Independent Games

As much as we've talked about the consolidation of mass media and its negative effects on community development, we haven't really covered another medium that is being consolidated at an alarming rate, that being the realm of videogames.

Ever since the videogame boom began in the mid-80's, there have been major players and minor players, development giants that dominate the market as well as smaller independent houses that quietly produce terrific games. Consolidation is often inevitable as smaller firms struggle to keep up with rising production costs, constantly evolving hardware, and a financial playing field where the market share does not gradually change but rather swings wildly, by as much as 30% between rival companies with the introduction of each new generation of gaming machine.

However, much of the time the larger production houses are focused on their bottom line rather than pushing the boundaries and imagination of gameplay, shelling out mediocre sequels to best-selling franchises, crappy movie tie-ins, and flashy shoot-em-ups rather than taking a chance on more innovative, less predictable game concepts.

Electronic Arts, for example, uses the same formula over and over again to great effect. Its Madden NFL franchises are best sellers every year, and its constant reinvention of its Need for Speed, Sim City/The Sims, and Command and Conquer franchises bring in a large portion of their revenue. However, many of these, particularly the sports properties, are based upon a model of yearly updates, wherein only rosters or small details are changed and the "new" game is sold at full price despite lack of innovation.

Big videogame corps have also been widely criticized for pushing out mediocre games based upon formerly sterling intellectual properties by buying smaller reputable development houses. Electronic Arts has claimed talent-rich development houses Bioware and Pandemic Studios, and recently tried for a buyout of Take Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar. Rockstar has singlehandedly produced some of the most controversial and groundbreaking games in the past decade, including the Grand Theft Auto series, Bully, and Manhunt, not to mention the recent masterpiece BioShock. Vivendi Universal recently acquired immensely successful Activision, which in turn had absorbed various smaller studios in its time.

Is this all bad news for videogames? I would say yes. The only benefit is that sometimes consolidation means saving talented yet faltering studios from blinking out of existence. But the greatest problem lies with the watering down of overall game quality. With only 2 or 3 parent companies overseeing all game development, a very homogenous production quality would soon emerge, as has already happened in the radio, music, and television industry.

But hope springs eternal on the internet, which serves as a new, worldwie testing ground and marketplace for many game studios still on training wheels. Development houses like The Behemoth for example. This small studio began as a few guys making flash games for the portal Newgrounds, which quickly gained popularity at very little cost to the developers, and soon they had a deal to produce their popular flash side scroller Alien Hominid for all major game platforms in 2004. The game is colorful, inventive a throwback to old-school shooters and beat-em-ups of the 80's and 90's. They got their start on the internet along with many other game studios, avoiding much of the costly publicity and production costs that often handicap small mainstream studios. The Behemoth is a sort of indie game icon, flying in the face of the flashy visuals, media hype, and repetitive publishing strategy of giants like EA.

Lots of other small development studios use the internet as a public forum to test and hype their games. They can blog about the development of the game and get direct feedback in a way that avoids and often surpasses costly focus testing conducted by larger studios.

Some will decide to release them for mainstream consoles, and some will choose to remain direct-downloads. Indie success stories like Crayon Physics and World of Goo, recent winners and finalists at the Independent Games Festival, are flourishing as direct downloads rather than going the console route (although they will eventually enter the console marketplace after establishing a strong digital fan base.)

It goes to show that while the console industry is still king (actually eclipsing the movie industry in revenue last year) the internet provides hope for independent developers who strive to create original, envelope-pushing properties without fear of being forced to accept a giant takeover.

The Behemoth
http://www.thebehemoth.com/

World of Goo
http://2dboy.com/games.php

Independent Gaming Source
http://www.tigsource.com/

Independent Games Festival
http://www.igf.com/

http://www.indiegames.com/

http://kloonigames.com/crayon/