The History of Indie

The term “Indie” within the game’s industry isn’t a modern concept. Indie developers have existed since the early 80’s in a number of different forms. To be an Indie Developer, the developers themselves need to be independent of any kind of publisher, self publishing their own content. In terms of Indie being a modern concept, I personally believe a distinction can be made between the Indie developers of the 80’s and 90’s, compared to Indie developers from the early 2000’s to now based upon changes in the industry witnessed within that time span.

The term Indie has become far from meaningless. Despite the fact that there are numerous AAA developers in the game’s industry as of today, the Indie scene is still strong and thriving, and from my own personal observation has only grown in strength with easy access to once privileged pieces of software and hardware that make creating a game much more of an easy feat. Anyone can make a game with the free industry standard software now available, compared to the 80’s and 90’s when to be a games designer you needed a number of degrees and qualifications in order to enter into the industry.

So in conclusion no, I don’t believe the term “Indie” has become meaningless, if anything it is among the last bastions of the Gaming Industries beating heart, which as of late has been drowned in poor buisness practices and scandals by a number of AAA companies and corporations.

Oddtales. (). The Last Night. Available: http://oddtales.net. Last accessed 7/12/17