The Fifteen Different Types of Indie Games
In his recent article, The Evolution of Indie, Andy Schatz presents a look back on the world of indie games from a developer's perspective, as we saw it progress over last several years. It's much easier to see now, with hindsight, the direction things were going back in 2004. But it's still hard to see exactly where we're going to be in a few years.

But where are we now?

Andy indicates that the indie audience (yes, we have an audience now!) is beginning to actually form expectations these days. The audience expects indie games to be cheap (under $30). And... well, cool.

Cool?

Uh-oh. We're doomed.

Indie games have progressed along several different evolutionary branches over the last several years. For those unfamiliar with indie games, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the different types of indie games out there. I won't attempt to categorize these by game genre. Indie games cover far too broad of a territory for that. Mainstream games try hard to fit in easily marketable boxes, while indie games as a whole are all over the board and frequently violate boundaries. That's why I love 'em.

However, that doesn't mean there aren't some broad categories that might cover most of indie's target audience or development style. Indie games are made for a lot of different reasons, for a lot of different (but usually underserved) audiences. For the beginner trying to make sense of the question, "What is an indie game?", here are fifteen of the many different faces of indie:

#1 - Casual games: These aren't necessarily "indie" anymore. Back in the 90's and the earlier part of this decade, this was once almost exclusively the domain of indies. It was an area where small-budget teams could still put together a game and make it profitable. Until the big boys smelled money. It's gotten a lot more competitive recently, and not every casual game developer is indie.

#2 - Online Web-Based Games: Yes, you know 'em, you love 'em, and you've probably spent WAY too many hours playing them. Usually created in Flash, with a healthy helping of tons of amateur productions, you could waste your whole life playing these games. It is a wonderful refuge for the hobbyist.

#3 - Really Weird, Experimental, and/or Retro ... Stuff: The stuff that TIGSource is really into. And, to be honest, I am too... sometimes... If there's a game released for free that looks like a SNES title where you control the main character's middle finger, or an insanely slick and devilishly difficult shoot-em-up done entirely in shades of blue, this would be the place.

#4 - Commercial Console Indie Games: Small, flashy, hardcore console games. Most of the XBLA games for the XBox 360 would fall under this category, although it's getting into really fuzzy territory now that publishers (and, of course, Microsoft) are getting involved. Games by The Behemoth or NinjaBee go here. These indies are generally larger, more professional, and better-funded than most. But many also put second mortgages on their homes, lived on beans, and begged family members for investment capital to turn their dreams into reality, which to me sounds as indie as anybody.

#5 - "Serious Games": Those games that educate, inform, influence, train, and ... well, spread propaganda. Again, many might not be strictly defined as "indie," other than the fact they were made without the approval or support (or, usually, knowledge) of any of the mainstream industry.

#6 - "Alternative Core" Games: This is my favorite category. These are the kinds of games that would appeal to the "core" gamer, but address niches that are no longer served by the mainstream industry. Like space combat games, turn-based stategy games, certain kinds of RPGs, and adventure games. Or these are really unique takes on conventional "mainstream" genres. Like Depths of Peril's gutsy move to mix strategy and a dynamic world into a conventional action-RPG.

#7 - Mobile Games: Smaller games for phones and other handheld devices. Not always indie, but of a small-enough budget that usually only indie-level developers can afford to give it a go.

#8 - Retro Hardware Games: Games for obsolete machines. Like one of our community here making a game for the TI-99/4A. And a lot of folks making games for the old Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Gameboy, and obscure Japanese consoles. I really don't know what makes these developers tick, other than it being a pretty cool itch to scratch.

#9 - Indie MMOs: Low-budget "Massively Mutliplayer Online" games which seem to be everywhere these days. My daughters play some. These range from silly little HTML or Flash-based games (like Kingdom of Loathing - one of my favorites) all the way to major 3D clients and games developed by teams with an actual, you know.... budget.

#10 - Interactive Fiction: The text-based children of Zork. Nowadays, most of these are smaller titles created for competitions which focus more on... well, interactive storytelling... than the heavy puzzle-solving of the old days.

#11 - The Mods: The sometimes massive conversions of mainstream, commercial games to fit the needs and desires of talented fans. Fan mods can have a major transformative effect and bring new life to an old game, keeping it popular long past its usual lifecycle. What modded games may lose in terms of consistency and quality, they often make up for in scope and improved depth.

#12 - Advergaming: Small games (some of which would otherwise fit in category #2) designed specifically to push a product or service. I'm not positive these are classified as indie, but they are made without the support of any mainstream publisher or distributor, so I guess they count.

#13 - The Unfinished Hobbyist Projects: where there are all these alpha versions of games that show promise, but haven't been maintained or updated in years. I'd say more than 95% of "indie" projects fall into this category. Making games is HARD, and a lot of first-time game developers lose steam after the surge of awesome has worn off. Unfortunately, most of these aren't very playable, but there are some "perpetual alpha" projects out there which are very playable and very fun.

#14 - The Soul-To-Sell Offers: Indie games created primarily to land some kind of contract with a publisher or major studio. The developers may use it to showcase their talents to a prospective employer - as is often the case with game-school projects. Or the developers may be trying to get the game "picked up" by a studio. You don't hear much of these, because they aren't usually marketed (at least not well) to customers. They are more to showcase an idea to someone upstream. Believe it or not, that's how the hit game Outpost Kaloki came into being. The not-so-indie best-seller Portal got its start this way as the indie student project Narbacular Drop.

#15 - Retro Remakes: Re-envisioning of classic mainstream games using modern technology, or games that are clearly the "spiritual descendants" of a classic. Oftentimes these games start out as the former, and then after either a cease-and-desist order or a realization that they might actually like to make a few bucks for their hundreds of hours of labor. Then the project morphs into the latter.

#16 - Every Freakin' Other Thing: Hah, I snuck a sixteenth "non-category" in to my fifteen categories. While this is a lame catch-all category cop-out, indies are famous for breaking rules and molds. Many indies deliberately try to defy categorization. So this one is for them.

Of course, indies being who they are, they tend to resist being stuck conveniently in any one category. These categories overlap and curl into each other like a big ball of wibbley-wobbley, gamey-wamey... stuff. You could have a casual, serious, web-based game easily enough. In fact, I've played a few.

But the point is this: A lot of people concentrate on what indie gaming is. But really, indie gaming is really defined by the small subset of what it isn't. Indie is that "everything else" category of games created all kinds of ways, for all kinds of audiences, at all kinds of budgets. As Andy suggests - we've got categories of indie that are becoming their own thin, and may not even be considered "indie" anymore. They are growing up. The whole idea of what constitutes a "video game" is changing, and indie developers remain in the front of that revolution.

These are great times to be a gamer.

Labels: Indie Evangelism

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