Discussion The term "Indie Game" means very little anymore (or how I had a crisis of faith when considering if Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an indie game)

[SoldierDelta]

TLDR - Indie games as a term has faded a lot in terms of what they actually mean as a result of larger-scale titles being able to be made by smaller teams while AAA companies can make smaller titles that resemble tiny development teams' efforts.



This evening I had to ask myself a serious question and I directly blame this tweet for my rabbit hole of questions:



Sandfall Interactive, developers and publishers of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (I'll get back to this in a second), is a video game studio formed in 2020 of former-Ubisoft developers and released a very damn good looking trailer at the Xbox Games Summer Showcase 2024. I cannot recommend looking at it enough, especially since it seems to be a stellar showcase of Unreal Engine 5 while having great elements pulled from all sorts of clear inspirations like Persona, Dishonored, Final Fantasy VIII, Demon Souls, Yakuza and so on. You can actually look at these inspirations on their Team page where it lists all the developers and their favorite games... all 32 people at Sandfall... including the dog. Hell, the composer, Lorien Testard, isn't listed. That's 33 total team members (oh so that's why they call it that).

Huh that's a very small team for the title's quality that we saw... would that make them an indie team?


"Oh that doesn't matter, they're being published by Kepler Interactive, they're clearly like Annapurna or 505, it's not an indie game."


Good point, even if Stray is considered an indie... as was Neon White, Cocoon, Artful Escape, and Ashen (foreshadowing it a literary device in which-). However, let's look at Kepler interactive's history and founding members:

[The Following Source is from Wikipedia for Kepler Interactive]:

Kepler Interactive was founded in September 2021 by CEO Alexis Garavaryan, the co-founder behind Kowloon Nights, a game development fund. Self-described as a "super developer" publishing group, Kepler was initially co-owned by seven independent studios: A44 (known for developing Ashen), Alpha Channel, Awaceb, Ebb Software, Shapefarm, Sloclap (known for developing Absolver) and Timberline Studio. Each participating studio had "equal say" on the publishing label's decision-making process and were able to share resources and financial gains, but Kepler itself will not interefere with the operations of each studio, allowing them to stay independent

Ah... so essentially it's a bunch of indie developers in a trenchcoat.

In 2023, (...) (a)dditional developers (were made partners), including The Gentlebros (the developer behind the Cat Quest series) and new studio Sandfall Interactive also joined Kepler

So basically Sandfall just self-published this game with the assistance of funding and publishing from fellow developers.

You get where I'm going with this. Sandfall Interactive is technically an indie studio making an original project detached from corporate meddling. I know people were saying Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3 was an indie studio/game (a statement I don't really agree with), but this is literally just an indie game following the definition set out by various folks.

This game:

After the Dave the Diver controversy after last year's The Game Awards, I need to ask... does the "indie game" term actually mean anything anymore? Sure there are one-man developed titles like this year's Balatro, Manor Lords or Buckshot Roulette, but the definition laid out long ago about how an independent studio - free from any executive or publisher oversight - is able to make the game they want without large financial or technical support... it just doesn't mean anything anymore. There's practically no point in splitting pixel-art management/action-adventure games and full-scale French-JRPGs on modern technology.

I want to know what you all think about my inane ramblings about the futility of limiting what an indie game can or can't be because I honestly don't think "indie game" is a term that has any weight anymore, especially with a title like Clair Obscure (or Flintlock: The Seige of Dawn which similarly is a Kelper Interactive-published title made by a team of 30-odd people).

 

[soundchaser]

This happened with American “indie” film in the 90s — a move from a practically reality of funding and production to a brand co-opted by major studios. You’ll tie yourself in knots trying to figure it out.

 

[Koti]

If this game is made by 33 people, AAA game has no excuse. Although we shouldn't jump the gun since the game hasn't released yet. Like we all expected, we will certainly see more "indie games" near AAA level with Unreal Engine 5 and AI implementation. However, I think it's important to note that indie devs crunch a lot, which isn't acceptable for modern AAA studios. That can make a huge difference.

 

[Concernt]

I think you're right, indie almost seems more like a vibe than anything. Where on earth can we draw the line? Is there a size limit? A team number limit? I had the thought of, "if it's not publicly traded and isn't a subsidiary, it's indie", but there are some seriously big companies that are, well, privately held.

If you want a real kicker, Snipperclips is a Nintendo published game, but the team was indie. I don't think anyone seriously considers SnipperClips an indie game - Snipperclips Plus is a full size, boxed, retail, Nintendo published title.

 

[RoyalGoldenFES]

This happened with American “indie” film in the 90s — a move from a practically reality of funding and production to a brand co-opted by major studios. You’ll tie yourself in knots trying to figure it out.

This is actually a pretty good way of describing it now that you mentioned it, especially with major publishers occasionally publishing games that’d be considered indie games otherwise (recent examples: Tales of Kenzera by EA, Powerwash Simulator by Square Enix, etc.). It pretty much just means a game made without much influence from the major publishers at this point.

In a sense, they’ve also basically replaced what used to be “AA” games that the likes of Japan Studio or one of Nintendo’s satellite studios would have made, hence why you also see random indie games like Eternights or Snipperclips or Palworld get major publishing/exclusivity deals nowadays.

 

[SoldierDelta]

This happened with American “indie” film in the 90s — a move from a practically reality of funding and production to a brand co-opted by major studios. You’ll tie yourself in knots trying to figure it out.

I think I remember hearing about that. Tbh it'd be a good practice for modern games with massively inflated budgets, but it's also still kinda insane that I can look at BG3, Dave the Diver and Clair Obscur and say that the pixel art game is the least indie of the bunch. It's honestly maddening but also kinda cool in it's own way.

If this game is made by 33 people, AAA game has no excuse. Although we shouldn't jump the gun since the game hasn't released yet. Like we all expected, we will certainly see more "indie games" near AAA level with Unreal Engine 5 and AI implementation. However, I think it's important to note that indie devs crunch a lot, which isn't acceptable for modern AAA studios. That can make a huge difference.

I should clarify that on the team page, 31 people are listed, including people who perform admin, CEO duties, marketing, COO, etc. The additional 2 are from the composer who seems to be a freelancer who just happened to cook very hard (seriously listen to the OST, it goes so damn hard) and their emotional support dog. In reality it's around 27 people actually working on the game with the rest performing key roles within the company. That's still insanity.

The note about crunch is very likely and unfortunate, but it would make sense as to why this game looks this good in the span of 4 years.

I think you're right, indie almost seems more like a vibe than anything. Where on earth can we draw the line? Is there a size limit? A team number limit? I had the thought of, "if it's not publicly traded and isn't a subsidiary, it's indie", but there are some seriously big companies that are, well, privately held.

If you want a real kicker, SnipperClips is a Nintendo published game, but the team was indy. I don't think anyone seriously considers SnipperClips an indy game - SnipperClips Plus is a full size, boxed, retail, Nintendo published title.

