AOIA Rampant Coyote Interview, Part II
Looks like part 2 of the Alley of Infinite Angles interview with me is up. With a commentary! We really got more into biz aspects on this side. It sounds like I left Sun-ha a little bit wanting... perhaps because I didn't feel strongly that there were any real answers to his questions. In fact, I'm really interested in what other answers you guys come up with.

Anyway, here's Part II of my interview at the Alley of Infinite Angles.

And here's Sun-ha Hong's commentary.

I felt I was pretty upbeat about things. That's conscious. But I'm the first to admit that I don't see a "golden age of indie" anywhere on the horizon. The indies aren't going to be rising up and overthrowing the yoke of the big business overlords anytime soon. Feel free to sing "Won't Get Fooled Again" at this point.

You could say that indies are everything that the entrenched "institution" isn't, defining indie game developers by the mainstream. Except that isn't true, either. There are indies that treat approach the business side of making their own games exactly like the mainstream - with the exception of finding their own financing for their game. Indies are pretty much just about doing it their own way, and the mainstream dominance is simply just one more obstacle.

As to the question of why there isn't some kind of centralized "hub" of indie games - there really have been several that have been attempted, from portals to review sites to webrings to The Great Games Experiment. Every few months, someone proposes another one. Indies being who we are, we tend not to agree on details, and many of these projects die in infancy or just never quite hit the level of penetration they need. Trying to do anything like this requires some standardization and prioritization that is not beneficial to all indies, and will never seem fair to everybody.

What it really comes down to is that indies - the real indies - have that whole "independent spirit" thing going for them and don't want to be ever have their success chained down by something they have no control over. They may cooperate with these projects, but they won't make concessions to them. Why should they? They have their own businesses to run, and their own games to make.

That being said - there are also a lot of indies who are constantly looking for better ways to cooperate. I've noticed that many of the more successful indies out there seem happy to help out others... within reason. I'm on a few forums where the old vets are constantly batting ideas back and forth about how we can better pool our resources to improve things for everyone.

Labels: Biz, Indie Evangelism, Interviews

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:24 AM (Permalink)