for gamers.

The difference is, this generation, the console makers have had enough exposure to the indies and their ability to drive the market so they were much better prepared for them. Rather than being shoe-horned into the Store or Marketplace, indies were actually a part of the planning process for the new online and even the branding to a large degree. (By branding, I mean all the PR and trade shows appearances. Sony, particularly with the PS4).

The "rise" of the indie development scene we see this generation isn't so much from utter neglect last gen, but more like the evolution of more forethought from the platform makers. It's pretty obvious, especially from mobile phone gaming which wasn't too much of a thing when 360 launched or PS3, that these games can make huge money despite not demanding a full retail price tag. It's also very clear that given the right access to money and talent, these studios we consider indie now may be well on their way to being AAA studios by the time this generation is over.

I think the PC was more dead than ever 10 years ago and no one wanted anything to do with it unless it was BF2 or WoW.

Nailed it.

Many of us cared. Many of us cared.

Multiwinia is even better than Darwinia. It was a time when Spiderweb Software brought us some of the greatest little RPGs one could play and Ambrosia and Bungie were cranking out games that had an unheard of level of customization and native mod tools (yes, they are as powerful and sometimes more powerful than what Blizzard includes). And it was a time when Nexuiz didn't kind of stink...

I do remember fondly some of those indie game from yesterday.

Pretty much agree with most of this. Essentially its the delivery system of distribution that's changed. For an indie its next to impossible to win shelf space and compete cost wise with full blown titles in the store, but when you can digitally reach your customers all of a sudden it becomes a viable platform.

The media is bias to consoles. When "Braid" came along, it was overpraised and given unbalanced attention, as with most console titles.

I have read some ignorant things in System wars, but this one takes the cake. Indies have been a part of PC gaming as far back as the 80s. To claim they didn't exist 10 years ago is absurd.

Is this the latest attempt by sad lems claiming indies matter because teh microsoft now?

Because they all sucked.

Wolfenstein 3D was at one point an indie... jus' sayin'

To be honest I notice developers put in a little more pizzazz when their game comes to console like the trailers for console versions and all that

10 years ago they were just games. Even today they are just games to PC gamers.

LOL all console gamers are from Fargo?

Agreed. Probably because those posters weren't around gaming?

I wouldn't say neglected, but certainly lesser known. I also think, and computer tech gets better and better, It also makes indie games easier for your "basement" developer to create. That's good. More games for everyone.

I think indies only started being called indies when publishers were really the norm. It's a relative term. So yeah technically Wolfenstein 3d was developed by an independent group of people, but it's not really an indie. Whether it was independent or not at that point was irrelevant.

Wolfenstein 3D did find a publisher through Apogee Software (Later renamed 3D realms) but at first it was an indie game. My point is, indie games have always been a part of PC gaming, many indie games were shared for free through BBSes

Weren't most PC indie games before 2006 on free flash games or free downloadable games, sometimes also flash games?

AH yes because THOSE games envelope the entire indie department.. Not huge games like Divinity Original Sin, Torchlight etc etc.. You want to know why the "indie" scene emerged? Because back in the day publishers and developers actually liked developing/supporting smaller games that did not require making millions upon millions of sales in copies.. IF we look at something like Vampire the Masquerades Bloodlines (an amazing rpg).. It would most assurdely fall into what we would consider a indie title with it's budgeting.. People seem not to realize how big gaming has gotten.. The larger indie games of today are having bigger budgets and crews developing them then the games we saw 10 to 15 years ago.. Because during those times the PC was basically 99% exclusive, we didn't have the massive multi-plat releases that we have today..

The reason why the indie market exists now is because the publishers are looking for bigger and bigger pay days, and they are basically hoping onto the bandwagon of popular titles.. That is why we are seeing things like Capcom completely abandoning beloved franchises (like Megaman) where we then have the maker go out and create his own "indie" title of the said franchise.. And finally there are actually a huge platfrom for people to find said game to begin with on the pc.. 2005, Steam was in its infancy, and was basically only a VALVE based multiplayer and game service..

Or like how 1080p didn't count last gen, or like how online gaming didn't count, or like how mods don't count.

Everything PC has doesn't count unless consoles start doing it.

I remember playing it at my friend's dad office when it was new.

Because a decade ago there was such a thing as middle tier, and retail independent studios and shit, and in general the retail space on consoles and PC was all around more interesting in the sense that there was a balance of wide appeal friendly stuff and gaming enthusiast centric games that valued rich and deep gameplay above all else.

This past generation the budgets skyrocketed, triple A development became more and more conservative, the middle tier game basically died, and plenty of studios got closed and shit, so effectively a door closed, but as the saying goes a window opened for these smaller budgeted independent titles to come in and steal the spot light. The space offers games at more flexible prices, they come out in bunches, they aren't hyped up as the 2nd coming so the expectations are reasonable so the reactions to the games come off more genuine, the lack of production value means those games have to make sure they actual nail the gameplay because they can't just try to hide it behind cutscenes, and lets be real the scene flat out tries to do more interesting things than what's happening the in the Triple A space on balance.

Fact is gaming is becoming more hollywood. Rarely a big production based game will be one of the genuine best games of the year, otherwise for the enthusiasts who value the finer aspects of the medium the true gems are under the radar and independent work.

