Twenty years ago there were only a handful of game developers, so much so that Rockstar Games, the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption were considered as “Indie”.
Whilst Rockstar weren’t one of the biggest names in the industry at the time, by modern standards they were nowhere near as small as the developers that we would consider indie nowadays.
That’s because the video games industry has changed dramatically over the course of the past two decades. Indie games developers no longer create multi-million dollar franchises, instead they are creating new and exciting poker games and cutting edge mobile games.
In this article we take a deep dive into indie gaming, analysing how it got to where it is now and looking at some of the great games to have come out of the indie surge.
The Rise of Indie Game Development: How?
Twenty years ago if you wanted to create a video game you needed a whole lot more than a good idea and the nous to develop it yourself. Much like in the world of Hollywood, you needed to float the idea to financial backers and gaming studios.
That’s because games development was highly expensive and involved huge teams of highly trained individuals working in collaboration with one another over the course of years.
This all changed in 2007 when Steve Jobs and Apple released the iPhone, the world’s very first smartphone. We all know by now the many features that smartphones pioneered but one of the lesser known of innovations that Steve Jobs and the iPhone brought about was the Developer Program.
This program encouraged indie app and game developers by allowing them to use Apple technology to develop and distribute their own apps and games. Within a couple of years the gaming industry had undergone a huge fundamental shift.
Not only were there more people playing games than ever before but, for the first time ever, there were tens of thousands of games developers all producing their own varied and unique titles.
This 2007 mobile phone launch would go on to have a huge impact on the gaming industry.
Diversification
Prior to 2007 the video games industry was purely commercial, meaning that every decision taken by a development or production company came down to profit and loss. If a game was unique, captivating and featured the best in cutting edge graphics but didn’t sell lots of copies then it wasn’t going to last long.
The result was that there was an awful lot of replication in the video games industry with companies all trying to cash in on the success of a certain style of game. When Apple changed the market in 2007 and allowed a new platform for wannabe games developers we began to see a huge rise in the diversity of games being produced.
There were more simulation games, a great many more games catering for female players and a heap of games with interesting formats that would go on to shape the coming trends of the gaming industry.
In short, Apple’s decision to open up their development tools removed the barriers that many had to creating games, resulting in a tsunami of innovation and creativity.
Indie Success Stories
All of the above sounds good on paper right, but where are the real life examples? Well, here are two that almost perfectly encapsulate what we covered in the previous section.
Rocket League: Soccer with rocket powered cars… That’s what Rocket League has been described as and can you imagine the difficulty of trying to pitch that idea to EA Sports back in the mid-2000s?
With the ongoing rivalry between FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer there was no chance that a football game featuring rocket propelled cars could succeed. In 2015 fresh off the back of the indie gaming revolution Rocket League did just that.
Minecraft: It’s somewhat of an irony that Grand Theft Auto is the second highest selling game of all-time and is only pipped on the list by an actual indie game.
Created in Java Programming language by Markus Persson in 2011, Minecraft has gone on to become an AAA game in its own right but still manages to maintain some of its indie soul.
Despite being over a decade old, Minecraft is still hugely popular with gamers and streamers.
In Summary
Indie games development just wasn’t really possible twenty years ago because it took too much time and collaboration, not to mention money, to bring an idea to life. The rise of the smartphone and things like Apple’s developer program gave budding games developers the tools necessary to hone their craft and help bring their ideas to fruition.
This led to a huge amount of diversification in the gaming industry which has led to more inclusivity and, let’s be honest, a world of fun! Who doesn’t love the idea of scoring a thirty yard volley with a rocket propelled car or creating a recreation of your hometown on Minecraft?
