Indie > 'AAA'

Here's something I'm curious about. There's more of a gulf between the top and bottom of the indie budget shelves/production than there is between the top of indies and AAA. Like, comparing stuff like...Bastion and Mark of the Ninja to the Xbox Lives indie channel is a much, MUCH greater gap than Super Meat Boy to New Super Mario Bros. So how is...well, indieness qualified? Is it merely self published? Isn't Valve indie then?
 
Snapshot King said:
Here's something I'm curious about. There's more of a gulf between the top and bottom of the indie budget shelves/production than there is between the top of indies and AAA. Like, comparing stuff like...Bastion and Mark of the Ninja to the Xbox Lives indie channel is a much, MUCH greater gap than Super Meat Boy to New Super Mario Bros. So how is...well, indieness qualified? Is it merely self published? Isn't Valve indie then?
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I think it's given as much leeway as the term AAA is. Obviously Lugaru and Minecraft aren't on the same level of 'indie', but when you refer to indie games you probably side more with the Lugarus than the Minecrafts. So when I hear AAA I don't think Lost Odyssey, I think of the CoDs, GoWs(x2), Ass Creeds, etc.
 
BasilZero said:
What.....happens when you come across a "AAA" "Indie" game l0l
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Well seeing as the term AAA is being used as Blockbuster in film is these days (big budget rather than quality or sales figures) and Indie is being used as a smaller developer not attached to a publisher you could say Journey was a 'AAA' 'Indie'.
 
Indie games are the only thing keeping me sane these days. All the creativity and innovation are taking place in the indie sphere, while the AAA games are not only stagnating, but actually regressing.

My favourite games last year were FTL, Hotline: Miami, Mark of the Ninja, and Walking Dead (if we count that last one as an indie game). These all were all entertaining in their own special ways, provided new experiences, and pushed new boundaries within their respective genres. This can't be said of most, if not all, AAA games.

AAA gaming is mostly shit these days.
 
pizzaroll said:
This "AAA/indie" dichotomy is head-splittingly stupid.
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Exactly. Sadly though it's spun not only by big publishers and developers but also smaller studios which in turn cements the terms, phrases and divides into peoples minds who then proceed to further cement the notion by regurgitating it to all and sundry.

I used to like it when we all played games regardless of what they were like, ones we liked, ones we didn't. No bias as to how much was put into the game regards to money or marketing. Times have changed.
 
I still need to check out more Indie games. I totally loved Dead Pixels. Still need to play the other campaigns in that title but the main one I couldn't put down.
 
If I were to list the games that really impressed me, moved me, or gave the most fun this generation, then I suspect that it'd have a larger number of Indie games than 'AAA' ones.
 
Snapshot King said:
That's my whole point with the indie classification. Shouldn't it be like...everything that's not from a core group of maybe 20 megapublishers? I mean, Etrian Odyssey 4 sure feels indie as fuck.
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It's all marketing. If you scrubbed MS or EA's name off of Klei Entertainment's games, or Ubisoft off of Blue Bytes or whomever developed I Am Alive, then they would rebrand themselves as indies in order to get the most attention/sales. People are already trying to rebrand MotN (notice how no one is bothering with Shank) in spite of Microsoft Games' logo being front and center.
 
pizzaroll said:
This "AAA/indie" dichotomy is head-splittingly stupid.
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Yeah, but it seems like it is not going away anytime soon. It is a crafty scheme and not to mention a classic marketing technique.

We often see people lament the state of "AAA" games when in comparison to "indie" games (a comparison that can only be understood by observing the random examples people provide in an unreasonable manner). It becomes humorous in a scenario like this: "AAA" games are shallow, that's why I'll play the checkpoint-filled, no penalty, easy Newgrounds-looking Mark of the Ninja instead!" As it has been said before: These "indie" 2D games abandon all the good qualities of old games and reject all the good qualities of new games. It is a lose/lose scenario, if you know what a good 2D game looks like (admittedly it can be pretty deceptive when you got fake-"masochist" games like Super Meat Boy) and don't care about underdog stories. How bewildering it is then, to be able to agree with them that hand-holding is bothersome in 3D games (which at least generally have more spectacle and complexity to work with), but once we enter the 2nd dimension all standards go out the window.