It's a maddening search to find what it actually means. The best definition is that "If it needs to answer to a higher power, it's not indie". SnipperClips still likely had heavy supervision from Nintendo, meanwhile something like Clair Obscur only really needed to report to Creative Director/CEO, Guillaume Broche... who was directly working on the game.

It's essentially a fruitless discussion where one could see a title like Stray and say "well it still needed to answer to a publisher"... but Annapurna is fairly hands off overall right? So does that even matter at that point? If indie games are just "smaller games", then that includes games that are decidedly not indie like Dave the Diver, to the point we might as well just call them smaller games?

There's so many technicalities in this discussion but it's actually really interesting. I also just think it's cool that games like Clair Obscur can be made to the quality that they're achieving. If this is the game that shows where the game industry is heading, then I'm very alright with this.

 

[SirArthur]

If this game is made by 33 people, AAA game has no excuse. Although we shouldn't jump the gun since the game hasn't released yet. Like we all expected, we will certainly see more "indie games" near AAA level with Unreal Engine 5 and AI implementation. However, I think it's important to note that indie devs crunch a lot, which isn't acceptable for modern AAA studios. That can make a huge difference.

Yup. I would tamper expectations with this game, while visually its good, mechanically we have no idea. I am not saying this to hate on the game or anything but even by their prototype/project origin, the visual could be smoke and mirrors.

https://magazine.reallusion.com/202...lops-ambitious-rpg-game-with-real-time-tools/

Here is a blog on this project (Project W) where you can see the skeleton of this game. And listening to their vision there is a chance this game is sorta like a gauntlet, where you walk through an area and at segmented points you encounter an enemy (FF 13 like). Which hey that is not a bad thing, but I've seen people online thinking this is the next FF game.

I am looking forward to it and wish nothing but the best for team, specially considering their size and possible ambitions, but I am going with tempered expectations.

 

[BlackthornOrion]

I think I'm gonna stick with "indie just means independent", personally. That the gap seems to be closing so much between "AAA publishers" and "small teams of a few dozen or so" is a good thing and speaks to the democratization of tools and ease-of-access any average joe has to make the next big thing, but that doesn't mean these newer and shinier games are any less indie than the retro-throwback platformers of yore

I guess I'm sorta thinking of it in the sense of, a garage band using shitty instruments and equipment because that's what they had access to 20-30 years ago isn't more "authentically indie" to me than some kid using the kind of state-of-the-art music-creation tools that just about anybody with a decent laptop or phone would have access to these days. They're both making art outside of the traditional publishing structure, and that's what makes them indie. It doesn't mean they'll stay indie forever, or that everything they do is indie, but that's where they're starting from at least

So personally, I think "indie" as a label for video games still has utility in that sense. People are just gonna have to learn to stop using "indie game" as short-hand for "$20 pixelart game regardless of where it actually came from"

(also I would argue BG3 isn't an indie game solely because it's using a Hasbro property; if it was an otherwise-identical but original IP it'd be indie in my book, but it's really hard to square "indie game" with "made over 90 million dollars for a multinational conglomerate holding company")

Now, what really does my head in is trying to figure out when something stops being independent from the pre-existing publishing establishment, and just ... becomes part of the publishing establishment. Like, I would say Annapurna and Devolver are on the line at best and are so prolific I'm inclined to class them as just mainstream publishers with an eye for the eclectic and offbeat; but then there's studios like Wayforward or Playtonic (or most recently InnerSloth) who have started to publish some "indie games" they didn't make, but still firmly feel like they've at least kept a foot in that indie zone otherwise

 

[SoldierDelta]

Yup. I would tamper expectations with this game, while visually its good, mechanically we have no idea. I am not saying this to hate on the game or anything but even by their prototype/project origin, the visual could be smoke and mirrors.

https://magazine.reallusion.com/202...lops-ambitious-rpg-game-with-real-time-tools/

Here is a blog on this project (Project W) where you can see the skeleton of this game. And listening to their vision there is a chance this game is sorta like a gauntlet, where you walk through an area and at segmented points you encounter an enemy (FF 13 like). Which hey that is not a bad thing, but I've seen people online thinking this is the next FF game.

I am looking forward to it and wish nothing but the best for team, specially considering their size and possible ambitions, but I am going with tempered expectations.

Frankly I didn't have many expectations outside of "Persona/Paper-Mario-like combat with great visuals and a strong story focusing on Death". Like... idk man, that's still pretty outstanding to me.

Whether it's closer to a fully open world, a Xenoblade-like open-zone area or just plain linear... it doesn't really matter all that much to me. If it's better than the idea I stated above, which is already fairly surface level... idc that's still great. I didn't expect this to be the next FF game, I just wanted a great game that I'd enjoy.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

Indie always meant to me just independant from publishers. And never had to do with how a game looks visually. The tools accessible to small teams now are just much more advanced than they used to be.

 

[Elementary]

Indie always meant to me just independant from publishers. And never had to do with how a game looks visually. The tools accessible to small teams now are just much more advanced than they used to be.

It's this. If it's self-published or from a small publisher it's indie. If it's from any of the big or medium size pubs, it's not, regardless of whether it's a 2D roguelike or Unreal 5 powered graphical showcase.

 

[Prophet64]

Indie developers... Independent... works for no one but themselves... free from a big publisher telling them what to do... makes whatever they feel like making.

I guess Nintendo is an indie developer too. They have only ever self-published their games.

Good for them. Real scrappy go-getters!

 

[meatbag]

I've used the term "indie" to describe games/studios that aren't attached to the mega-sized pubs i.e Nintendo, Capcom, Ubisoft, etc. It gets into murky territory when you get into publishers like, say, Annapurna, which is a decently-sized outfit, but as far as we know is mostly hands-off with the games they publish.

 

[Shoulder]

I always remember the term Indie game was the developers were also the publishers aka self-published their own title. Platforms like Steam heavily influenced this, and made it more accessible for smaller teams who did not have the capital of the large AAA studios.

Indie developers... Independent... works for no one but themselves... free from a big publisher telling them what to do... makes whatever they feel like making.

I guess Nintendo is an indie developer too. They have only ever self-published their games.

Good for them. Real scrappy go-getters!

Not sure if sarcasm, but publicly-traded companies cannot be Indie because they are beholden to outside influence, aka Shareholders. So Nintendo hasn't been Indie since 1962 in that case.

 

[Sin & Punishment]

indie vs independent

 

[Tye]

It’s always been weird to me when people refer to games by companies like WayForward or Yacht Club Games as “indie” when, like, they’re clearly big and rich enough to self-publish their own physical copies of games—and even fund their own amiibo in the case of Yacht Club Games! If “indie” isn’t just about being independent (because, as mentioned above, companies like Nintendo are technically “independent” too) but also about how much big and rich a company is…where do you draw that line? At what point does a game company become not indie anymore after growing and earning more money from getting popular? Should super popular indie games like Undertale, Among Us, etc. even be called “indie” anymore, since they’re so far and above smaller indies that don’t have all that fame and fortune to their name?

