It actually breaks my heart how difficult it is to produce a game. I know it’s getting more accessible, but there are so many brilliant games that just can’t be developed because it’s too big of a risk for most people. Imagine taking months or even years off work to try and build an entire game by yourself? It’s unfathomable, and I have nothing but the deepest respect for indie developers.
I wouldn't say it's unfathomable, some of my favorite indies to come out in recent years were done by incredibly small teams (Synthetik) or just one man (Axiom Verge). It may be difficult and challenging, sure, but it's feasible. Also yeah mad respect for indie devs that create something great and memorable.
We still get great triple A games (ex: Ragnarok, RE4, Doom E, Elden Ring) but indies and double A are Gaming's saviors. Hell Let Loose, Dusk, Insurgency, Hrot and Ultrakill are all great
I fell in love with indie games when playing Bastion way back when, I didn't even know there was a distinction between big studios AAA games and indies... Quality and passion always comes through in a game, I really hope the CEOs and C-suite of gaming start paying a bit more attention to what's going on outside of their AAA industry. All we want is good games, we'll happily wait as long as needed and pay good money for them...
Gamers aren't the demo being catered to by CEOs and the heads of big gaming studios, it's their shareholders. They don't care that a well designed and polished game will be well received and make money, they want money ASAP and are fine with CEOs just shitting out garbage titles.
You made some very valid and important points. :) I'm an old gamer (my first console was the Sega Genesis) and I never buy games from Blizzard, EA, or Square these days. One can only keep their eyes open for the hidden gems, indie or otherwise.
Thank you for the kind words man. Yeah, those larger gaming corporations don't deserve your money at all, both for the middling slop they pass off as games, and for their horrendous management/treatment of workers. Aside from the occasional big ticket, truly quality AAA (like GoW Ragnarok or TotK), it's best to stick to smaller studios or just retro titles.
As an Indie dev myself I always love watching videos that talk about the indie industry in video games. I got to witness all of these developments in real-time agree with a lot of points brought up in this video. Great work putting this together!
@@creativeed6788 Nice, good luck in that endeavor. As an aside, if you're in need of voice acting (and enjoyed the sound/production of my commentary here), feel free to reach out. I'm interested in and trying to break into VA.
Interesting vid! I think another big aspect for indies for those of us a bit older and with families of our own is indies seem to generally not be trying to take ALL of your time. Somewhat tied into AAA predatory stuff but still, it's nice to feel like I don't have a million hooks being put into me or trying to drag things out
Good point. While there are certainly plenty of indies you can sink dozens, if not hundreds of hours into, you have just as many that say their piece and respect your time.
The main reason I think is that indie devs have a passion for their games and are willing to take risks and try creating features big companies are afraid to risk.
100%. Indies actually try to create novel gaming experiences both out of passion for the medium, but also because it can be insanely lucrative. Ironically, if the suits leading AAA gaming really wanted their runaway returns, they should actually try pursuing novelty in the gaming space (or at least fund studios doing it), rather than release the same tired schlock every year.
@@CiggySnake It's because they think they have a captive audience to extort. which may be true to some extent but becomes less true the more they keep it up, and in the process bolster the indie game market.
I really hate to be that guy, but it's worth mentioning that at least a few AAA studios have put out really good games in recent years. Just a few weeks ago TOTK dropped to basically universal acclaim. We've also had Elden Ring, DOOM 2016/Eternal, DMC V, FF7 Remake and potentially more depending on your taste. Though looking at this list it's possible this problem with AAA gaming might be an issue primarily with American AAA companies lol. That said, solid vid, enjoyed watching.
I get where you're coming from. TotK basically absorbed my life for two weeks when it came out, so it's not that AAA games are inherently bad. It's more that the modern AAA industry is generally content shoveling out unimaginative slop with built-in wallet draining mechanics. Indies on the other hand are where you can find innovation, unique experiences, and genuine passion with greater frequency. Glad you enjoyed the vid itself, and thanks for the comment.
Another great video and this one was very well researched too. I've been disillusioned with Triple A games but I don't know anything about any Indie games. This was a cool history of Indie games. Keep the great videos coming guy :)
Hey I appreciate it man. Indies are the place to go for actual quality and care in gaming. Also for whatever reason your comment was marked as spam, weird TH-cam moment I guess.
Totally agree with everything explained here. Another thing I would like to add about indie titles is that some of them even push technology further too. Noita is one such example, where every pixel in the world is simulated and has unique properties. Teardown does mostly the same thing, but in 3D and with a seriously impressive software raytraced engine that works on all graphics cards, and Battlebit Remastered having an insane 257 players in a single match at once. Another cool thing is that there are games being made that are completely free and open source! Not a single cent of profit is made from these specific games and only gets income from donations. One such example is a game called "Battle for Wesnoth".
shout out to ZUN hes a indie-pendent developer who been making games for 20 years. With the rise of indies, I can say nothing but cheer for these talented artist and developers!
i pretty much prefer indie games, AAA games all try to look realistic and impressive but they just look generic to me, while indies have their own charm and art
100%, though I will say that indies often lean too much into the pixel/retro aesthetic. Outside of that though, there are so many indies that pursue unique/interesting aesthetics.