Though it is off-topic for the most part, I've noticed a similar phenomenon for games like The Walking Dead or Journey in the case of the most vitriolic, "depth-seeking" criticizers of "AAA" games. I mean specifically the posters who look to me like robots that are (poorly) programmed to emulate the "hardcore gamer". The pattern is to make vague allusions to a "golden age" of depth (which will usually be myopic in how it looks at genres or platforms or eras), but, more importantly, also react to the current state of affairs (the reign of EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Blizzard, etc and how they dumb-down everything) in way that is half about the lower quality of games (perceived more or less as an absolute rule) and the other that is strictly anti-corporate (a counter to anti-consumerism and whatnot, i.e. not necessarily about the games themselves). The programming begins to fail when you throw a curve-ball: a game which is the absolute opposite of depth and thus is simultaneously the antithesis to both the current state of affairs and the golden age. The tricky part is that they really like the game (for reasons other than depth, obviously), partially because the truth is under all that the programming they were never that extremely concerned with "depth" in the first place (you can also see cracks in this with "exceptions", both in how they forgive certain nostalgic shallow games and ignore deep games in genres or with aesthetics they don't like). Because their persona wasn't designed to deal with this new dichotomy, you end with a scenario where they praise (possibly with the utmost respects) games which are far shallower then those dreaded "AAA" FPS games they can't STFU about. It makes me wonder why they can't drop the persona and adopt a more sensible mindset.
 
I am totally in agreement here. I have always played and enjoyed a very wide range of genres. However, I have noticed that indie games are the ones that manage to keep me coming back.

Minecraft, Terraria, FTL all sucked me in for what felt like days at a time.

Recently a Japanese indie game called 片道勇者(One Way Heroics) which I am now localizing(shameless plug alert!!!) really stole hundreds upon hundreds of hours of time from me.

It's basically what you would get by throwing FTL, a SNES JRPG, and Shiren in a blender.
 
Some indie games surely are original and interesting, but usually one can find better AAA version of similar game, no? So what I mean, having bigger team sure helps make things look better and play better.
I very much would like be proven wrong by finding an indie game better than AAA games of same genre, preferably in genres I usually play. That would prove a point more than any amount of words.
 
Riposte said:
Yeah, but it seems like it is not going away anytime soon. It is a crafty scheme and not to mention a classic advertisement technique.

We often see people lament the state of "AAA" games when in comparison to "indie" games (a comparison that can only be understood by observing the random examples people provide in an unreasonable manner). It becomes humorous in a scenario like this: "AAA" games are shallow, that's why I'll play the checkpoint-filled, no penalty, easy Newgrounds-looking Mark of the Ninja instead!" As it has been said before: These "indie" 2D games abandon all the good qualities of old games and reject all the good qualities of new games. It is a lose/lose scenario, if you know what a good 2D game looks like (admittedly it can be pretty deceptive when you got fake-"masochist" games like Super Meat Boy) and don't care about underdog stories. How bewildering it is then, to be able to agree with them that hand-holding is bothersome in 3D games (which at least generally have more spectacle and complexity to work with), but once we enter the 2nd dimension all standards go out the window.

