I Am Indie

July 9, 2012 - Lee Williams - No Comments

What does it mean to be an ‘indie’? Why is it even a question? 10 years ago a video game was just that… a video game. It didn’t matter if it had EA’s logo on the box, all that mattered was that it was enjoyable to play. Yet this word ‘indie’ has sprung into our vocabularies of late; it separates the likes of EA, Activision and Ubisoft from the artists, programmers and coders who want to create, push the boundaries and take risks with new ideas.

Recently I’ve had this nagging curiosity to find out the stories behind how these talented people found themselves as indie developers, how they they perceive what they do and to try and get better understanding of life from their side of the controller. What did I find out? I found out that above it all they are people who love video games, unquestionably. They’ve all taken different paths to get where they are; some made games for the big boys before becoming disillusioned and downtrodden with their employers, some studied game design at university and some just fell into it almost by accident.

This collection of people are now the accidental driving force of the gaming industry. They didn’t ask to be, they weren’t trying to be and they probably don’t even know it themselves yet. So what does it mean to be ‘indie’? It means lots of things; it means being independent, it means being allowed to make mistakes, it means you’re unafraid of taking a chance and it means that above all else you just love games.

TheGameJar would like to say a special thanks to everybody who took part in our first ‘I Am Indie’, to Tom Champion and all of this year’s Rezzed staff, and to the inspiration behind the whole idea – Andy Hodgetts from The Indie Stone.