Kerbal Space Program seems to be a microcosm of this dynamic right now. KSP1 was a passion project by an indy studio out of Mexico. KSP2 is ultimately part of the Take-Two conglomorate. KSP2's originally announched launch date was 2020. Now in 2023 its just going to Early Access on Steam (still for $50) with only a fraction of the originally announce content, and it runs like ass even on beefy cutting edge PCs, has a host of bugs, and has even regressed in a lot of areas relative to the first game. Meanwhile another indy studio just launched Juno New Origins, which is basically the same kind of game, but does well everything KSP1 did poorly, adds a few totally new features that neither KSP1 or KSP2 have, and has both a PC and mobile client.
Once you're a part of those big conglomerates, this is typically what happens. Your original work gets stripped, gutted, and worked on by people who don't care anymore. Then your parent company shits out a joke of a "final" product just to get a quick return.
Great video mate. Really enjoyed this one, amazing job you've done. I hope that AAA studios are learning from their failures, and can be as good and enjoyable the best as indie games (I do know one Silent Hill title is being written by one of my favorite indie dev), but at the same time, I also want indie games to have the same prominence as AAA titles. Well, maybe both can happen, you never know.
Hey thanks, I appreciate the kind words man. I don't have much faith in AAA, mostly because the vast majority of gamers are undiscerning, lazy consumers. They're fine with the slop and won't act in a manner that would encourage/force AAA to change. To that end, hopefully AAA's inadequacies will force more gamers towards indies and in turn raise their prominence.
It could go either way, but I'm fairly confident it will be a positive for smaller developers as it would likely reduce dev time and costs, making it easier to churn out quality products.
Played it on mcc once. It's broken trash compared to the orig on 360. Orig on 360 is the only way to play it bro. Doing it any other way is just not the same lol.
Bottom line, the indie games are fun. Not saddled by microtransaction bs and overbloated teams pulling games into too many directions. Indie games are almost all I have played lately. Gaming is fun again
(I posted this as well on your other video, I am not criticizing you to be mean personally or score internet points, I think you have made several errors objectively even if you prefer to play indie over AAA games you have wrongly dismissed and ignored the other side of your argument.) I'm very sad and frankly somewhat upset that you took this absolutist stance on the games industry and basically dismissed the single best game developer and the arguably best game to come out within the last 5 years. Without talking about Elden Ring you spat on and dismissed what From Software has been working for years to achieve. Also it's pretty telling that you only wanted to talk about certain franchises because they support your position. If I take everything you said to heart and let your opinion become mine then that means that: Death Stranding Persona 5 God of War 2018 Divinity Original Sin 2 Doom Eternal Elden Ring God of War Ragnarok Psychonauts 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order XCOM 2 Devil May Cry 5 Resident Evil 7(and 8 and 2make and 3make) *I could go on* are all apparently corporate trash that can't hold any candles to the better games of yesteryear. Honestly you are crying about how capitalistic game development has become what's popular, but there are lessons and strides the gaming industry is taking overall that's helped create some of the best games ever in the last 6 years. Please make better more nuanced content than this Twitter drivel.
Pretty sure ciggy doesn't hate ALL of triple A gaming lol calm down. He's particularly going after cod, destiny, apex legends, overwatch, rainbowsix, diablo immortal etc etc... just about anything from bioware, bethesda, blizzard, bungie, craptivision, EA etc etc as of late. You know... The unfinished online only micro transaction type experiences. Oh and some of those games you listed are pretty meh. Red ded 2 has micros and it's a pretty boring game that doesn't actually start until you're like 4 hours in. DooM eternal is a joke compared to DooM 2016 which is a joke compared to shooters like the orig DooM, halo ce, or golden eye 64. DMC 5 has micros and is FAR from the best dmc game. Fallen order is alright but it's a wanna be souls game. Just play a actual souls game for a better experience... And even Elden ring as good as it is and as much as I love it... Did sadly launch with some corpo bs. Leveling up is a big part of these games. Players are going to want to find the best place to level up. Which is outside of mohgs cliff side area of course. How do you get there? Fast af if you got internet and pay for xbox live of playstation plus. Don't pay extra for those things? Well then have fun NOT GETTING THERE EARLY GAME MWHAHAHAHAHA! That's not the worst pay to win style form of corpo bs... But it totally is that lol let's not kid ourselves... Also Elden ring launched fairly unfinished too. Play it unpatched to learn that a 3rd of the games weapons and armor don't exist lol.
(posted as well on the other video, my comment makes more sense there but I wanted to make sure you saw this and also the conclusions are the same even though you are discussing Indie games and their potential here) My disappointment is immeasurable. You gave zero ground for the good games and developers that *do* exist and you ended the video basically boycotting the entire modern gaming industry? So, don't support anyone who is trying to actually give quality content to people that are paying for it by waiting until the game is on sale so that the developers get as little from you as possible? Yes there are many many egregious examples of companies putting either money or self-serving agendas over giving the customer a fun, quality product. Why does that mean we shouldn't praise and recognize when something good comes out of that same industry? I find this entire video to be lacking perspective, even if you do appreciate the good that has come out you did not make it clear in the video. You had one month after your last video and this is where you ended up?A video where you discuss indie games and how they are God's gift to gamers? It's painfully obvious that you don't care for the AAA companies doing it right and would rather dismiss them in order to cry about having to play games you don't want to play. Not every game released has micro transactions, not every has season passes and buyable wins. But you speak as if we are in a dystopia of AAA game development where everyone is wicked. I usually am not one to be so annoyed about one video from a creator I haven't seen before, but as someone who has fallen in love with games like Divinity Original Sin 2 and Elden Ring I felt like you inadvertently are discrediting my experiences with very good games and telling me that I should have no hope that I will ever get anything like those experiences again. What a pessimistic and narrow view. I hope my criticism isn't taken personally, I don't know you, but this video is a affront to the ones who are directly doing the work opposite of what you are addressing here.