It’s just a silly and kinda arbitrary label all around.

 

[em]

I always remember the term Indie game was the developers were also the publishers aka self-published their own title. Platforms like Steam heavily influenced this, and made it more accessible for smaller teams who did not have the capital of the large AAA studios.





Not sure if sarcasm, but publicly-traded companies cannot be Indie because they are beholden to outside influence, aka Shareholders. So Nintendo hasn't been Indie since 1962 in that case.

Thankfully Valve still qualifies as indie. Epic Games has investors, but is not publicly traded, so I guess one could go either way there.

 

[Prophet64]

Not sure if sarcasm, but publicly-traded companies cannot be Indie because they are beholden to outside influence, aka Shareholders. So Nintendo hasn't been Indie since 1962 in that case.

Yeah, not too serious about it, but I don't think Nintendo is honestly that beholden to their shareholders or at least never been heavily influenced by them at least. You can't pursue innovation like Nintendo has shown if decisions or any sort of hampering are coming from shareholders.

Also not sure if this would work, but Nintendo may be so cash rich they could probably buy back all of their own shares at any given moment several times over. Just Nintendo doesn't see the need to do that because, the shareholders seem to know to stay out of their way. They're basically courtside, season ticket holders.

Beholden to shareholders. (Nintendo laughs)

 

[Revolsin]

it's just small indie vs big indie. i feel like we dont really need to complicate it much and call games whatever makes the most sense naturally

 

[Instro]

This thing has zero chance of being good btw

 

[Aufhebung RPG]

I always remember the term Indie game was the developers were also the publishers aka self-published their own title. Platforms like Steam heavily influenced this, and made it more accessible for smaller teams who did not have the capital of the large AAA studios.





Not sure if sarcasm, but publicly-traded companies cannot be Indie because they are beholden to outside influence, aka Shareholders. So Nintendo hasn't been Indie since 1962 in that case.

That's exactly what's so strange, most publicly traded companies end up becoming shareholder oriented, but Nintendo still doesn't look like they're leaning that way so far, and while they care about their shareholders, they stick to doing their own thing at the same time.

 

[Vague_Katti]

This thing has zero chance of being good btw

What makes you say that? From what little we saw it looks to me like FFX CTB mixed with Legend of Dragoon/Mario & Luigi. I am unsure at the moment whether the game is going to be difficult enough to properly utilize those mechanics. I'm not saying it's absolutely going to be a great game, but I don't see how it has "zero chance of being good"

 

[Yamanoi]

Baldur's Gate 3 is an indie game, and it beat TOTK for GOTY by the way.

 

[GAP]

All this “what is indie” business just reminds me of Cloud Atlas. A nearly 150 million dollar film that was classified as indie since all of it was gathered from independent sources. I don’t feel that definition changes for games. At least as far as I’m concerned. Declaring things “indie” by metrics such as team count or whether you can count the pixels is silly.

 

[chocolate_supra]

I'm a big fan of indies both as a product and as an ideal, but I agree it's getting murky now that "indies" are getting more popular and prominent. Still love them, just not sure where the line is drawn.

I started asking myself what "indie" means once WayForward began publishing games for other devs. They're still considered indie as far as their Wikipedia page says (however much weight that holds ) but even then are they still indie because they aren't backed by a "major" publisher? How big does a team have to get before they're considered major? Are they still indie if a game they make gets a publishing deal from a major company but they developed the game independently and still own the IP? The fact that Baldur's Gate 3 is considered indie just blows all those questions around!!

So then I guess, like @Concernt said, it's sorta vibes? The logic side of my brain knows it's mostly semantics in a market where the tools are so democratized that it really just means smaller teams vs much bigger teams, and especially where indie devs will still have to nab a big publishing deal in order to end up on my system of choice anyway. But at the same time, the other day I was gushing to my dad about Ara Fell and didn't know how else to describe it to him than "an indie game, sorta like how they have indie movies being made outside the big studios, this is an indie game made outside of Nintendo or Microsoft." Because as shorthand it works. When you're trying to convey a vibe, it works.

But then, a counter-example is my issue with JRPGs. I love them, always have. Sea of Stars was my GotY last year, and every time I think about it there's a sliver of my brain that goes "JRPG" but it was made in Canada. It's absolutely not a JRPG. But I can't bring myself to consider it a WRPG, because it plays nothing like Skyrim or Fallout. It's a JRPG by vibes, but by definition not at all a JRPG. What the hell!! Speaking of terms that have no meaning anymore! So the "vibes" angle doesn't really check out either, because vibes can deceive, especially if you're classifying things based on a market situation that's kinda outdated by now.

So it's weird, I dunno. I know I like indies and I always wanna see them succeed. I know indies make up the vast majority of games I own on Switch, and were a significant portion of my WiiU library as well. I'm proud to know a couple indie developers from right here on Fami who are making their own games. I think there's still some meaning to the term, especially when you're talking about small teams or solo devs doing their own thing, but I think maybe the middle ground of the overall market is getting blurred. Maybe indie isn't a line drawn in the sand where some devs are here and other devs are there, maybe it's more of a gradient?

I typed way too much for 10pm.

 

[Aether]

I'm a big fan of indies both as a product and as an ideal, but I agree it's getting murky now that "indies" are getting more popular and prominent. Still love them, just not sure where the line is drawn.

I started asking myself what "indie" means once WayForward began publishing games for other devs. They're still considered indie as far as their Wikipedia page says (however much weight that holds ) but even then are they still indie because they aren't backed by a "major" publisher? How big does a team have to get before they're considered major? Are they still indie if a game they make gets a publishing deal from a major company but they developed the game independently and still own the IP? The fact that Baldur's Gate 3 is considered indie just blows all those questions around!!

So then I guess, like @Concernt said, it's sorta vibes? The logic side of my brain knows it's mostly semantics in a market where the tools are so democratized that it really just means smaller teams vs much bigger teams, and especially where indie devs will still have to nab a big publishing deal in order to end up on my system of choice anyway. But at the same time, the other day I was gushing to my dad about Ara Fell and didn't know how else to describe it to him than "an indie game, sorta like how they have indie movies being made outside the big studios, this is an indie game made outside of Nintendo or Microsoft." Because as shorthand it works. When you're trying to convey a vibe, it works.

But then, a counter-example is my issue with JRPGs. I love them, always have. Sea of Stars was my GotY last year, and every time I think about it there's a sliver of my brain that goes "JRPG" but it was made in Canada. It's absolutely not a JRPG. But I can't bring myself to consider it a WRPG, because it plays nothing like Skyrim or Fallout. It's a JRPG by vibes, but by definition not at all a JRPG. What the hell!! Speaking of terms that have no meaning anymore! So the "vibes" angle doesn't really check out either, because vibes can deceive, especially if you're classifying things based on a market situation that's kinda outdated by now.

