I've just realized that Doom 1 was an indie game

[chungy]

"Indie" is a fairly vague word to describe games, and these days has evolved to pretty much mean anything not published by EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square-enix, Activison, or any of the other humongous multi-national publishers. Even in that respect, you could almost qualify Doom 3 as indie the moment id was selling it almost directly through Steam -- but then wouldn't Valve be the publisher? (doesn't seem to be counted that way, but Steam is Valve's publishing platform)

if you only count games that are only self-published then, well... you exclude games like Bastian (published by WB) that aren't in disagreement over being indie. Hell, even Serious Sam (though I disagree with this one) is heralded as an indie game series, even by its publisher (which is Devolver Digital, not Croteam).

[Maes]

Mac OS is indie.

[gravager]

maybe we should see if romero will issue a declaration of indiependence. then anyone who thinks Doom isn't an indie game can have a revolutionary deathmatch vs. his people. that will settle it once and for all.

[Csonicgo]

Porsche Monty said:

Holy mother of God, is that like the wetback version of a hippie? disgusting at all imaginable levels.

Just wanted to repost this because of how deplorable it is

[Grain of Salt]

[gravager]

somebody's got a good old-fashioned Baditude

[Technician]

Porsche Monty said:

Holy mother of God, is that like the wetback version of a hippie? disgusting at all imaginable levels.

I assumed you were a fan of nappy/dreads hair.

[Porsche Monty]

Technician said:

I assumed you were a fan of nappy/dreads hair.

I'm not, but it is kind of funny that people are misinterpreting my comment as being directed at the picture of the self-hating white rasta, while I'm in fact talking about Manure Chao, who Maes mentioned on the previous page. Google that shit, you won't have no choice but to agree with me ;)

[Grain of Salt]

[Maes]

C'mon, admit it, we all enjoy a bit of witty, backhanded racism now and then.

[qoncept]

If "indie" in 1993 meant "not Sierra", then sure. But Maes is right. id had the popular Commander Keen games, Catacomb 3D, Wolfenstein and Hovertank 3D all under their belt by then.

If you consider the literal meaning of "independent," then sure, they created and published Doom independently. But the connotation of the term "indie" is low budget, off-the-beaten path type stuff. id was about as popular as any game developer of the time.

Doom is to "proper" indie snobs as Starbucks is to "proper" coffee snobs.

Did I just say anything or is it a bunch of drivel?

[Use]

Grain of Salt said:

now I'm a racist loser.

Nooo...we only need one Porsche Monty.

[Technician]

Can a mod change Porsche Monty's title to "Hide da wattamelon"?

[dmdr]

Today I learned that you can only be indie if you've never made a game before
Thanks Maes et. al.

[Maes]

Lance MDR Rocket said:

Today I learned that you can only be indie if you've never made a game before
Thanks Maes et. al.

Not necessarily no gaming experience, but it helps being an obscure poor-ass fucker who was NEVER approached by a big-time publisher and/or having a particularly weird/grassroots approach to gaming (e.g. like Jeff Minter, even though he's quite an extreme example).

[Koko Ricky]

I wonder how many times we're going to basically reiterate that the thread starter didn't really know what they were talking about.

[Snakes]

Technician said:

Can a mod change Porsche Monty's title to "Hide da wattamelon"?

I'm an advocate of "Blackface Rowlf strikes again!" Mostly on account of that avatar.

This is some classic WOG goodness, right here.

[dmdr]

Maes said:

Not necessarily no gaming experience, but it helps being an obscure poor-ass fucker who was NEVER approached by a big-time publisher and/or having a particularly weird/grassroots approach to gaming (e.g. like Jeff Minter, even though he's quite an extreme example).

Can you be indie if you worked for a big publisher and then quit to do your own thing?

[chungy]

I would say so; that's what the Beat Hazard guy did and I dare you to say that's not an indie game.

[bimlanders]

Maes said:

Then the question is whether "self published" always means "indie".

The term indie evokes images of belonging to some sort of alternative/underground scene, being small in size, which clearly does not apply to the case of big firms like Origin or EA publishing their own games. Are they "indy" for their own titles but "big greedy publishers" for others then? Where do you draw the line?

Same thing for big recording companies that also have their own record labels. Are they "indy" at least for the stuff they own the copyright to? Where do you draw the line?

E.g. an underground punk band invents their own record label and self-publish. Is that indy? What if they publish ONE single or album from some other artist? What if they publish 10? Where do you draw the line?

Serious question, and nothing to do with Indie music and such: Who were id dependent upon to create/release Doom? Give me a quick answer.

[Reiken]

I think another thing to consider is whether or not the business in question is privately-owned or is a publicly-traded one. This would still include Valve as being 'indie', which is kind of funny, but on the other hand it does kind of make sense if you ignore arguments of indie 'flavor'. If something is self-published by a self-owned entity, surely that's pretty close?