Why teh fuk do you have this mindset that ciggy is 100% against triple A games? As if ciggy will kill us all for playing them. That's the vibe I'm getting from you and it's very very weird lol. Ciggy is just saying that triple A titles are often disappointing that's all. Is ciggy not allowed to say that? What's your problem my guy? Chill out lol. I see who you sub to. You're clearly not a chud who screams whoak at everything he doesn't like. Clearly you got a brain. So why are you acting so stupid right now?
The fact that this positive video about gaming... Is soooo much less popular than your video about pointing out the negatives in gaming...... Says a lot lol. just saying. Clearly the people are pretty upset with corpo gaming getting a bit too corporationy lol.
It's more that people want to get mad, negativity is a stronger draw than positivity generally speaking. There's good reason to be pissed at the modern games industry, and it's a commonly held frustration. Also my Dark Age of Gaming vid has been out for longer and been shared/promoted a bit more. By all means though, feel free to get this vid out and make it as popular as my prior one :^)
I'm sorry, but you cannot say that there is "sheer variety and quality" among indie games in ANY way that's even REMOTELY objective. It's like you don't know what "sheer" means. People love to say that there are "TONS" of indie hidden gems, and fail to realize that for every Hades, Hollow Knight or Celeste, there are like a hundred crappy indie attempts at making something resembling fun. The indie industry is full of unbalanced, unfinished, poorly designed, poorly optimised, boring, faulty games that have made me regret the decision of buying them. It's through sheer exposure to indie games that I've come to even fear them. At the beginning of this year, I was all into indies. I bought all the highly-acclaimed indies I could get my hands on, and to be honest, I've abandoned like 90% of the ones I've tried playing. Most of them are unconvincing, or unbalanced, or they have poor level design or a horrible concept of difficulty, for example. There's a REASON why AAA companies grew up to be so big. It's because they KNOW, or used to know, how to make actually good games. So, if you ask me, that "sheer quality" part of the message in this video couldn't be further from the truth. And then, how can this guy say that there's "sheer variety" in the indie scene? I mean, if you just happen to love indies, simply say so. This video would have been way better that way. You don't need to make up some arguments with no basis in reality to try and "prove" that you are right. Anyone who's objective when it comes to indies (i.e., anyone who has actually played and researched a lot of them, not just Hades, Celeste, Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley) KNOWS that (1) like 70% of them are either puzzle platformers or twin-stick shooters, (2) 90% of them are made in pixel art, (3) 90% of them are roguelikes or built on procedural generation, and (3) 80% of them are annoyingly preachy about modern moral topics or (even worse) depression, to the point where the story is SO CRINGEWORTHY, it becomes overwhelmingly hard to finish them. Where's that "sheer variety"? Because I haven't seen it. A MUCH HIGHER percentage of AAA games are excellent games. We have way fewer triple-A games on the market than we have indies, but we have way more excellent games on the triple-A side than we do on the indie side. Then there's also what I call the "indie bias", which means that people will overglorify a good indie to an honestly laughable level, just beacause it's indie. For example, I laugh out loud every time I see people claiming that Hollow Knight is better than Metroid Dread. For God's sake 😂😂😂😂. Or that Into the Breach is the best turn-based strategy game ever, even above Fire Emblem: Three Houses 😂😂😂. Or that Celeste is better than Mario Wonder or Tropical Freeze. Again, if you love your indie games, say so. Everybody will understand. But don't go all-out fanboy on them. It's seriously ridiculous. By the way, the reason I only use Nintendo games as points of comparison is that I only have a Switch. I don't own a PlayStation 5 or an XBOX Series, which, if you ask me, could very well be the reason why I love AAA games. Nintendo's AAA games are pure joy, fun, beauty and quality (with the exception of Pokémon Scarlet/Violet; that game is not beautiful 😂), and no indie comes even close to how good they are. Yet, AAA gaming on the PS or XBOX side IS indeed very monotonous, bland and boring, and it's full of exploitative practices. So, as I've said multiple times on TH-cam, what wee need is NOT more crappy indie games made by amateurs, but, rather, more AAA following Nintendo's philosophy.
you lost me at the "Yet, AAA gaming on the PS or XBOX side IS indeed very monotonous, bland and boring, and it's full of exploitative practices." part but everything else was on point!
I pretty much abandoned AAA gaming, except for racing games like F1 23, and have went over exclusively to Indie Games. I got game making software like RPG Maker for example, so I can make my own games.