Though it is off-topic for the most part, I've noticed a similar phenomenon for games like The Walking Dead or Journey in the case of the most vitriolic, "depth-seeking" criticizers of "AAA" games. I mean specifically the posters who look to me like robots that are (poorly) programmed to emulate the "hardcore gamer". The pattern is to make vague allusions to a "golden age" of depth (which will usually be myopic in how it looks at genres or platforms or eras), but, more importantly, also react to the current state of affairs (the reign of EA, Ubisoft, etc and how they dumb-down everything) in way that is half about the lower quality of games (perceived more or less as an absolute rule) and the other that is strictly anti-corporate (a counter to anti-consumerism and whatnot, i.e. not necessarily about the games themselves). The programming begins to fail when you throw a curve-ball: a game which is the absolute opposite of depth and thus is simultaneously the antithesis to both the current state of affairs and the golden age. The tricky part is that they really like the game (for reasons other than depth, obviously), partially because the truth is under all that the programming they were never that extremely concerned with "depth" in the first place (you can also see cracks in this with "exceptions", both in how they forgive certain nostalgic shallow games and ignore deep games in genres or with aesthetics they don't like). Because their persona wasn't designed to deal with this new dichotomy, you end with a scenario where they praise (possibly with the utmost respects) games which are far shallower then those dreaded "AAA" FPS games they can't STFU about. It makes me wonder why they can't drop the persona and adopt a more sensible mindset.
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Damn, that's one helluva atomic truth nuke.
 
Indie games are awesome, some of my favorite games are in that category. Just went through Depression Quest and it resonated with me hard. I'd never get something like that out of the AAA games.
 
Played a few indie games, my favourite is Hotline Miami. FTL was pretty good, until you beat the last boss and there is no incentive to go back. Both games had amazing soundtrack. But I have played more, and better AAA games than those 2.
 
SalsaShark said:
Indie games are inherently superior to AAA games in terms of taking advantage of what games can do over other mediums.

why? because even though AAA has the benefit of a larger scale due to a larger budget/more people involved, that benefit comes with the curse of having to appeal to a much larger audience to justify that investment; hence we end up with safe games that aim for spectacle, an experience that the player can easily see through, and very much "copy" what other succesful games have done before, not to mention other ill suited mediums like movies, ending up with cutscenes and all those shitty tropes

so in the end: I prefer indie games cause they are more likely to take chances, and they are much more of a personal piece of work where you can see the intent of the few people behind it, something that gets lost when those people are a 100+ team, but im glad that the AAA business still exists. Gotta move that tech forward.
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What about the games that fit somewhere in the middle? I like Wayforward's platformers and Etrian Odyssey by Atlus. Both companys have been going for 20 plus years, have a high enough profile for their games to be noticed, a prolific work rate so they try new stuff, and low enough costs that modest sales get them by. Are they 'A' developers? 'AA'? Just 'small'?

Indie encompasses a huge range of budgets, time and staff, as does 'small' and 'AAA', ultimately new ideas can shine through anywhere, and the dross still outnumbers the good stuff no matter the market sector.

As it was mentioned upthread, Battle for Wesnoth is an amazing SRPG, with a great community and so many campaigns on various platforms. I'd advise anyone to check it out if you have a PC, I think there are smartphone and tablet editions too. It's like Fire Emblem on huge maps, with unit generation as per advance wars. If you're a junkie for turn-based fantasy battles, you need it, you'll probably never need to buy another one again! :D
 
Riposte said:
snip
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Cracking post. Just to be clear do you mean poster as in people who post on message boards or you know.. promotional materials (sorry I'm a bit slow this morning). There is a certain level of conditioning going on I can totaly agree.

Gaming became tribal back in the 80's with people starting to form differing sets of allegiances to manufacturers due to radically different catalogs. Now that the vast majority of games are multiplatform and to be fair almost on parity with each other the only way to continue this feud is to start separating the genres but even that's becoming harder. The differing camps between the pro 'AAA' crowd and the 'Indie' champions was inevitable just that a lot of the noise comes from people who are uninformed but very vocal. Thankfully there's people like Toma fighting the good fight.
 
Loving indie games, some of my fave games last year were indies. Mark of the Ninja, Hotline Miami, Fez, Velocity, Journey, Super Hexagon... All great. This year I'm loving Year Walk.

That said, the best game of this year for me so far and a game I prefer to any indie last year is Metal Gear Rising. If I had to pick my games of this gen, there is no indie title that could live up to Mario Galaxy, Dark Souls or Bayonetta. Perhaps AAA Japanese games are best. ;)

You have good and bad games in both markets really.
 
redcrayon said:
What about the games that fit somewhere in the middle? I like Wayforward's platformers and Etrian Odyssey by Atlus. Both companys have been going for 20 plus years, have a high enough profile for their games to be noticed, a prolific work rate so they try new stuff, and low enough costs that modest sales get them by. Are they 'A' developers? 'AA'? Just 'small'?