So it's weird, I dunno. I know I like indies and I always wanna see them succeed. I know indies make up the vast majority of games I own on Switch, and were a significant portion of my WiiU library as well. I'm proud to know a couple indie developers from right here on Fami who are making their own games. I think there's still some meaning to the term, especially when you're talking about small teams or solo devs doing their own thing, but I think maybe the middle ground of the overall market is getting blurred. Maybe indie isn't a line drawn in the sand where some devs are here and other devs are there, maybe it's more of a gradient?

I typed way too much for 10pm.

Vsauce2
From 6:20 onwards for a minute or 2.

Let me question:
When you go out for sushi, are you eating Japanese Cousine? Even if it's made in Canada? What about supermarket sushi?
And if it's made by native Japanese people in Canada?
What if brazilian immigrants make sushi in Japan?
When it's combined with Italian Cousine, but Made in Japan?
Or if it's fusion sushi in Canada that adds mexican elements?

For me the core question is:
Is it made authentic, trying to replicate, or is it inspired by it and goes it's own way.
If it's the former, then I see jrpg as a "game made in the style of Japanese RPGs", counting as a jrpg (sea of stars 100%), otherwise it's inspired by JRPGs but is not an RPG.

 

[PixelKnight]

Vsauce2
From 6:20 onwards for a minute or 2.

Let me question:
When you go out for sushi, are you eating Japanese Cousine? Even if it's made in Canada? What about supermarket sushi?
And if it's made by native Japanese people in Canada?
What if brazilian immigrants make sushi in Japan?
When it's combined with Italian Cousine, but Made in Japan?
Or if it's fusion sushi in Canada that adds mexican elements?

For me the question is:
Is it made authentic, trying to replicate, or is it inspired by it and goes it's own way.
If it's the former, then I see jrpg as a "game made in the style of Japanese RPGs", counting as a jrpg (sea of stars 100%), or if it's inspired by JRPGs.

Yeah, same. It’s like, take Chained Echoes for example. It’s clearly an rpg inspired by FF/DQ/chrono trigger plus other Japanese pop culture like mech battles. It’s an indie game (literally- it was mostly made by one dev, independently, over many years) taking a line of inspiration that sees it descended from DQ. That’s pretty much my rule on whether something is a JRPG these days. Not the country where it was made, but what it takes inspiration from. It’s also something that works considering how many indie ‘spiritual sequels’ exist. Something like Blazing Chrome is pretty much a homage to Contra. If Contra’s genre was named after a country the way rpgs were split down into ‘Japan’ and ‘the entirety of western games development’, and called ‘Japanese run-and-gun’ or something like that, it would fit descended from that, in the same way that Infernax doesn’t stop being descended from Castlevania 2 and Zelda 2 just because it was made in Spain.

Same goes for various SRPGs that are following in the footsteps of FFT or Fe rather than, for example, the bigger western ones on PC.

‘Indie’ and ‘JRPG’ are both a ‘I know it when I see it’ rather than a technical definition based on something literal like ‘independent from major publishers’. Something hard to do in the fractured world of the tiny, small and mid-size specialised indie publisher. As for JRPG, the term made sense when the games were relatively new to chunks of the west and all made in Japan long before digital stores, modern indie development and games inspired by them was a thing. To lean on that early genre shorthand as being tied geographically forever is to tie yourself in confused knots to remain true to a definition that was a fixed point in time when western players were still often importing games and localisation felt a lot more random.

 

[Aether]

Yeah, same. It’s like, take Chained Echoes for example. It’s clearly an rpg inspired by FF/DQ/chrono trigger plus other Japanese pop culture like mech battles. It’s an indie game (literally- it was mostly made by one dev, independently, over many years) taking a line of inspiration that sees it descended from DQ. That’s pretty much my rule on whether something is a JRPG these days. Not the country where it was made, but what it takes inspiration from. It’s also something that works considering how many indie ‘spiritual sequels’ exist. Something like Blazing Chrome is pretty much a homage to Contra. If Contra’s genre was named after a country the way rpgs were split down into ‘Japan’ and ‘the entirety of western games development’, and called ‘Japanese run-and-gun’ or something like that, it would fit descended from that, in the same way that Infernax doesn’t stop being descended from Castlevania 2 and Zelda 2 just because it was made in Spain.

Same goes for various SRPGs that are following in the footsteps of FFT or Fe rather than, for example, the bigger western ones on PC.

‘Indie’ and ‘JRPG’ are both a ‘I know it when I see it’ rather than a technical definition based on something literal like ‘independent from major publishers’. Something hard to do in the fractured world of the tiny, small and mid-size specialised indie publisher. As for JRPG, the term made sense when the games were relatively new to chunks of the west and all made in Japan long before indie development and games inspired by them was a thing. To lean on that early genre shorthand as being tied geographically forever is to tie yourself in confused knots to remain true to a definition that was a fixed point in time when western players were still often importing games and localisation felt a lot more random.

Yeah. In movies there is "indie" and indie.

In music? It's a genre, many indie artists have contracts with major labels.
When talking about independent artists without a major level, "independent artist(s)" is more used.

Ninja theory was technically indie with the first setsunas sacrifice, and was also...30-50 people that worked on that game.

The difference: the studio was established, had the tech/knowhow/infrastructure when it became indie.

Here it's ubisoft people I think, for sure most already there, and enough connections to get funding on a more direct basis.

It's indy on paper, and for sure has more risk then being owned by a publisher... But it's not what I would call an "indie" game.

Also: the fancy visuals remind me of the "this OoT ue4/5 remake was done by 1 person! What's Nintendo doing?" Takes.

It's modern default to start a studio, create a visually stunning "slice" of game with ue5 tech and scanned assets/store assets, go search for funding and only after that proper develop the game...

 

[PixelKnight]

Yeah. In movies there is "indie" and indie.

In music? It's a genre, many indie artists have contracts with major labels.
When talking about independent artists without a major level, "independent artist(s)" is more used.

Ninja theory was technically indie with the first setsunas sacrifice, and was also...30-50 people that worked on that game.

The difference: the studio was established, had the tech/knowhow/infrastructure when it became indie.

Here it's ubisoft people I think, for sure most already there, and enough connections to get funding on a more direct basis.

It's indy on paper, and for sure has more risk then being owned by a publisher... But it's not what I would call an "indie" game.

Also: the fancy visuals remind me of the "this OoT ue4/5 remake was done by 1 person! What's Nintendo doing?" Takes.

It's modern default to start a studio, create a visually stunning "slice" of game with ue5 tech and scanned assets/store assets, go search for funding and only after that proper develop the game...

Yeah. There’s a huge difference in ‘independent games development’ between ‘veteran game director with decades of project management experience at a multinational takes their team and a ton of up-front funding from kickstarter/patreon/silent partners and sets up a new mid-size studio independent from the company they all left last month’, and ‘game made on a shoestring budget by two relatively young devs based on a rough concept and learning almost everything as they go amidst years of part-time work’.