Indie games are just so creative compared to most AAA games. To list most of my absolute favorites (including some I doubt you'd have ever even heard before), there is: Wrongworld Downwell Super Meat Boy Totally Accurate Battle Simulator Just Shapes & Beats Don't Escape 4 Undertale Celeste Cuphead Slendytubbies 3 (both the campaign and multiplayer) Dayshift at Freddy's 2 and 3 (fan game/series) Black Mesa (fan remake) Along with some games I plan on getting soon: Machinarium Samorost 3 OMORI Pizza Tower And some that are going to be released soon: Karlson (full version, not the demo) Deltarune (chapters 3-7) Deep Sleep Labyrinth of the Forsaken Lucky Tower Ultimate I might have made this list a tiny bit too long... (maybe that shows how many good indie games there are lol)
@@CiggySnake Yeah, I’m really excited to get to play Pizza Tower in particular. I’ve been a huge fan of the platformer genre, and it’s been my favorite since about 2016. And yeah, while Downwell is definitely a hidden gem, the one above it (Wrongworld) is even more of a hidden gem, 400 Steam reviews, and 94% positive. According to Steam forums, the one main dev behind the game nearly went bankrupt just updating the game and adding more free content after launch. He didn’t actually go bankrupt thankfully but it’s still kind of a sad story.
Speaking indie game, if not indie games not all good, does mean indie game interest make realistic 3d game achieve AAA studio quality to publish the game? Like Fantasy games combat or Sci-fi non turn based achive?
Nice video. Didn't know much about indies in consoles! Think I first heard the term indie games around 2004-2005? Around the time of Cave Story. At that time I was looking for new types of games and searched out "doujin"; various Japanese games made by small devs (or so the term was used within the gaming community). And got interested in searching out english translated games from around the world. About then I started discovering various freeware indie games and really got hooked ever since as they began to boom in one place with services like Steam. Though "Indie" or small devs have been around forever in PC gaming in all its many forms from the earliest DOS days and on~ Passing disks and CDs around instead of having the internet :O
Awesome video, Cigster!🤩😇🥳🤟 I love indie/AA games! I hope indie/AA games will overtake triple AAA companies in the future. The only two triple AAA companies that'll learn from indie/AA games are Nintendo and Sega.
Glad you enjoyed it man, and yeah hopefully indies become a more prominent force in the future. While Nintendo does generally put out good and enjoyable games, Sega is orders of magnitude more open to and supportive of indie projects. Sonic Mania was produced and headlined by a ROM hacker/indie developer, whereas Nintendo actively goes out of it's way to nuke indie and fan projects. Furthermore, they don't seem willing to budge on this matter, at least given the current corporate heads/figures at Nintendo.
@Ciggy Snake Since Nintendo and Sega/Atlus are triple AAA companies and they have a shitload of money, I'm worried about the future of Nintendo and Sega/Atlus games. I'm worried about the future of Mario/Kirby/Pikmin/Splatoon games. I'm worried about the future of Sonic games. Will the developers of Nintendo and Sega/Atlus learn from their mistakes? Will Nintendo and Sega deserves a wake-up call from the video game industry crash or pirating/modding/emulator gang, or indie developers, or Valve/Steamdeck/PlayAsia?
I think most people acknowledge that there are bad indies out there, it's just that the indie scene as a whole has provided a wealth of creativity, artistry, and quality, especially compared to much of AAA nowadays.
I like your videos but I gotta say that I think you may be misplacing your faith in Indie developers not crunching or relying on shareholders approval... indie game companies are still companies and still have deadlines. Look into how Indie game publishers treat indie developers who rely on them for funding, that's a good place to start. They certainly aren't all bad, but to say Indies don't crunch out of obligation is an outright falsehood unfortunately. It's true that indies are making much more original content and are not generally beholden as to what features need to go into a game, but in order to get funding and marketing many studios end up doing things they would rather not. A classic example is multiplayer co-op being added to system shock 2 as a publisher request, when the game is absolutely not designed for it. Just some food for thought!
Fair enough, and honestly something I should have covered. I'm big on indies when they are at their most independent, when it's a handful of devs just doing what they want. I get that in many cases they have to partner with publishers and more established entities to get funding/support, and this can lead to the same sort of corporate interference that AAA companies impose on their games. Bottom line, the more big business intrudes on artistry/entertainment, the more watered down and gross it becomes.
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
It actually breaks my heart how difficult it is to produce a game. I know it’s getting more accessible, but there are so many brilliant games that just can’t be developed because it’s too big of a risk for most people.
Imagine taking months or even years off work to try and build an entire game by yourself? It’s unfathomable, and I have nothing but the deepest respect for indie developers.
I wouldn't say it's unfathomable, some of my favorite indies to come out in recent years were done by incredibly small teams (Synthetik) or just one man (Axiom Verge).
It may be difficult and challenging, sure, but it's feasible. Also yeah mad respect for indie devs that create something great and memorable.
We still get great triple A games (ex: Ragnarok, RE4, Doom E, Elden Ring) but indies and double A are Gaming's saviors. Hell Let Loose, Dusk, Insurgency, Hrot and Ultrakill are all great
I fell in love with indie games when playing Bastion way back when, I didn't even know there was a distinction between big studios AAA games and indies... Quality and passion always comes through in a game, I really hope the CEOs and C-suite of gaming start paying a bit more attention to what's going on outside of their AAA industry. All we want is good games, we'll happily wait as long as needed and pay good money for them...
Gamers aren't the demo being catered to by CEOs and the heads of big gaming studios, it's their shareholders. They don't care that a well designed and polished game will be well received and make money, they want money ASAP and are fine with CEOs just shitting out garbage titles.
You made some very valid and important points. :) I'm an old gamer (my first console was the Sega Genesis) and I never buy games from Blizzard, EA, or Square these days. One can only keep their eyes open for the hidden gems, indie or otherwise.