Indie encompasses a huge range of budgets, time and staff, as does 'small' and 'AAA', ultimately new ideas can shine through anywhere, and the dross still outnumbers the good stuff no matter the market sector.

As it was mentioned upthread, Battle for Wesnoth is an amazing SRPG, with a great community and so many campaigns on various platforms. I'd advise anyone to check it out if you have a PC, I think there are smartphone and tablet editions too. It's like Fire Emblem on huge maps, with unit generation as per advance wars. If you're a junkie for turn-based fantasy battles, you need it, you'll probably never need to buy another one again! :D
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im talking about indie in the sense that there's no publisher involved, but yeah, those "middle" games obviously get more leeway the less money there's involved
 
Toma said:
Player 1: "5 recent important AAA games I should check?"
Player 2-10:"Tomb Raider, Ni No Kuni, Crysis 3, MGS Revengeance and Bioshock Infinite later this month!"

Player 1:"5 recent important Indie games I should check?"
Player 2:"There is a thread... 50 or so interesting games that quite a few people seem to like. Really tough to nail it down to a few, but these 9 should be definitely on your list!Gorogoa, Zineth, Factorio, Kyoto, Micron, Spice Road, The Bridge, The Sea Will Claim Everything, Papers Please, Starseed Pilgrim.."
Player 3:"You really should add Kentucky Route Zero to that List. And Kyoto. Oh and .. what was the name.. Proteus!"
Player 4:"I'd have a few more.. how about..."
Player 1: "..."
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HAHA this is so true it hurts!

No game recommendations here, damnit! C'mon over into the Indie Games thread! Free games! About playing border officers that deal with immigration!
 
I just play games i like. Some are "indie" and some are "AAA".
What's so difficult about that? there are good games and bad games in both categories (although i don't consider them categories).
 
In my thread a week or two ago about this, I mentioned a lack of some particular genres of games. I got the utterly stupid response along the lines of "the only indie genre that doesn't exist is AAA games" or something like that (I was also reminded that I need to play Cthulhu Saves the World, which I own, but have yet to play).

Don't really care much for 2D/might-as-well-be-2D stuff (then again, I've been on an Age of Empires kick the past few days--but, hey, that's a genre that's somewhat underrepresented), which often feels like 90% of all of indie gaming's output (with the rest being multiplayer games, like Red Orchestra or Chivalry).

Still sitting here, waiting for my immersive sims and late-90s single-player FPSes like NOLF and Half-Life, and my 3D RTSes like World in Conflict and such. Trying to do a game in my own spare time, but self-teaching is challenging, and it's unlikely I can build this entire project on my own, even with the Citizen Abel-level graphics I'm targeting. :(

Most indie games are currently designing games as rulesets (that is, treating them as "games" and not really pushing the envelope in a way that interests me), and as someone whose primary attraction to the medium is games-as-alternate-realities, these games hold no interest for me. Virtual sports and tabletop/board games are nice, but I want to be someone else for a while. The two most personally appealing indie projects I'm looking at right now are "Sir, You Are Being Hunted" and "The Dark Mod" (the indie remake, assuming that's still a thing).

It's not to say that the occasional indie doesn't appeal to me, mind you. A friend just gifted me StarDrive, and it's amazing, and ya'll should check it out.

--

Riposte, not wild about your choice of Mark of the Ninja as an example. Not really sure I know anyone who likes it because of old-school sensiblities per se. I personally enjoy it because it's an absolutely rock-solid puzzle/platformer in the guise of a stealth game, and it's focused more on those stealth mechanics than whether or not you can time a jump right.
 
There is a certain.... viewpoint, I guess, that considers "Indie" games are superior than "AAA" games not because of its quality but only because they are perceived as something outside of the "mainstream"... or, they are perceived as something "different."