 

[Razgriz]

I think the problem is that the name "indie" has increasingly started to refer to titles we'd otherwise call AA or "the middle segment". Basically back in the day, where you had a whole bunch of games from big publishers, but without the same attention that a flagship title from them would get. Handhelds always had a truckload of them, but the middle segment kinda started falling out in the West ever since the big publishers decided they could make more money just by focusing on their big selling games (hi EA, fuck you EA, moving on).

That middle segment falling out created a void and it's being filled by smaller studios that on paper aren't considered to be large enough to be a big publisher but also don't really land in the category of being an indie title. It's also further muddled by how a lot of successful indie studios kinda ended up moving into this space once they succeed (Terraria is a prime example; the original was the product of four people, Red, Blue, Red Yoshi and the sound designer, while nowadays they easily count as a full publisher and Terraria isn't really an indie game anymore).

Personally I've always had a pretty hardline stance for what counts as indie (no publisher, as few developers as possible, preferably less than 3 - loose idea is that the moment being a "producer" isn't a title you just shove on one of your developers as a Super Special Thanks but has specific duties attached to it, you screwed up), but it's also getting increasingly niche these days to find indie games that meet my criteria.

Which is the way it should be; indie is the weird and small segment, not the middle "kinda okay" segment. It's the realm of RPG Maker horror stuff (sometimes made with the RTP), weird tiny throwback games, poking around on itch to see what you can find, Newgrounds flash games, that kinda thing. Sometimes you get a true outlier like the original Cave Story, but those are the exception, not the norm.

Stop laundering the indie title to just mean the middle segment. (...wait is this how indie music fans feel? insert I get it now GIF here.)

 

[Aether]

(..wait is this how indie music fans feel? insert I get it now GIF here.)

(I wouldn't call stuff like Arcade Fire or Kaiser Chiefs or Vampire Weekend "AA"... Those are more AAA "indie", in a world tailor swift swift would be AAA 30-40 million sales games (and currently also "independent"...? With her "tailor versions"...)

 

[SoldierDelta]

I think the problem is that the name "indie" has increasingly started to refer to titles we'd otherwise call AA or "the middle segment". Basically back in the day, where you had a whole bunch of games from big publishers, but without the same attention that a flagship title from them would get. Handhelds always had a truckload of them, but the middle segment kinda started falling out in the West ever since the big publishers decided they could make more money just by focusing on their big selling games (hi EA, fuck you EA, moving on).

That middle segment falling out created a void and it's being filled by smaller studios that on paper aren't considered to be large enough to be a big publisher but also don't really land in the category of being an indie title. It's also further muddled by how a lot of successful indie studios kinda ended up moving into this space once they succeed (Terraria is a prime example; the original was the product of four people, Red, Blue, Red Yoshi and the sound designer, while nowadays they easily count as a full publisher and Terraria isn't really an indie game anymore).

Personally I've always had a pretty hardline stance for what counts as indie (no publisher, as few developers as possible, preferably less than 3 - loose idea is that the moment being a "producer" isn't a title you just shove on one of your developers as a Super Special Thanks but has specific duties attached to it, you screwed up), but it's also getting increasingly niche these days to find indie games that meet my criteria.

Which is the way it should be; indie is the weird and small segment, not the middle "kinda okay" segment. It's the realm of RPG Maker horror stuff (sometimes made with the RTP), weird tiny throwback games, poking around on itch to see what you can find, Newgrounds flash games, that kinda thing. Sometimes you get a true outlier like the original Cave Story, but those are the exception, not the norm.

Stop laundering the indie title to just mean the middle segment. (...wait is this how indie music fans feel? insert I get it now GIF here.)

The death of the middle-shelf game is a big contributing factor here, but I'm constantly wondering how much that is the core reason or that the new availability of powerful tools to non-publishers like Ubisoft, ABK or EA allow for greater feats in development. We saw a lot in those past few showcases that even the one-man army teams are still putting out very impressive stuff, Cuffbust and Killer Bean do not feel like indies in the normal sense but they're still very impressive looking titles overall. That's further impacted by the new gaming publishers, Outersloth and Blumhouse Games, whom seemingly will give a lot of creative freedom to the individual developers.

It's also worth pointing out that there are still a lot of titles that are being made that are still AA or middle-shelf. The initial point of the post, at least for me, was to highlight how thin that line has gotten. AAA, AA, microbudget, Indie, published, highly-funded, high-experience... it's gotten to a point where someone can point at God of War Ragnarok, Alan Wake 2, Cocoon, Hi-Fi Rush, Deltarune, Pacific Drive, Helldivers 2, Balatro, Manor Lords and just think "Wow those are good games" instead of the pedantic debate of what's indie or AAA. Naturally those conversations will still exist, they always will thanks to the climate of video games statistically you or I grew up in in, but like... it doesn't matter or at least shouldn't matter anymore.

I do think supporting indies is a good practice because they offer the best creativity on the market, but a key point there is that the kind of creativity being offered by indies are now able to be offered on a larger scale from either slightly bigger, ex-AAA developer teams working on passion projects such as those being made by Kelper Interactive's publishing group or by one-man teams like Two Star or the sheer mad-man that the Killer Bean developer is. The landscape is far bigger than what it once was, and that's genuinely amazing to see.

 

[Kreeth]

To me, "indie" is and will always be for projects where the team has absolute freedom and control over the way it's created and shared. No implication whatsoever from the people funding it and no focus on profits, at best covering your costs.
But that's how I see it as a comics artist and illustrator, the way we do zines, work together on little games etc. We don't focus on looking as good and shiny as the major releases, it's "raw".

In cinema, it's a bit different since it applies to any film done outside the circuit of the major studios, no matter the budget. And the case of Miramax is interesting for this example.
Films they produced in the 80s were actual indie films that would have never been produced and released by major studios of the time (Paris is Burning, Sex Lies and Videotapes...). Miramax was indie up until Disney (which was an indie company up until 1984 btw) bought them in 1993.
Miramax kept the "indie look" after that for a while, but it was a façade. The owners we won't name controled the films, Disney paid for the debts, the production and had the final say in what was being released and how.
Up to this day, people still see Tarantino as this "indie director who made it big with little indie films", even though he never was. But his films had the look and taste of indie, so people went on with it. And it's also great for Awards.

I feel this is where we're heading. Indie artists and studios being bought or financed by major studios. You get the feel of "indie", they get the love and awards for "indie", but deep down we know it's not the same as the real deal because you can feel the money and control behind.

 

[Rampo360]

Baldur's Gate 3 is an indie game, and it beat TOTK for GOTY by the way.

It had a budget of 100 million usd I read, TotK cost probably smaller than that or around that.

 

[Irene]

Didn't Ninja Theory coin the term "Triple-I", to describe games with high production values made by independent teams?

So Expedition 33 is III. Checks out.

