[Indie Game Development] Indie Game Revolution!

The creator of Braid, Jonathan Blow, indie game developer Chris Hecker (who is currently working on SpyParty), and MineCraft creator Markus Persson join up in an interview for Game Trailers’ bonus round episode 503, “Indie Game Revolution!“. I personally found it very interesting to watch not only because of who the interview was with but also that they mentioned a lot of great things which any game developer should know.

In the video they talk about what being indie means. There are many defenitions to the term indie but there are a few which stand out the most. Usually indie means creating games while having the creative freedom to do almost anything you want. Certainly there are other factors that influence your choices but as a general rule, your own creativity and drive for creating games is what determine what does or doesn’t get into the game.

They talk about the risk/reward factors of being indie versus working at a big company. Many people make the mistake of quitting their jobs and going full time indie too soon believing they can simply just dive head on and make enough money to survive. Having sustainability is crutial for indies. A lot of what you earn in the past project is going to be the budget of your next game so you can’t simply go overboard because you still have to pay your bills while trying to get up on your feet as an indie game developer.

One thing they mention is how to get started as an indie developer. Some people believe that they need to take a big leap. This isn’t really true because of all the possible ways to get into industry. There’s PC (downloadable and web games), Xbox Live Indie Games, PSN, Steam, iOS, and other game platforms which have a lot of support from the internet and indie game fan

Becoming an indie game developer isn’t really impossible as some people think but if you wish to get into designing games as an indie developer you still have to make smart choices and work very hard.