I guess what I am trying to say is often times in case of "Indie" games 'looking different' and (perceived) 'independence from the mainstream' are regarded as much more important points than gameplay considerations.

Well, that's my impressions anyways.
 
Riposte said:
Yeah, but it seems like it is not going away anytime soon. It is a crafty scheme and not to mention a classic marketing technique.

We often see people lament the state of "AAA" games when in comparison to "indie" games (a comparison that can only be understood by observing the random examples people provide in an unreasonable manner). It becomes humorous in a scenario like this: "AAA" games are shallow, that's why I'll play the checkpoint-filled, no penalty, easy Newgrounds-looking Mark of the Ninja instead!" As it has been said before: These "indie" 2D games abandon all the good qualities of old games and reject all the good qualities of new games. It is a lose/lose scenario, if you know what a good 2D game looks like (admittedly it can be pretty deceptive when you got fake-"masochist" games like Super Meat Boy) and don't care about underdog stories. How bewildering it is then, to be able to agree with them that hand-holding is bothersome in 3D games (which at least generally have more spectacle and complexity to work with), but once we enter the 2nd dimension all standards go out the window.

Though it is off-topic for the most part, I've noticed a similar phenomenon for games like The Walking Dead or Journey in the case of the most vitriolic, "depth-seeking" criticizers of "AAA" games. I mean specifically the posters who look to me like robots that are (poorly) programmed to emulate the "hardcore gamer". The pattern is to make vague allusions to a "golden age" of depth (which will usually be myopic in how it looks at genres or platforms or eras), but, more importantly, also react to the current state of affairs (the reign of EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Blizzard, etc and how they dumb-down everything) in way that is half about the lower quality of games (perceived more or less as an absolute rule) and the other that is strictly anti-corporate (a counter to anti-consumerism and whatnot, i.e. not necessarily about the games themselves). The programming begins to fail when you throw a curve-ball: a game which is the absolute opposite of depth and thus is simultaneously the antithesis to both the current state of affairs and the golden age. The tricky part is that they really like the game (for reasons other than depth, obviously), partially because the truth is under all that the programming they were never that extremely concerned with "depth" in the first place (you can also see cracks in this with "exceptions", both in how they forgive certain nostalgic shallow games and ignore deep games in genres or with aesthetics they don't like). Because their persona wasn't designed to deal with this new dichotomy, you end with a scenario where they praise (possibly with the utmost respects) games which are far shallower then those dreaded "AAA" FPS games they can't STFU about. It makes me wonder why they can't drop the persona and adopt a more sensible mindset.
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Oh man... you just... you came, you saw, you nailed it.
 
5. Only playing big budget games is tainting us.
The biggest issue I see here, is that we are conforming ourselves to certain standards, which dont allow for any deviation of the norm. And if anyone deviates from said norm, it usually means failure. That is especially true for the big budget releases. Just compare the MP modes of all the big FPS games. Almost all of them play it safe, by offering similar modes and the same incentives to keep playing the games. Its not necessarily a bad thing to include a feature which has proven to be fun in another game or previous iteration of the series, but the serious lack of diversity is hurting everybody's gaming experiences.

But I sometimes get the impression that we need to "reeducate" ourselves how to play games out of our own comfort zone. I remember that I didnt question a recommendation by a friend a lot when he handed me a game. And its a real pity that so many people seem to have lost that willingness to explore other areas of gaming. Social gaming and dumbing down sequels are softening those barriers a bit (See SimCity), but that in the end still leaves us with games that mostly publishers want (especially in the social gaming scene) as endless cash grabs. What I am saying, try to spread out! Has anyone reading this played games from 10 different genres since the start of the year? The Indie Games thread alone accounts for 11. This doesnt mean that big budget games should be abandoned. But they should be treated equally to "low" budget games.
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Hey Toma,

Thanks for starting the thread, it's an interesting discussion, but I'd like to respond to this from the OP specifically. I don't only play AAA games. I never play online games, so the whole multiplayer deathmatch thing is lost on me. I don't play social games either.