 

[BassForever]

We live in a world where Innersloth has made so much money from Among Us they can publish other indie games. I think the safest way to define indie in 2024 is "developed without the backing of a major video game publisher", major being those in the top 10-20 of annual video game revenue.

 

[Aether]

To me, "indie" is and will always be for projects where the team has absolute freedom and control over the way it's created and shared. No implication whatsoever from the people funding it and no focus on profits, at best covering your costs.
But that's how I see it as a comics artist and illustrator, the way we do zines, work together on little games etc. We don't focus on looking as good and shiny as the major releases, it's "raw".

In cinema, it's a bit different since it applies to any film done outside the circuit of the major studios, no matter the budget. And the case of Miramax is interesting for this example.
Films they produced in the 80s were actual indie films that would have never been produced and released by major studios of the time (Paris is Burning, Sex Lies and Videotapes...). Miramax was indie up until Disney (which was an indie company up until 1984 btw) bought them in 1993.
Miramax kept the "indie look" after that for a while, but it was a façade. The owners we won't name controled the films, Disney paid for the debts, the production and had the final say in what was being released and how.
Up to this day, people still see Tarantino as this "indie director who made it big with little indie films", even though he never was. But his films had the look and taste of indie, so people went on with it. And it's also great for Awards.

I feel this is where we're heading. Indie artists and studios being bought or financed by major studios. You get the feel of "indie", they get the love and awards for "indie", but deep down we know it's not the same as the real deal because you can feel the money and control behind.

Disney being indie... Well Microsoft is also "indie". (I know, it meant outside the studio system but I always thought that was a f*ing stupig View, positioning the hollywood studio system as equal to movies.

Your opening definition excludes crowdfunding. There people funding it have a say (in you can't just do something completely different or you risk people claiming their money back)

 

[Razgriz]

The death of the middle-shelf game is a big contributing factor here, but I'm constantly wondering how much that is the core reason or that the new availability of powerful tools to non-publishers like Ubisoft, ABK or EA allow for greater feats in development. We saw a lot in those past few showcases that even the one-man army teams are still putting out very impressive stuff, Cuffbust and Killer Bean do not feel like indies in the normal sense but they're still very impressive looking titles overall. That's further impacted by the new gaming publishers, Outersloth and Blumhouse Games, whom seemingly will give a lot of creative freedom to the individual developers.

See to me, the idea of an "indie publisher" is already a walking paradox, which is where the disconnect starts. Oh you're so independent, but still to get your game out there you need to sign a deal with a publishing company (and based on following Dave Oshry's twitter, apparently a couple game devs emailed him to ask if they were getting scammed since there was shit in there like 80% publisher revshare, so the "indie publisher" field is seemingly worse than the old model).

As for the change in tools; honestly as someone who'd describe herself as an indie developer (just not with projects that'll see the light of day anytime soon), I'd disagree quite a bit. Compared to the "indie" engines of old (Flash, RPG Maker, Game Maker 1.x), modern engines have become significantly more inaccessible for solo development. Everything is far too heavily shifted towards setting up pipelines for extremely "generic" game development with multiple people, while making you do pointless excessive hoops for stuff that used to be really simple. It's telling that every Unity tutorial shows you how to drop a ball in it's physics engine, rather than how to move a sprite from left to right and how to add collision to sprite movement for example, while the latter is far more useful from an indie perspective (sprite art is inherently easier than 3d modeling).

When I'm talking indie, I'm quite literally talking about the solo affair - none of the games you mentioned in that long list count as indie to me (except for Deltarune and that one is a stretch considering 8-4 is the publisher for console ~ that's the one wiggle room I can sometimes concede on; Cuffbust also qualifies).

The second issue is that a lot of early indie devs got their qualification as an independent developer, but now that they don't count under that original definition anymore, they really just wanted to change the definition to keep the title and "prestige" that's associated with being against "The Man" that is traditional publishing. Which then gets compounded with both the middle segment falling out and a bunch of ex-AAA devs looking for new work also trying to use the redefinition. Leading to platform holders preferring that redefinition of what an indie means since that definition of an "indie" looks better for them, because a lot of the original indie games don't exactly have a "clean" reputation. (Edmund McMillen literally started his Newgrounds career by making a dead baby dress up simulator, specifically because the idea of it just seems wrong and pretty much all of his older games just have blatant gross out elements to them. A lot of old RPG Maker games just kinda fall apart midway through, have typos and blatantly use RTP assets. Flash games ran the gamut in terms of quality. IWBTG is deliberately punching the player in the face and is frustrating to play because that was the whole point of it. Like, when I see some "indie" game promoted at a big platform direct, it really seems unrecognizable from what indies really just... are? It's a very clean and mid-budget variant of what indie games really are from where I'm sitting. Go and dive through itch.io and then watch an indie dev world and you'll quickly find out what I mean.)

 

[Aether]

See to me, the idea of an "indie publisher" is already a walking paradox, which is where the disconnect starts. Oh you're so independent, but still to get your game out there you need to sign a deal with a publishing company (and based on following Dave Oshry's twitter, apparently a couple game devs emailed him to ask if they were getting scammed since there was shit in there like 80% publisher revshare, so the "indie publisher" field is seemingly worse than the old model).

As for the change in tools; honestly as someone who'd describe herself as an indie developer (just not with projects that'll see the light of day anytime soon), I'd disagree quite a bit. Compared to the "indie" engines of old (Flash, RPG Maker, Game Maker 1.x), modern engines have become significantly more inaccessible for solo development. Everything is far too heavily shifted towards setting up pipelines for extremely "generic" game development with multiple people, while making you do pointless excessive hoops for stuff that used to be really simple. It's telling that every Unity tutorial shows you how to drop a ball in it's physics engine, rather than how to move a sprite from left to right and how to add collision to sprite movement for example, while the latter is far more useful from an indie perspective (sprite art is inherently easier than 3d modeling).

100%. I had RPG maker und and running Witz 14 and a game (bad and short) in a few days over a few weeks.

I'm a software engineer now, decided my path upon those early experiences, and I can't find the time next to social obligations and other hobbies to lear one of those engines, and it feels like the work I'm doing. The time to parse through the noise (be it tutorials, version differences, subsystems, abstractions) just doesn't leave any time to idea itself.

I enjoy working on problems and designs... I don't enjoy working on obtuse abstraction and endless dependencies with frameworks for economical scalability for the industry, but that's what software has become, and what game engines have become to.

When I'm talking indie, I'm quite literally talking about the solo affair - none of the games you mentioned in that long list count as indie to me (except for Deltarune and that one is a stretch considering 8-4 is the publisher for console ~ that's the one wiggle room I can sometimes concede on; Cuffbust also qualifies).