Thank you for the kind words man. Yeah, those larger gaming corporations don't deserve your money at all, both for the middling slop they pass off as games, and for their horrendous management/treatment of workers. Aside from the occasional big ticket, truly quality AAA (like GoW Ragnarok or TotK), it's best to stick to smaller studios or just retro titles.
A well thought out and presented video on this topic. Other TH-camrs could learn from you.
Thank you, that's very kind of you to say
Why small channels are beating the big ones. The golden age of small youtubers
I just want to say good job
As an Indie dev myself I always love watching videos that talk about the indie industry in video games. I got to witness all of these developments in real-time agree with a lot of points brought up in this video.
Great work putting this together!
How neat, in line with this I have a lot of respect for indie developers, what kind of games are you working on?
@@CiggySnake I'm currently working on a small indie beat 'em up which I plan to release hopefully next year :)
@@creativeed6788 Nice, good luck in that endeavor. As an aside, if you're in need of voice acting (and enjoyed the sound/production of my commentary here), feel free to reach out. I'm interested in and trying to break into VA.
I'm not much of a gamer, myself, but your videos always know exactly how to make a brotha FEEL like batman.
Cool video, I really enjoyed it.. plus your voice is clear and the dialogue is well written.
That's very kind of you, thank you so much
Interesting vid! I think another big aspect for indies for those of us a bit older and with families of our own is indies seem to generally not be trying to take ALL of your time. Somewhat tied into AAA predatory stuff but still, it's nice to feel like I don't have a million hooks being put into me or trying to drag things out
Good point. While there are certainly plenty of indies you can sink dozens, if not hundreds of hours into, you have just as many that say their piece and respect your time.
The main reason I think is that indie devs have a passion for their games and are willing to take risks and try creating features big companies are afraid to risk.
100%. Indies actually try to create novel gaming experiences both out of passion for the medium, but also because it can be insanely lucrative. Ironically, if the suits leading AAA gaming really wanted their runaway returns, they should actually try pursuing novelty in the gaming space (or at least fund studios doing it), rather than release the same tired schlock every year.
@@CiggySnake It's because they think they have a captive audience to extort. which may be true to some extent but becomes less true the more they keep it up, and in the process bolster the indie game market.
I really hate to be that guy, but it's worth mentioning that at least a few AAA studios have put out really good games in recent years. Just a few weeks ago TOTK dropped to basically universal acclaim. We've also had Elden Ring, DOOM 2016/Eternal, DMC V, FF7 Remake and potentially more depending on your taste. Though looking at this list it's possible this problem with AAA gaming might be an issue primarily with American AAA companies lol.
That said, solid vid, enjoyed watching.
I get where you're coming from. TotK basically absorbed my life for two weeks when it came out, so it's not that AAA games are inherently bad. It's more that the modern AAA industry is generally content shoveling out unimaginative slop with built-in wallet draining mechanics. Indies on the other hand are where you can find innovation, unique experiences, and genuine passion with greater frequency.
Glad you enjoyed the vid itself, and thanks for the comment.
Great stuff man
Lately, I have been playing PlayStation exclusives on pc and Indies. 🔥
Damn, that takes me back 4:39
I appreciate it man, yeah the heyday of Flash was a good time.
This video deserves a lot more attention. Keep it up man
never played games never will - but still enjoyed your thourghts
Another great video and this one was very well researched too. I've been disillusioned with Triple A games but I don't know anything about any Indie games. This was a cool history of Indie games. Keep the great videos coming guy :)
Hey I appreciate it man. Indies are the place to go for actual quality and care in gaming.
Also for whatever reason your comment was marked as spam, weird TH-cam moment I guess.
@@CiggySnake maybe my grammar and punctuation is too good... i might have to misspell things on purpose to "fit in with my fellow humans..."
Totally agree with everything explained here. Another thing I would like to add about indie titles is that some of them even push technology further too. Noita is one such example, where every pixel in the world is simulated and has unique properties. Teardown does mostly the same thing, but in 3D and with a seriously impressive software raytraced engine that works on all graphics cards, and Battlebit Remastered having an insane 257 players in a single match at once.
Another cool thing is that there are games being made that are completely free and open source! Not a single cent of profit is made from these specific games and only gets income from donations. One such example is a game called "Battle for Wesnoth".
Hey glad you enjoyed it man, and good points here. Also good Cruelty Squad pfp, fitting.
I love indie games and one such indie game I'm still playing and a little stuck on is signalis
YES. Great video. Give this man a cigar.
Cigar Snake
shout out to ZUN
hes a indie-pendent developer who been making games for 20 years.
With the rise of indies, I can say nothing but cheer for these talented artist and developers!
ZUN's a god and Touhou slaps hard.
he made indies and then more indies came from his game community
cult of the lamb and hollow are my favorite platinums I've gotten
i pretty much prefer indie games, AAA games all try to look realistic and impressive but they just look generic to me, while indies have their own charm and art
100%, though I will say that indies often lean too much into the pixel/retro aesthetic. Outside of that though, there are so many indies that pursue unique/interesting aesthetics.
nice vid cig
Kerbal Space Program seems to be a microcosm of this dynamic right now. KSP1 was a passion project by an indy studio out of Mexico. KSP2 is ultimately part of the Take-Two conglomorate. KSP2's originally announched launch date was 2020. Now in 2023 its just going to Early Access on Steam (still for $50) with only a fraction of the originally announce content, and it runs like ass even on beefy cutting edge PCs, has a host of bugs, and has even regressed in a lot of areas relative to the first game.
