Discourse in the games industry is largely cyclical. People complain about graphics in the latest triple-A banger not being up to scratch, then they complain about bugs and glitches in the latest release, then they complain about crunch with seemingly ꧋no▨ self-awareness about how the first two complaints cause the third one.
However, recently a new discourse has formed, about the nature of indie games and what a ‘true’ indie game is in 2023. Many people had been duped into thinking that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dave the Diver was an indie game. It&🌄rsquo;s got all the trappings – from that pixel art aesthetic to the simple, engaging formula – but that’s not what defines an indie game. An indie game is, by its nature, independent.
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Dave the Diver couldn’t be less independent. Its developer MintRocket isn’t just a subsidiary of a big corporation (it&rs🦩quo;s not one of those indie studios bought up by Microsoft or Valve at the moment of releasing its seminal work), MintRocket is a division of multi-billion dollar corporation Nexon. Indie games are independent of corporate influence, independent of corporate pressure, and, most importantly, independent of corporate funding. Independent developers have to work harder to market themselves, work harder to distribute their games, and work harder to get noticed. Dave the Diver had no such troubles.
But does it matter? Dave the Diver is still a great game, undoubtedly created by passionate devs l☂iving up to Nexon’s promise that the division would focus on “the essence of fun”. The answer is complicated.
It matters if Dave the Diver is nominated for indie awards, which it has been. Dave the Diver has been nominated for Best Indie Game at the Golden Joysticks, up against self-published titles like Pizza Tower and Sea of Stars. Technically, Dave the Diver is self-published too, but the fact it’s self-published by MintRocket is misleading. Nexon made profits of ¥114.9billion (~£63♛0,000,000, ~$770,000,000) in 2021 alone, according to its , giving it p♉lenty of funding to pour into marketing Dave the Diver.
A wealthy publisher should not disqualify you from indie status, however. Games published by Annapurna Interactive and Devolver Digital are still considered indie despite the multi-million dollar budgets of their publishers. Stray was heavily markete𝓰d by Sony itself as a big PS5 exclusive, and yet won Best Indie and Best Debut Indie at The Game Awards, beating Vampire Survivors (made initially by one dev alone, before the team grew to a still-tiny 15) to𒁃 the latter.
Is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Citizen Sleeper, one of my favourite indie games – or games full stop – any less indie because the sole person who created it sought ♈a publisher to distribute? Fellow Traveller is no Nexon, but where do you draw the line? For many, the line is drawn at a billion-dollar valuation, but this seems arbitrary.
Many other nominees for Best Indie at the Golden Joysticks have large publishers attached. Cocoon, Viewfinder, and Dredge are published by Annapurna, Thunderful Publishing, and Team17 respectively. Does this disqualify them? No. But Nexon isn’t on the same level as Annapurna or Devolver, it’s a financial equivalent to EA or Ubisoft. If Ubisoft Bordeaux was just called Bordeaux Studios, would 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin’s Creed Mirage be up for Best Indie? The answer is obviously no, but i🀅s that because of the established Ubi🉐soft IP, the realistic graphics, or a mix of the two? Realistically, Dave the Diver likely shares far more DNA with Mirage than Pizza Tower, at least when it comes to budget.
It seems a lot of the anger at Dave the Diver being seen as an indie game is anti-Nexon sentiment. The Korean publisher is most famous for creating MapleStory, but has recently lost a lot of goodwill thanks to its lawsuit against Dark & Darker, a game made by former devs that Nexon alleges uses assets stolen from its archives. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:It’s a complicated suit, but Dark & 🥂Darker is popular,🐻 and Nexon’s cease and desist was not.
The more pertinent question is, does it matter whether people think Dave the Diver is an indie game? For the general public, no. Steam doesn’t label it as an indie game on its storefront, so it’s not getting that preferential treatment that’s designed to help games without massive marketing budgets. I doubt many people play games based on whether they’re independent or not, although it may affect your judgement of them. That said, Dave the Diver shouldn’t be up for indie awards, because it has a billion-dollar advantage in that aren🧸a.