The second issue is that a lot of early indie devs got their qualification as an independent developer, but now that they don't count under that original definition anymore, they really just wanted to change the definition to keep the title and "prestige" that's associated with being against "The Man" that is traditional publishing. Which then gets compounded with both the middle segment falling out and a bunch of ex-AAA devs looking for new work also trying to use the redefinition. Leading to platform holders preferring that redefinition of what an indie means since that definition of an "indie" looks better for them, because a lot of the original indie games don't exactly have a "clean" reputation. (Edmund McMillen literally started his Newgrounds career by making a dead baby dress up simulator, specifically because the idea of it just seems wrong and pretty much all of his older games just have blatant gross out elements to them. A lot of old RPG Maker games just kinda fall apart midway through, have typos and blatantly use RTP assets. Flash games ran the gamut in terms of quality. IWBTG is deliberately punching the player in the face and is frustrating to play because that was the whole point of it. Like, when I see some "indie" game promoted at a big platform direct, it really seems unrecognizable from what indies really just... are? It's a very clean and mid-budget variant of what indie games really are from where I'm sitting. Go and dive through itch.io and then watch an indie dev world and you'll quickly find out what I mean.)

Yeah, it sells better to have the indie label AND polished screenshots up.

 

[SoldierDelta]

We live in a world where Innersloth has made so much money from Among Us they can publish other indie games. I think the safest way to define indie in 2024 is "developed without the backing of a major video game publisher", major being those in the top 10-20 of annual video game revenue.

Didn't Ninja Theory coin the term "Triple-I", to describe games with high production values made by independent teams?

So Expedition 33 is III. Checks out.

I think those are the best two ways to really describe it. "Indie" as a term is just on very shaky ground but I don't really see a reason to limit what it can mean outside of how much freedom the creative team has to make a game. Flintlock and Clair Obscur being a III title makes a lot of sense especially since both titles are technically self-published in a sense.

The problem is that we're now going to have to perform the game industry litmus test as to if they count as AA titles or Indies. Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (what is it with III games and colons for their titles?) are both indie titles and won or were nominated for best independent game respectively, so if Flintlock gets a indie nom... then that kinda decides it, doesn't it.

 

[Earthbounder]

I guess the term indie is always doomed to this fate.

It has happened in music too, where many indie bands have become too big to still be labeled indie, but people keep doing it anyway.

 

[Kreeth]

Disney being indie... Well Microsoft is also "indie". (I know, it meant outside the studio system but I always thought that was a f*ing stupig View, positioning the hollywood studio system as equal to movies.

Your opening definition excludes crowdfunding. There people funding it have a say (in you can't just do something completely different or you risk people claiming their money back)

Well Disney is a century old, everybody started somewhere at one point even if it took a while for them to decide to jum from independant to major.

But about crowdfunding, people funding on kickstarter and others don't have a say in the final product, unless a creator specifically decides to do so. Over the years, some indie creators started to give big backers a few special gifts (cameos as NPC most notably for video games), but backers don't dictate the direction of the project, decide the way it's being released etc. They can advise, voice their opinion like any patron would do, but they're not the ones in charge and won't get any profit from the work done.

And unless Kickstarter changed things, you can't get your money back once the project is funded (I'm still waiting on Unsung Story xD).

 

[EggmaniMN]

The term indie game barely even matters honestly. You don't need all the different terms and categorizations and it's just a different sort of console war separating "indie" from the rest. It only leads to uselessly antagonistic rhetoric like people using Baldur's Gate 3 against company published RPGs as a bludgeon.

 

[Aether]

Well Disney is a century old, everybody started somewhere at one point even if it took a while for them to decide to jum from independant to major.

Yeah but by the 80ties Disney was the biggest animation studio, would not count that as indie personally.

But about crowdfunding, people funding on kickstarter and others don't have a say in the final product, unless a creator specifically decides to do so. Over the years, some indie creators started to give big backers a few special gifts (cameos as NPC most notably for video games), but backers don't dictate the direction of the project, decide the way it's being released etc. They can advise, voice their opinion like any patron would do, but they're not the ones in charge and won't get any profit from the work done.

And unless Kickstarter changed things, you can't get your money back once the project is funded (I'm still waiting on Unsung Story xD).

Yeah, I think there are lines: hard to go back on stretch goals, and if it changes radically (not launching on the platform you backed it for anymore) then I remember being presidents of money back... But you're right, it needs to change maliciously or being obviously miss managed that that happens.

 

[Instro]

What makes you say that? From what little we saw it looks to me like FFX CTB mixed with Legend of Dragoon/Mario & Luigi. I am unsure at the moment whether the game is going to be difficult enough to properly utilize those mechanics. I'm not saying it's absolutely going to be a great game, but I don't see how it has "zero chance of being good"

It's a 20-30 man team promising a RPG with the the level of fidelity on display in the video. Oh and it's releasing next year. That doesn't strike me as feasible, at least not in any way that's going to deliver on what people are thinking about this game. Or it's going to get delayed for several years while they expand the team.

 

[BlackthornOrion]

But then, a counter-example is my issue with JRPGs. I love them, always have. Sea of Stars was my GotY last year, and every time I think about it there's a sliver of my brain that goes "JRPG" but it was made in Canada. It's absolutely not a JRPG. But I can't bring myself to consider it a WRPG, because it plays nothing like Skyrim or Fallout. It's a JRPG by vibes, but by definition not at all a JRPG. What the hell!! Speaking of terms that have no meaning anymore! So the "vibes" angle doesn't really check out either, because vibes can deceive, especially if you're classifying things based on a market situation that's kinda outdated by now.

maybe a hot take but I think JRPG and WRPG just aren't useful terms anymore with so much cross-pollination that's gone on in the genre, and should probably be retired outright. Like, FF6 and FF16 are both "JRPGs" by definition but in practice you can't really tell someone "Oh, you liked FF6? Well then you'll probably like FF16, it's ALSO a JRPG" because they play so differently

At the risk of veering things towards another "metroidvania vs search action" discussion, I find at this point it's just more useful to go with more gameplay-referential terms like turn-based RPG for things like Sea of Stars or Dragon Quest 11, action RPG for games with more directly-involved combat like Xenoblade or FF7R, and then maybe something like "character RPG" or "dice roll RPG" for things like Fallout New Vegas or Baldur's Gate 3 that are so heavily build- and stat-driven for everything from dialogue options to combat to, y'know, lockpicking and whatnot

 

[Razgriz]

maybe a hot take but I think JRPG and WRPG just aren't useful terms anymore with so much cross-pollination that's gone on in the genre, and should probably be retired outright. Like, FF6 and FF16 are both "JRPGs" by definition but in practice you can't really tell someone "Oh, you liked FF6? Well then you'll probably like FF16, it's ALSO a JRPG" because they play so differently

JRPG has a pretty clear definition. The main mistake most people make is it's not actually Final Fantasy you need to look for as the baseline, but rather that it's the result of an intercontinental telephone game between Heroes of Might and Magic, Wizardry, the Ultima Franchise and finally all coming together with Dragon Quest.