Meanwhile another indy studio just launched Juno New Origins, which is basically the same kind of game, but does well everything KSP1 did poorly, adds a few totally new features that neither KSP1 or KSP2 have, and has both a PC and mobile client.
Once you're a part of those big conglomerates, this is typically what happens. Your original work gets stripped, gutted, and worked on by people who don't care anymore. Then your parent company shits out a joke of a "final" product just to get a quick return.
Great video mate. Really enjoyed this one, amazing job you've done.
I hope that AAA studios are learning from their failures, and can be as good and enjoyable the best as indie games (I do know one Silent Hill title is being written by one of my favorite indie dev), but at the same time, I also want indie games to have the same prominence as AAA titles. Well, maybe both can happen, you never know.
Hey thanks, I appreciate the kind words man.
I don't have much faith in AAA, mostly because the vast majority of gamers are undiscerning, lazy consumers. They're fine with the slop and won't act in a manner that would encourage/force AAA to change. To that end, hopefully AAA's inadequacies will force more gamers towards indies and in turn raise their prominence.
It’s actually quite simple really. Soulless corporate greed and creative bankruptcy is why AAA sucks now.
Basically this
I LOVE Subnut thank you for showing SUBNUT I think everyone should play S U B N U T it's my favorite indie game goodbye.
Their are good indie RTS made by indie devs
Such as? Genuine question, I haven't seen many major indie RTS games pop up on my radar.
algo boost vrmmm vrmmmm
For the algorithm
I wonder if ai will dethrone these tripple a tittles, or worsen the gaming industry
It could go either way, but I'm fairly confident it will be a positive for smaller developers as it would likely reduce dev time and costs, making it easier to churn out quality products.
Re-Re-Release Halo 3..... The Last Truly AAA Game
Played it on mcc once. It's broken trash compared to the orig on 360. Orig on 360 is the only way to play it bro. Doing it any other way is just not the same lol.
i mean the worlds biggest game is an indie
Bottom line, the indie games are fun. Not saddled by microtransaction bs and overbloated teams pulling games into too many directions. Indie games are almost all I have played lately. Gaming is fun again
"Boomer shooters" lol!
(I posted this as well on your other video, I am not criticizing you to be mean personally or score internet points, I think you have made several errors objectively even if you prefer to play indie over AAA games you have wrongly dismissed and ignored the other side of your argument.)
I'm very sad and frankly somewhat upset that you took this absolutist stance on the games industry and basically dismissed the single best game developer and the arguably best game to come out within the last 5 years.
Without talking about Elden Ring you spat on and dismissed what From Software has been working for years to achieve. Also it's pretty telling that you only wanted to talk about certain franchises because they support your position.
If I take everything you said to heart and let your opinion become mine then that means that:
Death Stranding
Persona 5
God of War 2018
Divinity Original Sin 2
Doom Eternal
Elden Ring
God of War Ragnarok
Psychonauts 2
Red Dead Redemption 2
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
XCOM 2
Devil May Cry 5
Resident Evil 7(and 8 and 2make and 3make)
*I could go on*
are all apparently corporate trash that can't hold any candles to the better games of yesteryear. Honestly you are crying about how capitalistic game development has become what's popular, but there are lessons and strides the gaming industry is taking overall that's helped create some of the best games ever in the last 6 years. Please make better more nuanced content than this Twitter drivel.
If your response is "that's why I said to support indie games" then you missed the point of what I said.
Pretty sure ciggy doesn't hate ALL of triple A gaming lol calm down. He's particularly going after cod, destiny, apex legends, overwatch, rainbowsix, diablo immortal etc etc... just about anything from bioware, bethesda, blizzard, bungie, craptivision, EA etc etc as of late. You know... The unfinished online only micro transaction type experiences.
Oh and some of those games you listed are pretty meh. Red ded 2 has micros and it's a pretty boring game that doesn't actually start until you're like 4 hours in. DooM eternal is a joke compared to DooM 2016 which is a joke compared to shooters like the orig DooM, halo ce, or golden eye 64. DMC 5 has micros and is FAR from the best dmc game. Fallen order is alright but it's a wanna be souls game. Just play a actual souls game for a better experience... And even Elden ring as good as it is and as much as I love it... Did sadly launch with some corpo bs. Leveling up is a big part of these games. Players are going to want to find the best place to level up. Which is outside of mohgs cliff side area of course. How do you get there? Fast af if you got internet and pay for xbox live of playstation plus. Don't pay extra for those things? Well then have fun NOT GETTING THERE EARLY GAME MWHAHAHAHAHA! That's not the worst pay to win style form of corpo bs... But it totally is that lol let's not kid ourselves... Also Elden ring launched fairly unfinished too. Play it unpatched to learn that a 3rd of the games weapons and armor don't exist lol.
(posted as well on the other video, my comment makes more sense there but I wanted to make sure you saw this and also the conclusions are the same even though you are discussing Indie games and their potential here)
My disappointment is immeasurable. You gave zero ground for the good games and developers that *do* exist and you ended the video basically boycotting the entire modern gaming industry? So, don't support anyone who is trying to actually give quality content to people that are paying for it by waiting until the game is on sale so that the developers get as little from you as possible?
