What makes an indie game?

[the-pi-guy]

Inspired by the following:

For the TGA's best independent game:
Cocoon
Dave the Diver
Dredge
Sea of Stars
Viewfinder


3 of these have separate publishers.
A 4th one (Dave the Diver) is technically self published, by one of the biggest game publishers in the world.



Some common definitions seem to be:
- small games (something like Entwined by Pixelopus would count, despite being made by one of the biggest publishers in the world).
- a lone studio self publishing its game (would exclude any games published by a publisher like Annapurna Interactive, but would include something like Baldur's Gate 3)
- small games that are self published?

[kitler53]

i mean, "indie" is short for independent.   obviously it ought to mean games made outside of the big publisher dynamic where the people that actually create the game are the people that actually take the profits too.   

...but today the term basically means not-AAA development.

[Legend]

It is pretty funny. All these categories are completely arbitrary and are more about feels than anything else. Best to just think of indie game as a genre.

[BananaKing]

What makes a good game?

Same answer as that

[Legend]

What makes a good game?

Same answer as that

Developers?