Stardew Valley and Concerned Ape are now totally mainstream- please remove the game from the Indie category.

[Grimbor]

This game has now sold well over 30 million copies. There are now more than the original developer working on these games. Haunted Chocolatier will EA well into 20 million copies. CC is no longer indie nor is the current version of SDV.

[werwolfgaming]

Publicado originalmente por Nakos:

CA is an indie developer. One who, against all odds, has been exceptionally successful.

He's still an indie developer though. He's a video game Auteur, one who wants to control all the aspects of the process, who wants all of it to be his.

He doesn't delegate or hire a lot of other people because he doesn't want to. He clearly prefers to work alone, at his own pace. He probably does have some assistants at this point, but they probably handle the parts that he doesn't want to handle, like ... doing his taxes and scheduling his appointments.

Just because he's a surprisingly successful video game designer doesn't mean he's going to suddenly be okay becoming a general manager. Those aren't the same skill sets, and CA clearly knows what his skill set is quite well.

he does have employees who do work on Stardew valley for updates and such like 1.6 wasent entirely made by himself but he does like working on games on his own wich is why his new game is being developed by himself without the help off his employees

[Auckes]

Why should it change category? Nowadays, "indie" and "fangame" are synonym words to "quality" and "bulk of content". In fact, we need to distinguish "indies", from the big pile of half-as_d, incomplete, buggy or malfunctioning, triple As and triple Ds.

I myself always search first, under the indie category, before anything else.

[happybjorn]

So a combination of a post hoc fallacy (it was successful, therefore it's mainstream) and zero understanding of what indie actually means.

Looks like another troll trying to stir things up...

[SolviteSekai]

Publicado originalmente por DasaKamov:

Publicado originalmente por SolviteSekai:

Stardew Valley stopped being indie the second Chucklefish got involved.

And then Chucklefish was dumped a couple of months later, and CA became his own publisher ever since.

Not sure why this is difficult to grasp.

it doesnt matter. the game was funded by a major publisher.

[Sacko]

indie just means independent, so every game-dev/company who doesnt have shareholders is indie, so technically teamsize or sales numbers dont matter.

[V.V.]

Publicado originalmente por Queen Droxxanna:

Well if you asked the 30 million who bought the game, we all know who he is.
If you asked people around you the founder of Virgin airlines is, most could not name Richard Bronson either, and he's a billionaire.

To prove my point, I have no idea who Bizzard or Bioware is!

I wouldn't be able to even named you the exact founders of Bioware or Blizzard either. I probably couldn't tell you CA's real name either, all I know is he created SDV and he's the developer and publisher.

My point is mainstream is something most people are familiar with, even if they don't consume anything by the artist/company. I don't listen to Taylor Swift, but have heard of her, I don't fly on planes but I know Delta Air Lines and Southwestern Airlines etc.

[werwolfgaming]

Publicado originalmente por SolviteSekai:

Publicado originalmente por DasaKamov:

And then Chucklefish was dumped a couple of months later, and CA became his own publisher ever since.

Not sure why this is difficult to grasp.

it doesnt matter. the game was funded by a major publisher.

The game was made by him himself 0 funds from chucklefish the only time chuckle fish got involved was to port over multiplayer to consoles and mobile so CA could work on the pc version, chucklefish dident fund the game

[Alucard †]

Publicado originalmente por Queen Droxxanna:

oh is that what Indie games means, I just thought it was games from developers living in India/

Reminds me of me when i was a child. I thought when people refered to "pirackie gry" ("pirated games") they meant games about pirates.

[kingjames488]

if you think about it nothing on steam can be truely indie as it's not independently published...

[Nakos]

Publicado originalmente por Grimbor:

It had a publisher at one point though. So it became Indie?...

You do understand that Chucklefish is a tiny, Independent Publisher, right?

Chucklefish has about 18 employees. They're NOT a company that can provide vast amounts of funding for the studios and/or independents who choose to work with them. And we're not talking about how successful they are NOW, we're talking about how successful they were between 2011 and 2016, when SDV was being written/created.

Working with Chucklefish is NOT like working with a big publisher, like say Take Two Interactive (2K). Take Two Interactive has close to 12k employees and has major contracts for funding/producing big Triple-A games.

Just because someone has a Publisher (to do some of the work in getting a product/game/book to the market place) doesn't mean they cease to be independent.

The POINT is that Eric Barone (as far as I know) basically funded SDV's development by himself. Chucklefish did web hosting, set up a wiki, and offered a (functionally tiny) amount of help with the Multiplayer code. The also did some of the console porting. (And, obviously, took a share of the profits for doing all of that).

As of March of 2022, they're no longer involved at all.

[I dont like sand]

Pretty much what everyone has already said about indie games is true. As there isn't a specific defining factor we could say that indie game development teams are made up of a small number of people anywhere from 1 to 20. Compare that to AAA game development teams or large studios the numbers can range anywhere from 20-40 prepro to 600 or even 1000 postpro. Usually the numbers fluctuate based on the stages of development but the resources required are quite immense compared to indie teams where one person may do multiple parts of the development cycle. Sometimes indie teams can't handle the workload and need to hire external contract help called strike teams to complete the more difficult areas of development. I don't think CA qualifies as a large studio or AAA game developer in that regard.

[ULTRA]

What are you guys talking about, the game could be developed by a LLC with 3.7 billion employees and be worth 450 quadrillion dollars and it'd still be indie as long as the employees are the sole owners and proprietors. Why is there so much text in this thread, LMAO

[Sstavix]

Minecraft was an indie game - and a very successful one - until Microsoft purchased it.

The same applies to Stardew Valley. Until it's purchased by some AAA software developer, it will always be classified as an indie game.

Note that this isn't a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a great example for a lot of other independent developers. You don't need to have a huge budget to make good, high-quality games. All you need is a dream and the knowledge of how to make it happen, from the coding to the marketing.

[Baked.Bread]

Publicado originalmente por Quintzal:

Publicado originalmente por Queen Droxxanna:

oh is that what Indie games means, I just thought it was games from developers living in India/

i was thinking it was a game made by Indiana Jones.

Come to think of it, there are no snakes in this game.

Edit for some chucklefish lore. They started as an indie dev, used ea starbound funding to create a small publishing company instead of working on their game for a couple years.

[Grimbor]

There is a legit concern here as to who and what should constitute a true Indie title. Comparing even a small team that has access to literally 100 million dollars (which will be made during EA on their next game, huge word of mouth and fan base to some new guys making a game with little money or resources while working full time job, doesn't seem fair. By this logic, Star Citizen is also going to be an Indie title.

The issue lies in all the awards and special honor/reviews specially for Indie titles, such as Indie Game of the Year. Does Haunted Chocolatier deserve to be eclipsing lesser true Indie titles?