Final Fantasy is the biggest "old" name for JRPGs outside of Japan by a long shot (in Japan, that title is held by Dragon Quest), which is what gave it the main attention by a lot of western fans as "the original JRPG", which is where the current name confusion comes from. Final Fantasy kinda started to drift towards Action RPG for quite a while but since Final Fantasy is the JRPG franchise in the West, people basically kept expanding the definition to include whatever Final Fantasy was doing, gradually muddying the term to include every other kind of RPG out there.

If you want the actual definition of a JRPG, it's pretty straightforward: dungeon crawling with a turn-based combat system acting separate from the dungeon itself where you have the time to decide your actions. ATB can sometimes be used to "spice things up" to make it feel more active. The dungeon crawling itself is either top-down on a grid (traditional, Ultima-like), third person camera with free movement (for more modern 3D games) or entirely first-person and on a grid (like in Wizardry, sometimes called a blobber; Wizardry-like games also existed in the West for a while, however the genre has all but vanished in popularity, while it's use in JRPGs is more enduring).

 

[PixelKnight]

JRPG has a pretty clear definition. The main mistake most people make is it's not actually Final Fantasy you need to look for as the baseline, but rather that it's the result of an intercontinental telephone game between Heroes of Might and Magic, Wizardry, the Ultima Franchise and finally all coming together with Dragon Quest.

Final Fantasy is the biggest "old" name for JRPGs outside of Japan by a long shot (in Japan, that title is held by Dragon Quest), which is what gave it the main attention by a lot of western fans as "the original JRPG", which is where the current name confusion comes from. Final Fantasy kinda started to drift towards Action RPG for quite a while but since Final Fantasy is the JRPG franchise in the West, people basically kept expanding the definition to include whatever Final Fantasy was doing, gradually muddying the term to include every other kind of RPG out there.

If you want the actual definition of a JRPG, it's pretty straightforward: dungeon crawling with a turn-based combat system acting separate from the dungeon itself where you have the time to decide your actions. ATB can sometimes be used to "spice things up" to make it feel more active. The dungeon crawling itself is either top-down on a grid (traditional, Ultima-like), third person camera with free movement (for more modern 3D games) or entirely first-person and on a grid (like in Wizardry, sometimes called a blobber; Wizardry-like games also existed in the West for a while, however the genre has all but vanished in popularity, while it's use in JRPGs is more enduring).

I don’t even think turn-based has been required for a ‘JRPG’ definition for a while, otherwise it rules out Tales of and Star Ocean and many more in the attempt to be really strict about combat mechanics, which kinda downplays that it’s a genre that’s continually experimental with its framework of combat mechanics too. On the field, off the field. Visable enemies/not visable. Random battles/not random. Action/turn-based. Turns based on speed. Whole party act at once or individuals in speed order on a queue, etc.

I don’t even think dungeon-crawling is essential either (otherwise that rules out the vast majority of SMTV and Ys VIII etc), outside of strict DRPGs descended from Wizardry. ‘JRPG’ is more in the thematics and melodrama, the framing of the characters and the ‘feel’ of the adventure as much as the mechanics, I think. Tales and DQ and, say, Trails all have way more in common with each other than either do with Divinity or Zelda.

 

[SoldierDelta]

The term indie game barely even matters honestly. You don't need all the different terms and categorizations and it's just a different sort of console war separating "indie" from the rest. It only leads to uselessly antagonistic rhetoric like people using Baldur's Gate 3 against company published RPGs as a bludgeon.

People who are reductive about indies make my blood boil. If there's one thing that I've learned in the past... idk decade or so, it's that indie games have the potential to match and surpass big-published AAA and AA efforts in terms of story telling and gameplay efforts.

I personally just like the discussion of the shrinking gap between what's considered independent, or at least the game industry definition of independent, is very interesting to discuss, especially since big companies are making games on similar scales to indies while start up companies are trying to match the efforts of the AAs we used to get during the 360 through early-PS4 era.

maybe a hot take but I think JRPG and WRPG just aren't useful terms anymore with so much cross-pollination that's gone on in the genre, and should probably be retired outright. Like, FF6 and FF16 are both "JRPGs" by definition but in practice you can't really tell someone "Oh, you liked FF6? Well then you'll probably like FF16, it's ALSO a JRPG" because they play so differently

At the risk of veering things towards another "metroidvania vs search action" discussion, I find at this point it's just more useful to go with more gameplay-referential terms like turn-based RPG for things like Sea of Stars or Dragon Quest 11, action RPG for games with more directly-involved combat like Xenoblade or FF7R, and then maybe something like "character RPG" or "dice roll RPG" for things like Fallout New Vegas or Baldur's Gate 3 that are so heavily build- and stat-driven for everything from dialogue options to combat to, y'know, lockpicking and whatnot

JRPG & WRPG are all very bad terms in describing what they actually mean. JRPG and WRPG are just in reference to the established RPG types that were popularized in each region, with JRPGs being more turn-based focused with heavy emphasis on a fleshed out protagonist's linear story while WRPGs tend to be more action-focused with blank-er slate protagonists in wide open-worlds. Are these good definitions? Fuck no, the majority of the time JRPGs and WRPGs are more described as "You know it when you see it" but even then that's lead to a whole bunch of confusing debated over the topic. Frankly the only type of RPG with a good definition slapped on it is CRPG akin to BG3 and Disco Elysium because they're essentially just adaptations of pen and paper RPGs like D&D.

The main reason why FF16 specifically was so controversial in comparison is that it's arguably closer to a character-action game than a lot of other JRPGs that have been made. JRPGs have been closer converted to a vibe rather than a set definition. Location of where the game has been made has nothing to do with it anymore. Undertale was made by an American? Who cares, it's closer to a JRPG. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was made by ex-Ubisoft devs in France? It's a French-JRPG sod it. FF16 meanwhile is such a departure from what the series' normal RPG ideas are that it's hard to see it as the same.

On a related note, the only annoying thing about Clair Obscur's reveal was that so many people were comparing it with modern FF, to the point that I just felt annoyed. It was made clear that FF16's direction was intentionally to depart from what FF can or can't be, and I think it worked. Not flawlessly, but it was a creative decision. Saying that CO:E33 was intentionally trying to one-up Square Enix is an insult to both development teams. What Sandfall was trying to make was something that the developers wanted to make. What Square Enix was trying to make... was something that the developers wanted to make also.

The internet is so annoying sometimes fr fr.

 

[chocolate_supra]

Vsauce2
From 6:20 onwards for a minute or 2.

Let me question:
When you go out for sushi, are you eating Japanese Cousine? Even if it's made in Canada? What about supermarket sushi?
And if it's made by native Japanese people in Canada?
What if brazilian immigrants make sushi in Japan?
When it's combined with Italian Cousine, but Made in Japan?
Or if it's fusion sushi in Canada that adds mexican elements?

For me the core question is:
Is it made authentic, trying to replicate, or is it inspired by it and goes it's own way.
If it's the former, then I see jrpg as a "game made in the style of Japanese RPGs", counting as a jrpg (sea of stars 100%), otherwise it's inspired by JRPGs but is not an RPG.