Independent Versus Mainstream Games

Kristen, author of the blog Historical Character Creation, asked if I could explain the difference between indie games and the more mainstream titles in a comment on my my "indie games showcase" post. I apologize for being so late to answer your question, but I intend to answer it to the best of my abilities.


While neither mainstream nor indie games have a standard definition, the two can be examined best by looking at a few key factors.


Indie Games


The generic indie game, in my opinion, would be a game designed by either a small team or even one person, and uses what little budget it has to create the game they want to create. Indie developers are free to push boundaries and discuss powerful themes that mainstream games do not. However, let me break this down idea down and include some research. An example of an indie game would be Lone Survivor or Journey.




Creative Control


I would like to open with a quote from Q&A session on Gamasutra about indie games by Thomas Arundel of Introversion Software, and creator of Darwinia.


"Indie games are important because the challenge the current status quo in the games industry. Independent games take risks and push the game play boundaries that licensed, franchised & sequel games rarely do, and everyone benefits. Gamers benefit from new experiences and perhaps new emotions that only truly innovative games can deliver. The industry benefits through the introduction and testing of novel ideas & techniques that can be used to enhance larger games. Larger studios are often responsible for technical innovation, but it's independent studios that push the boundaries of creative innovation." (Staff, 2007)


The point that Arundel makes is that independent games offer developers a chance to take creative risks that would no be allowed when working on a mainstream game, which are geared towards safe marketability and making a profit (p83). 


Community


The recent Molyjam, a gamejam (a rapid game protyping marathon, as described by the Ludum Dare website (Ludum Dare, 2012)) inspired by the ideas of parody Twitter account @PeterMolydeux is a perfect example of how independent gaming has grown into a massive community of developers and gamers. At the time of this writing the website for the Molyjam is down, but I will attempt to explain the event. In March of this year, Double Fine programmer Anna Kipnis suggested creating a gamejam based on the insane game ideas of Peter Molyneux parody Peter Molydeux (Sheffield, 2012). Soon after her tweet, the first international Molyjam began. Over 200 games were created for the event, which I cannot provide a link to since the Molyjam site is down.


Budget


While indie games enjoy creative control, one of the major drawbacks in comparison to mainstream game is an almost complete lack of outside funding (Dumont, 2012). Not having the money to purchase software or for advertising can make developing an indie game an uphill battle, according to Dumont's article on Gamasutra (Dumont, 2012).


Mainstream


Mainstream games are often big-budget titles created under the watchful eye of a publisher, who directly fund the game. Examples of mainstream games include Call of Duty: Mondern Warefare 3 and Final Fantasy XIII. Mainstream games tend to have much larger budgets than their independent counterparts due to funding the developers receive from publishers. These games also have massive teams working to create a game in a shorter amount of time while creativity is lost in favor of safe products that are almost guaranteed to return a profit.


In short, the difference between these two types of games in similar to the difference between indie films and mainstream blockbusters.






References

Berbank-Green, B., Cusworth, N., & Thompson, J). (2007, March 9). Game Design Course: Principles, Practice, and Techniques--the Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Game Designer. Retrieved From: http://books.google.com/books?id=Zyh4HXuHTPMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Dumont, V. (2012, April 20). Drawbacks of Being Indie [Article]. Retrieved From: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/VincentDumont/20120420/168838/Drawbacks_of_being_indie.php

Gamasutra. (2007, October 4). Q&A: Independent Game Creators On Importance Of Indie Movement [Article]. Retrieved From: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/15743/QA_Independent_Game_Creators_On_Importance_Of_Indie_Movement.php

Ludum Dare. (2012). About Ludum Dare [About Page]. Retrieved From: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/about-ludum-dare/

Sheffield, B. (2012, April 3). Postmortem: What Would Molydeux – A Global Game Jam [article]. Retrieved From: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/167882/Postmortem_What_Would_Molydeux__a_global_game_jam.php