I'm currently writing a paper on indie game development (not like there aren't enough papers out there) but I wanted to do it from a historical perspective. First things first though, I need to define what an indie game is. According to the IDGA indie SIG, an indie game developer is someone who; "Not having any formal relationship with a publisher." I really dislike that definition. It leaves it too wide open. I mean, what about all those adver-gaming companies. They're not affiliated with any publisher, but they do have to abide by outside influences, therefore canceling their independent status. According to that definition an indie title is defined by the company’s alliances. I don't like that, not one bit because you need to have alliances if you want your game to be sold on any large scale. Hmmm... So I thought about it for a while and created my own definition. I wanted to see what you guys think before continuing any further. You know what really sucks is that I had this beautiful definition lined up and then I went to spell check and somehow my connection was lost and the definition went into virtual la la land. Grrr... So here's my second attempt: "An indie game is any game that is created without the direct or indirect control via outside influences. Outside influences include, but are not limited to publishers, consultants, and/or producers not affiliated with the company producing the game." - Not nearly as good as the first, you should have seen the first, damn spellcheck! This definition decouples the necessity to define relationships and alliances while limiting the definition strictly to the content, not the means of which a game was made. You see, after talking with a friend of mine who has worked on so called "indie movies" I asked him to define what an indie movie was, and he started laughing. He said the most impactful definition so far. Still laughing, he said "It's nothing more then a buzzword, no such movie exists" What do you guys think? What would you define an indie game to be? -Ken Noland

From ye old Dexterity faq's

Quote: The simple definition is that an indie developer creates games independently. That is, the indie developer is the sole creative and financial force behind the games. No outside publisher funds the creation of the indie's games, and no other entities exert creative control over the content.

very good...

I like!

-Ken Noland

I think it's important to emphasize the "publisher funds" aspect since very few indies self-finance for long. Most indies follow the traditional business model

1) the three f's: Friends, Family, and I forget the third.
2) Bank Loans
3) Venture Capatalists, Angel Investors, or outside investors

While the third one could be seen as counter to the freedom that is critical for an Indie, consider that the VC or other investors will be mostly concerned with how you run your business and exert no creative control whereupon a publisher is the exact opposite, they dont' give a rats ass about how you run things as long as their vision for what your product should be is accomplished.

Furthermore, you are right to be disdainful of the IGDA definition since alot of indies get formal relationships with publishers for purely distribution needs and not for startup funds.

So what you're saying is to try to define an indie developer by it's means of financing?

To define it just by it's means of funding doesn't make sense to me, since an indie *should* be classified by it's creative control over the content, but how much control? How do you define the limits of control to be indie or not?

To define it by team size also doesn't make sense to me. I've seen huge teams assembled(35+) for indie projects, only those games never made it to market... much to my surprise(sarcastic).

However, that link posted above contains the clearest definition so far so I'm going to run with it for the purposes of my paper.

http://nippbit.blogspot.com

-Ken Noland