You mention game genres- I've played a lot of genres in 30+ years of gaming, and what I do know is that some of them (particularly FPS, racing, sports and real-time strategy) bore me to tears. I'll try demos if they are free, but I couldn't name more than 2 or 3 from each that I've actually liked. Even then, I reckon I've played 8 genres so far this year. Considering I'm a busy adult with 5 hours gaming time a week at best, that's not too shabby.

My point is that an assumption that we all need to spread out a bit as we are AAA junkies is false- I spread out a lot 20 years ago, and discovered stuff that I still play today! I doubt many here are the target player that AAA devs want, who binges on online games and microtransactions. Just by reading this thread probably implies a curiosity that discounts them from your theory :D

I still have a willingness to explore gaming, and indie games in the genres I enjoy (Avalon, Wesnoth, and yes, Beril, Gunman Clive!) are some of my faves, but these days I'm as likely to explore board games as computer games- perhaps that curiosity about 'play' extends beyond computer games and into the realm of 'games' in general.
 
Messofanego said:
HAHA this is so true it hurts!

No game recommendations here, damnit! C'mon over into the Indie Games thread! Free games! About playing border officers that deal with immigration!
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Yeah, that was a good point Toma made there- Indie is a broad church, and a very nimble one that sees games appear out of nowhere. Often you'll only hear about something by word of mouth. Whereas it's much easier to keep track of the bigger releases when they are heralded a year in advance.

It would help if journalists kept an eye out, but those smaller devs don't advertise, and where would you even start. Even a regular 1,000 word column would struggle to scratch the surface, and ultimately more readers are interested in the stuff with flashy art.
 
Riposte said:
Yeah, but it seems like it is not going away anytime soon. It is a crafty scheme and not to mention a classic marketing technique.

We often see people lament the state of "AAA" games when in comparison to "indie" games (a comparison that can only be understood by observing the random examples people provide in an unreasonable manner). It becomes humorous in a scenario like this: "AAA" games are shallow, that's why I'll play the checkpoint-filled, no penalty, easy Newgrounds-looking Mark of the Ninja instead!" As it has been said before: These "indie" 2D games abandon all the good qualities of old games and reject all the good qualities of new games. It is a lose/lose scenario, if you know what a good 2D game looks like (admittedly it can be pretty deceptive when you got fake-"masochist" games like Super Meat Boy) and don't care about underdog stories. How bewildering it is then, to be able to agree with them that hand-holding is bothersome in 3D games (which at least generally have more spectacle and complexity to work with), but once we enter the 2nd dimension all standards go out the window.

Though it is off-topic for the most part, I've noticed a similar phenomenon for games like The Walking Dead or Journey in the case of the most vitriolic, "depth-seeking" criticizers of "AAA" games. I mean specifically the posters who look to me like robots that are (poorly) programmed to emulate the "hardcore gamer". The pattern is to make vague allusions to a "golden age" of depth (which will usually be myopic in how it looks at genres or platforms or eras), but, more importantly, also react to the current state of affairs (the reign of EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Blizzard, etc and how they dumb-down everything) in way that is half about the lower quality of games (perceived more or less as an absolute rule) and the other that is strictly anti-corporate (a counter to anti-consumerism and whatnot, i.e. not necessarily about the games themselves). The programming begins to fail when you throw a curve-ball: a game which is the absolute opposite of depth and thus is simultaneously the antithesis to both the current state of affairs and the golden age. The tricky part is that they really like the game (for reasons other than depth, obviously), partially because the truth is under all that the programming they were never that extremely concerned with "depth" in the first place (you can also see cracks in this with "exceptions", both in how they forgive certain nostalgic shallow games and ignore deep games in genres or with aesthetics they don't like). Because their persona wasn't designed to deal with this new dichotomy, you end with a scenario where they praise (possibly with the utmost respects) games which are far shallower then those dreaded "AAA" FPS games they can't STFU about. It makes me wonder why they can't drop the persona and adopt a more sensible mindset.
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I can certainly appreciate this post, but can you elaborate exactly what you mean by the bolded?