Yes there are many many egregious examples of companies putting either money or self-serving agendas over giving the customer a fun, quality product. Why does that mean we shouldn't praise and recognize when something good comes out of that same industry? I find this entire video to be lacking perspective, even if you do appreciate the good that has come out you did not make it clear in the video. You had one month after your last video and this is where you ended up?A video where you discuss indie games and how they are God's gift to gamers? It's painfully obvious that you don't care for the AAA companies doing it right and would rather dismiss them in order to cry about having to play games you don't want to play.
Not every game released has micro transactions, not every has season passes and buyable wins. But you speak as if we are in a dystopia of AAA game development where everyone is wicked. I usually am not one to be so annoyed about one video from a creator I haven't seen before, but as someone who has fallen in love with games like Divinity Original Sin 2 and Elden Ring I felt like you inadvertently are discrediting my experiences with very good games and telling me that I should have no hope that I will ever get anything like those experiences again. What a pessimistic and narrow view. I hope my criticism isn't taken personally, I don't know you, but this video is a affront to the ones who are directly doing the work opposite of what you are addressing here.
Why teh fuk do you have this mindset that ciggy is 100% against triple A games? As if ciggy will kill us all for playing them. That's the vibe I'm getting from you and it's very very weird lol. Ciggy is just saying that triple A titles are often disappointing that's all. Is ciggy not allowed to say that? What's your problem my guy? Chill out lol.
I see who you sub to. You're clearly not a chud who screams whoak at everything he doesn't like. Clearly you got a brain. So why are you acting so stupid right now?
The fact that this positive video about gaming... Is soooo much less popular than your video about pointing out the negatives in gaming...... Says a lot lol. just saying. Clearly the people are pretty upset with corpo gaming getting a bit too corporationy lol.
It's more that people want to get mad, negativity is a stronger draw than positivity generally speaking. There's good reason to be pissed at the modern games industry, and it's a commonly held frustration. Also my Dark Age of Gaming vid has been out for longer and been shared/promoted a bit more.
By all means though, feel free to get this vid out and make it as popular as my prior one :^)
@@CiggySnakeYeah that's true too lol. Which makes it even worse lololol.
AAA games are broken but indie game,s are not am i right ?
I'm sorry, but you cannot say that there is "sheer variety and quality" among indie games in ANY way that's even REMOTELY objective. It's like you don't know what "sheer" means.
People love to say that there are "TONS" of indie hidden gems, and fail to realize that for every Hades, Hollow Knight or Celeste, there are like a hundred crappy indie attempts at making something resembling fun. The indie industry is full of unbalanced, unfinished, poorly designed, poorly optimised, boring, faulty games that have made me regret the decision of buying them. It's through sheer exposure to indie games that I've come to even fear them. At the beginning of this year, I was all into indies. I bought all the highly-acclaimed indies I could get my hands on, and to be honest, I've abandoned like 90% of the ones I've tried playing. Most of them are unconvincing, or unbalanced, or they have poor level design or a horrible concept of difficulty, for example. There's a REASON why AAA companies grew up to be so big. It's because they KNOW, or used to know, how to make actually good games. So, if you ask me, that "sheer quality" part of the message in this video couldn't be further from the truth.
And then, how can this guy say that there's "sheer variety" in the indie scene? I mean, if you just happen to love indies, simply say so. This video would have been way better that way. You don't need to make up some arguments with no basis in reality to try and "prove" that you are right. Anyone who's objective when it comes to indies (i.e., anyone who has actually played and researched a lot of them, not just Hades, Celeste, Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley) KNOWS that (1) like 70% of them are either puzzle platformers or twin-stick shooters, (2) 90% of them are made in pixel art, (3) 90% of them are roguelikes or built on procedural generation, and (3) 80% of them are annoyingly preachy about modern moral topics or (even worse) depression, to the point where the story is SO CRINGEWORTHY, it becomes
overwhelmingly hard to finish them. Where's that "sheer variety"? Because I haven't seen it. A MUCH HIGHER percentage of AAA games are excellent games. We have way fewer triple-A games on the market than we have indies, but we have way more excellent games on the triple-A side than we do on the indie side.
Then there's also what I call the "indie bias", which means that people will overglorify a good indie to an honestly laughable level, just beacause it's indie. For example, I laugh out loud every time I see people claiming that Hollow Knight is better than Metroid Dread. For God's sake 😂😂😂😂. Or that Into the Breach is the best turn-based strategy game ever, even above Fire Emblem: Three Houses 😂😂😂. Or that Celeste is better than Mario Wonder or Tropical Freeze. Again, if you love your indie games, say so. Everybody will understand. But don't go all-out fanboy on them. It's seriously ridiculous.
By the way, the reason I only use Nintendo games as points of comparison is that I only have a Switch. I don't own a PlayStation 5 or an XBOX Series, which, if you ask me, could very well be the reason why I love AAA games. Nintendo's AAA games are pure joy, fun, beauty and quality (with the exception of Pokémon Scarlet/Violet; that game is not beautiful 😂), and no indie comes even close to how good they are. Yet, AAA gaming on the PS or XBOX side IS indeed very monotonous, bland and boring, and it's full of exploitative practices. So, as I've said multiple times on TH-cam, what wee need is NOT more crappy indie games made by amateurs, but, rather, more AAA following Nintendo's philosophy.
you lost me at the "Yet, AAA gaming on the PS or XBOX side IS indeed very monotonous, bland and boring, and it's full of exploitative practices." part but everything else was on point!