This is one of those obscure terms that has multiple definitions depending on who you talk to. Are you defining mid-tier by MSRP pricing, development cost (which we almost never have any data on), development team size, or quality of the final product? What are some examples of Mid-Tier games from previous generations? I tend to consider it as a certain development cost range although this is usually data that can only be guessed at because the industry is usually behind closed doors except for when they want you to buy something. Also with the rising cost of development there is going to be a shift in what is considered mid-tier. I certainly don't consider Grasshopper Manufacture or Platinum Games AAA developers because they often work with smaller teams and stricter budgets.

pretty much this and why the hell should people care about games on platforms they don't even game on? Do pc gamers really care about Journey or flower?

What a joke post. Independent projects obviously existed in 2005; they came into prominence because there were online marketplaces that allowed for more public recognition and for the sale of them, but websites like NewGrounds have existed for a long while, and developers would post games on their personal websites for download. Journalists also started giving them recognition which helped them gain popularity.

Alien Hominid (2002 Flash 2004 GBA/GC/PS2)

Warning Forever (2003)

Cave Story (2004)

Jump 'n Bump (1998)

Lugaru (2005)

Crystal Caves (1991)

Armagetron Advanced (2001)

Darwinia did pretty well I think, but of course nothing compared to the likes of survival early access games.

I think the general reason is that back then there were still many great games that would be classed as "big budget". They weren't aiming at the kind of markets the big budget games do now, in those days you could easily make money without selling a million.

These days the time between releases, and the mass market design of games pushes people into games that are targeted at specific audiences. Or, the reason indie games are doing well is because some games have excessive budgets and people turn to niche titles. In fact I would go as far as saying that some indie games would have budgets not that much lower than the large games from 15 years ago.

The market infrastructure has changed a lot in the last ten years. Average internet speeds have increased and digital distribution platforms have become very popular. It's not that indie games have literally appeared from nowhere, they're just much more accessible, less costly to market and distribute and hence more profitable to make.

"Indie" games didn't exist 10 years ago. What we see today as indie are basically normal budgeted/sized games for 10 years ago. x360/ps3 became problems for developers so AAA games became too expensive to make for everything. Segregation began and we now have two very explicit tiers of game developers.

Thanks for the clarification.

The Technology became more readily available.

Just look how the Internet became more involved in Consoles and PC gaming over the past 10 years.

There weren't many or any digital distribution networks for the mass market for them to use. If you have to print hard copies of your small budget game, you'd probably run at a significant loss...

AAA games weren't as shit as today and Steam/DD wasn't as popular.

Indies back then were often released as shareware. Many shareware games found their way into magazine add-on disks/disc. They never went away. The distribution method(s) may have changed. But, they've always been around.

For early 90's, the quality of shareware were quite good. By that that time, many people with PCs had modems. Modem to modem play was pretty common. I recall playing the shareware version of Doom long before the full game was released. I can't seem to remember how I got it though. But, playing Doom MP on an IPX LAN was awesome.

That period of time wasn't really that backward (maybe it was at the console side), there were many BBSes where you can download shareware games or demos of commercial games. Hell. Some online games were quite popular such as Air Warrior.

Looks like a few people don't know the difference between flash games and indie games, the shit you played 10 years ago on your browser/newgrounds was not indie games, they were flash games.

There weren't as accessible to user. They still got popular and had big enough audiences, but Steam was barely starting back then, there were no bundles, letsplays didn't exist either. All of those allowed indie games to get much more widespread recognition.

Plus the problem was that a lot of indie games in early 00s were very console-like. It took a w while before indie devs saw collapse of PC centric genres in retail and started to fill in the gaps. Plus there's no denying that consoles helped to improve the credibility of indie scene as a whole, benefiting even modern PC-only indies.

THat said, Darwinia was very big back in the day. Much bigger than most of modern indie games hype-wise. And once they put it on Steam, the sales exploded. And Space Rangers 2 never was an indie game. It had regular publisher, retail versions etc. And just like Darwinia, it got very good scores and recognizability.

Most of Flash games were indie games. Unless some portal paid you to specifically create flash game specifically for their website, but that happened extremely rarely

You do realize flash games are free right (literally majority of the time) that run on a browser (like newgrounds) or a mobile device, basically anyone can make em on adobe if you have the basic understanding of it.

So like I said majority of the people here don't know the difference between a flash game and a indie game.

And? What does them being free have anything to do with them being indie or not? Especially since plenty of them were actually making money for developers.

And yes, there's a difference between flash and indie game. In that pretty much ever flash game was a indie game, but not every indie game was a flash one.

.....ignorance suits you well doesn't it

Flash games RUN ON BROWSERS, holy shit. Flash games do not equal indie games, flash games ARE MADE FROM ADOBE or other flash software and are played through internet browsers, hence why they were even called flash games. While indie games are primarily played through digital distribution (whether it's free or paid), specially now and days when you have GMG, Steam and other DD services.

You have zero clue what you're talking about. Somehow you assumed platforms decide if a game is indie or not? Why the hell? Indie game is simply a game made by indepedent company, without backing of any publisher. At most some groups make additional condition that the team has to be small. Either way flash games fit.

Have you started playin games only in last few years? Because it really feel like you've not only were not around the indie explosion of browser games, but also you weren't around in 90s where indie games were distributed as shareware through mail.

Also..it's pretty funny that for somebody accusing other people of ignorance you don't even realize flash games can be complied to run as standalone desktop software, the same as any retail game.