I kinda feel like Clair Obscur is sort of stretching the definition of indie game.
I guess _technically _ it is.
I’m not saying every game needs to be made in someone’s garage and take 12 years to make, but it sounds like this game was completely funded by Kepler and parts of the game were outsourced to other companies. Sandfall is made up of experienced developers from places like Ubisoft. Kinda feels like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise made their own movie with funding from a lesser known subdivision of Warner Bros, outsourced SFX to 300 animators, and called it indie because they filmed it with 10 people.
I do think Clair Obscur is a fantastic game and deserves to be Game of the Year (aside from the AI use). Sandfall and Kepler did a great job with a reported budget of $10M(!) and I especially appreciate what Kepler is doing to support the gaming industry.
I guess I see the point of the award to inspire people to believe they shouldn’t give up on their dreams by recognizing small teams making games outside of the traditional industry. I just don’t feel like Sandfall qualifies.
In the end, it’s not my award and they can give it to whoever they want!
I agree with your take. The definition of what an “indie” is is very vague and subjective, but given the budget and resources and circumstances of E33’s development it seems outside the scope of what seems to be the “spirit of the award”.
Blue Prince should have gotten the award to begin with.
Well the definition for indie is independently published. Its not vague in its self, but the way people have started to use the word have changed its meaning to from something well defined to something more feeling based consept. I personally dont like it. People counted game like Dave the Diver to be an indie game when it had huge company Nexon publishing it.
If followed by the original meaning of the word Blue Prince is not indie game either. It was published by Raw Fury, but Baldurs gate 3 would be indie as Larian published it.
Indie as a word is like AI. It does not follow its original definition and because people have became used to misusing the word it has became the new norm.
People didn’t call Dave the Diver an indie game. The Game Awards nominated it in that category, and rightly got a lot of shit for it.
Indie is a fraught and vague term in whatever genre of culture it gets applied to. During the early 00s indie music era you had tons of mass produced “indie rock” pushed out by big labels too.
Everyone kind of knows what it’s supposed to mean: small budget, small crew, independent of the major commercial publishers/labels/whatever. But there will always be edge cases in both directions.
Plenty of people called Dave the Diver indie game. There are also lots of reviews from the time that call it indie game, both from youtubers and “real reviewers” like IGN.
We can talk forever what indie means personally for everyone and everybody who has a opinion has little different view.
But originally in both movies and music indie meant indepented publishment. That means the artist have no oblications for outside parties and can freely and without restrictions carry out their own artistic vision. Budget or crew size has nothing to do with it. Only reason people associate it with small teams is that largest portion of indepentedly published projects were done by small teams and or passion projects.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is indie movie with budget of 220 million while average hollowood movie budget is somewhere between 100-150 million . Hell, passion of the crist, had budget of 30million and is maybe one of the most famous indie movies.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
I kinda feel like Clair Obscur is sort of stretching the definition of indie game.
I guess _technically _ it is.
I’m not saying every game needs to be made in someone’s garage and take 12 years to make, but it sounds like this game was completely funded by Kepler and parts of the game were outsourced to other companies. Sandfall is made up of experienced developers from places like Ubisoft. Kinda feels like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise made their own movie with funding from a lesser known subdivision of Warner Bros, outsourced SFX to 300 animators, and called it indie because they filmed it with 10 people.
I do think Clair Obscur is a fantastic game and deserves to be Game of the Year (aside from the AI use). Sandfall and Kepler did a great job with a reported budget of $10M(!) and I especially appreciate what Kepler is doing to support the gaming industry.
I guess I see the point of the award to inspire people to believe they shouldn’t give up on their dreams by recognizing small teams making games outside of the traditional industry. I just don’t feel like Sandfall qualifies.
In the end, it’s not my award and they can give it to whoever they want!
A DBD creator I like made a video about this topic, and the degradation of the term.
The Second Wind folks put out a video yesterday about what defines an indie game. Short answer: these days pretty much it’s just vibes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4NPjw71ss
I agree with your take. The definition of what an “indie” is is very vague and subjective, but given the budget and resources and circumstances of E33’s development it seems outside the scope of what seems to be the “spirit of the award”.
Blue Prince should have gotten the award to begin with.
Well the definition for indie is independently published. Its not vague in its self, but the way people have started to use the word have changed its meaning to from something well defined to something more feeling based consept. I personally dont like it. People counted game like Dave the Diver to be an indie game when it had huge company Nexon publishing it.
If followed by the original meaning of the word Blue Prince is not indie game either. It was published by Raw Fury, but Baldurs gate 3 would be indie as Larian published it.
Indie as a word is like AI. It does not follow its original definition and because people have became used to misusing the word it has became the new norm.
People didn’t call Dave the Diver an indie game. The Game Awards nominated it in that category, and rightly got a lot of shit for it.
Indie is a fraught and vague term in whatever genre of culture it gets applied to. During the early 00s indie music era you had tons of mass produced “indie rock” pushed out by big labels too.
Everyone kind of knows what it’s supposed to mean: small budget, small crew, independent of the major commercial publishers/labels/whatever. But there will always be edge cases in both directions.
Plenty of people called Dave the Diver indie game. There are also lots of reviews from the time that call it indie game, both from youtubers and “real reviewers” like IGN.
We can talk forever what indie means personally for everyone and everybody who has a opinion has little different view.
But originally in both movies and music indie meant indepented publishment. That means the artist have no oblications for outside parties and can freely and without restrictions carry out their own artistic vision. Budget or crew size has nothing to do with it. Only reason people associate it with small teams is that largest portion of indepentedly published projects were done by small teams and or passion projects.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is indie movie with budget of 220 million while average hollowood movie budget is somewhere between 100-150 million . Hell, passion of the crist, had budget of 30million and is maybe one of the most famous indie movies.