I pretty much abandoned AAA gaming, except for racing games like F1 23, and have went over exclusively to Indie Games. I got game making software like RPG Maker for example, so I can make my own games.
Never thought indie were part of adobe flash games
Indie games are just so creative compared to most AAA games. To list most of my absolute favorites (including some I doubt you'd have ever even heard before), there is:
Wrongworld
Downwell
Super Meat Boy
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
Just Shapes & Beats
Don't Escape 4
Undertale
Celeste
Cuphead
Slendytubbies 3 (both the campaign and multiplayer)
Dayshift at Freddy's 2 and 3 (fan game/series)
Black Mesa (fan remake)
Along with some games I plan on getting soon:
Machinarium
Samorost 3
OMORI
Pizza Tower
And some that are going to be released soon:
Karlson (full version, not the demo)
Deltarune (chapters 3-7)
Deep Sleep Labyrinth of the Forsaken
Lucky Tower Ultimate
I might have made this list a tiny bit too long... (maybe that shows how many good indie games there are lol)
Downwell is a hidden gem, a nice little retro style indie. Also Pizza Tower is god tier.
@@CiggySnake Yeah, I’m really excited to get to play Pizza Tower in particular. I’ve been a huge fan of the platformer genre, and it’s been my favorite since about 2016.
And yeah, while Downwell is definitely a hidden gem, the one above it (Wrongworld) is even more of a hidden gem, 400 Steam reviews, and 94% positive. According to Steam forums, the one main dev behind the game nearly went bankrupt just updating the game and adding more free content after launch. He didn’t actually go bankrupt thankfully but it’s still kind of a sad story.
Some Fifa Game (idk)
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
This is a great video - keep it up.
Honestly AAA games don't feel worth their price anymore..
They very rarely are at this point
Speaking indie game, if not indie games not all good, does mean indie game interest make realistic 3d game achieve AAA studio quality to publish the game? Like Fantasy games combat or Sci-fi non turn based achive?
Nice video. Didn't know much about indies in consoles!
Think I first heard the term indie games around 2004-2005? Around the time of Cave Story. At that time I was looking for new types of games and searched out "doujin"; various Japanese games made by small devs (or so the term was used within the gaming community). And got interested in searching out english translated games from around the world. About then I started discovering various freeware indie games and really got hooked ever since as they began to boom in one place with services like Steam.
Though "Indie" or small devs have been around forever in PC gaming in all its many forms from the earliest DOS days and on~ Passing disks and CDs around instead of having the internet :O
In retrospect I really should have mentioned Cave Story, or at least used footage of it. It's one of the OG indies.
Wow! Awesome! Good! Incredible video!
I like indie games 😁
🫡
First
Awesome video, Cigster!🤩😇🥳🤟 I love indie/AA games! I hope indie/AA games will overtake triple AAA companies in the future.
The only two triple AAA companies that'll learn from indie/AA games are Nintendo and Sega.
Glad you enjoyed it man, and yeah hopefully indies become a more prominent force in the future.
While Nintendo does generally put out good and enjoyable games, Sega is orders of magnitude more open to and supportive of indie projects. Sonic Mania was produced and headlined by a ROM hacker/indie developer, whereas Nintendo actively goes out of it's way to nuke indie and fan projects. Furthermore, they don't seem willing to budge on this matter, at least given the current corporate heads/figures at Nintendo.
@Ciggy Snake Since Nintendo and Sega/Atlus are triple AAA companies and they have a shitload of money, I'm worried about the future of Nintendo and Sega/Atlus games.
I'm worried about the future of Mario/Kirby/Pikmin/Splatoon games.
I'm worried about the future of Sonic games.
Will the developers of Nintendo and Sega/Atlus learn from their mistakes?
Will Nintendo and Sega deserves a wake-up call from the video game industry crash or pirating/modding/emulator gang, or indie developers, or Valve/Steamdeck/PlayAsia?
Isaaaaac! 8:58
*foot stomp*
Honestly people ignore the fact we have had AWFUL Indie games!
I think most people acknowledge that there are bad indies out there, it's just that the indie scene as a whole has provided a wealth of creativity, artistry, and quality, especially compared to much of AAA nowadays.
@@CiggySnake We have some amazing AAA games as well, look at games like Witcher 3, and Ghost Of Tsushima!
great video as always, cig 💜
ty Mari :)
I like your videos but I gotta say that I think you may be misplacing your faith in Indie developers not crunching or relying on shareholders approval... indie game companies are still companies and still have deadlines. Look into how Indie game publishers treat indie developers who rely on them for funding, that's a good place to start. They certainly aren't all bad, but to say Indies don't crunch out of obligation is an outright falsehood unfortunately. It's true that indies are making much more original content and are not generally beholden as to what features need to go into a game, but in order to get funding and marketing many studios end up doing things they would rather not. A classic example is multiplayer co-op being added to system shock 2 as a publisher request, when the game is absolutely not designed for it. Just some food for thought!
Fair enough, and honestly something I should have covered. I'm big on indies when they are at their most independent, when it's a handful of devs just doing what they want. I get that in many cases they have to partner with publishers and more established entities to get funding/support, and this can lead to the same sort of corporate interference that AAA companies impose on their games.
Bottom line, the more big business intrudes on artistry/entertainment, the more watered down and gross it becomes.
Keep it up"Nice.!!! Your content deserves a service like S M Z E U S!!