[Maes]

bimlanders said:

Serious question, and nothing to do with Indie music and such: Who were id dependent upon to create/release Doom? Give me a quick answer.

That's a trick question: they were independent (though not indie) for the small time period where Doom was available only through shareware, but only because they were enough of a "big boy" in the industry to pay their own bills. Surely they could handle posting a bunch of floppies here and there, although, as I said, if they were REALLY indie then it would be Carmack and Romero stuffing the envelopes, not their sercretary/sales dpt. ;-)

But apparently, they were not big or experienced enough to make their own boxes or CD-ROMs just a few months later, when Doom 2 hit the shelves. All commercial versions of Doom were published through "big, greedy third-party publishers".

COROLLARY: id lived under the illusion of being "indie" for maybe a couple of months. But that's like going on a camping trip for a single weekend in a tent placed in your backyard and sleeping in your house, watching TV in your living room and using your fixed BBQ with stakes taken from the fridge, while calling yourself an "outdoorsman" or "survivalist" :-)

[_bruce_]

Dude's were a fully grown company and Carmack a tough businessman.
For being indie they were way to involved.
Romero was indie when he was making AppleII games and Carmack when he was walking through the snow.

[Maes]

So "but is X indie?" is the new "but is X metal?" now?

[Udderdude]

Maes said:

So "but is X indie?" is the new "but is X metal?" now?

Pretty much. The term "Indie" has been used and abused so much, it's like a $2 corner store whore at this point. You're just gonna get the herp if you use it.

[bimlanders]

Maes said:

That's a trick question: they were independent (though not indie) for the small time period where Doom was available only through shareware, but only because they were enough of a "big boy" in the industry to pay their own bills. Surely they could handle posting a bunch of floppies here and there, although, as I said, if they were REALLY indie then it would be Carmack and Romero stuffing the envelopes, not their sercretary/sales dpt. ;-)

But apparently, they were not big or experienced enough to make their own boxes or CD-ROMs just a few months later, when Doom 2 hit the shelves. All commercial versions of Doom were published through "big, greedy third-party publishers".

COROLLARY: id lived under the illusion of being "indie" for maybe a couple of months. But that's like going on a camping trip for a single weekend in a tent placed in your backyard and sleeping in your house, watching TV in your living room and using your fixed BBQ with stakes taken from the fridge, while calling yourself an "outdoorsman" or "survivalist" :-)

You didn't answer my question. And it's not a trick question. This is about the twisting and perverting of actual terms, independent, to suit its new ideological meanings, which are abstractions at best. It's like asking if Black Metal bands actually are evil, and making sure that they have burned at least one church down before calling them Black Metal. Let's stick to real terms and meanings. Who were id dependent on to create/release Doom? And so what if they had Secretaries! Were they not employed by id and thus a part of id as a company?

[Maes]

Mu

J/K, I'll try giving an educated answer once more. If the only requirement for being "indie", even temporarily, is self-publishing while not having the financial backing of a dedicated third-party video game publisher, then yeah, id MIGHT have been "indie" at least for a small stint. They "lost" that title with Doom II, however, and maybe even before, unless someone can prove that they received no 3rd party financing whatsoever before they released Doom I, not even in the anticipation of the Doom II commercial release.

The problem with that definition is that even major game companies like Sierra would be "indie", as they self-published and self-financed but on a larger scale. If you don't put some (arbitrary, I admit) financial and company size limits in place, then even Microsoft could be counted as an "indie" company.

It also leads to interesting ambiguities: e.g. let's say Microsoft funds and publishes a game made by a small company -> not indie. But what if Microsoft hires the entire company permanently and then publishes the game? The small company is no more...Microsoft self-publishes and self-funds...according to the very minimum terms of the wikipedia definition, that would be indie.

It's a sort of Sorites Paradox.

If you still want a "final", yes/no answer to something that is not conducive to such an answer, you'll have to make some compromises, personal judgments and arbitrage. An "I know it when I see it" or "I feel it" logic, if you like.

So, of course, in the case of Microsoft my answer would be "No, of course they are not indie", even though applying the "indie rules" inflexibly would call for me to answer "Yes".

For different reasons, I say that id was NOT an indie company at the time they released Doom. I simply don't "get that positive indie vibe" from them, if you wish. But that's just my opinion.

[lazygecko]

Indie is a crappy and ineffective label that's been stretched way beyond its original meaning. In movies and music it's more of a genre itself nowadays with their own aesthetics and tropes that consumers expect from it. And we can see the same sort of crap seeping into "indie" games now as well.

Some people think the main identifier is low production values, but these days you're seeing more and more professionals leave the AAA business and create their own "indie" titles like Hawken (though they have a publisher for it now). That was made by a team of 10 or so guys using the Unreal SDK.

[Maes]

^ that. Whenever something start being replicated and used improperly around the scale just for the novelty factor, it soon wears old. E.g. like "Dogma" movies.