Are you saying that SMB is fake? Or that it's masochism is fake...or...what? It's the only part of your post I didn't quite grab.
 
As someone who makes obscure indie games, AAA > indie for me.

There are of course some brilliant games made with small teams, most of which have been mentioned already, but the majority are unpolished, pretentious, mechanically weak or lacking content.

For all its problems, I'd rather play Resi 4 than some chin-stroking nonsense that takes place in the mind of an abused dog.
 
Trumpets said:
As someone who makes obscure indie games, AAA > indie for me.

There are of course some brilliant games made with small teams, most of which have been mentioned already, but the majority are unpolished, pretentious, mechanically weak or lacking content.

For all its problems, I'd rather play Resi 4 than some chin-stroking nonsense that takes place in the mind of an abused dog.
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I feel like no one in this thread has spent a long period of time in the xbox live indie channel. That place is a dark pit in which my soul has died many times over.
 
Derrick01 said:
I wish indie games had the chops to be more than shallow NES or arcade type games in most cases. I'm not sure if some of these kickstarter RPGs like Wasteland 2 and Dead State count (not sure why they wouldn't) but I'm looking forward to those a lot more than what I'm assuming most people on this board are hyped for as far as indie stuff goes, because those will have some production values and depth behind them. Then again most of them were funded with money in the range of $350k-$3 million so I guess they have more of an advantage.
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Dude, come into the Indie Games thread and get your ignorance destroyed within seconds!

For someone who rails against AAA games all the time, it's really surprising you haven't checked out the other side.

There are even more genres covered in indie games than AAA games. I'd argue many AAA games are as shallow as NES games, but with prettier graphics. There are games dealing with real life serious issues too, not just arcade type games.
 
Messofanego said:
Dude, come into the Indie Games thread and get your ignorance destroyed within seconds!

For someone who rails against AAA games all the time, it's really surprising you haven't checked out the other side.

There are even more genres covered in indie games than AAA games. I'd argue many AAA games are as shallow as NES games, but with prettier graphics. There are games dealing with real life serious issues too, not just arcade type games.
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I seriously doubt the veracity of this.

Wellscha said:
What's with Indie games and the whole "8-bit/16-bit" look? It's as if they're cashing in nostalgia.
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It's cheap and they are indeed cashing in on nostalgia. In some cases I imagine though, their own nostalgia for those old games.
 
What are some really great AAA games?
I haven't been able to finish any AAA game in a very long time. I just don't have to patience to sit through these watered down, "cinematic" experiences with shoehorned co-op/multiplayer, streamlined characters and hand holding game play.
 
Skinpop said:
What are some really great AAA games?
I haven't been able to finish any AAA game in a very long time. I just don't have to patience to sit through these watered down, "cinematic" experiences with shoehorned co-op/multiplayer, streamlined characters and hand holding game play.
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Dishonored.
 
DocSeuss said:
Easier to make than 3D or 2D animated stuff, generally.



Nope, it's true. In many cases, they're flat-out making up genres.
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"players will have to use a programming language to solve puzzles."

Puzzle game is a new genre now? Hell even if you wanna say sandbox puzzle solver, Myst invented that over a decade ago.
 
Snapshot King said:
I can certainly appreciate this post, but can you elaborate exactly what you mean by the bolded?

Are you saying that SMB is fake? Or that it's masochism is fake...or...what? It's the only part of your post I didn't quite grab.
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It has infinite lives, essentially a built in savestate feature that makes you grind through levels. It's piss easy but people say it's "hardcore" (implying difficulty) for some reason.

also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHA-slBtPYo

Messofanego said:
Dude, come into the Indie Games thread and get your ignorance destroyed within seconds!

For someone who rails against AAA games all the time, it's really surprising you haven't checked out the other side.

There are even more genres covered in indie games than AAA games. I'd argue many AAA games are as shallow as NES games, but with prettier graphics. There are games dealing with real life serious issues too, not just arcade type games.
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lol, since when are arcade type games shallow? It's just that indie developers do them such a disservice that they become shallow, but it has little to do with the inspiration.
 
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