Indie Game: The Movie

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Where's the remote?

Is the remote over there?

7 months from now

Super Meat Boy

Xbox Release Day

What the Hell?

Are you f***ing kidding me?

Are you f***ing kidding me?

I've got plenty of information...

It's not here.

...I know on our launch day...

Where is it?

...Which is our biggest sales day...

What the F*** is that!?!

...that...

...we're not even featured anywhere...

I know on our launch day,

at this point

We're going to do worse than

all of them.

Indie Game:
The Movie

Part of it...

...is about not trying to be...

...professional.

A lot of people come in

to indie games...

...trying to be like a big company.

What those companies do...

...is create highly polished things...

...that serve as large

of an audience as possible.

The way that you do that is by...

...filing off all the bumps

on something.

If there's a sharp corner,

you make sure it's not going to

hurt anybody.

If they bump into it or whatever.

That creation of this highly glossy,

commercial product

Is the opposite of

making something personal.

I am determined to make video games...

...and I make video games

because I can.

I'm very, very good at programing.

I can still make something that

expresses myself.

Like a movie or something

that I wrote.

I can make that as a video game.

And I have the full ability

to do that.

Things that are personal...

...have flaws.

They have vulnerabilities.

To me, games

are the ultimate art form.

It's just the ultimate medium.

It's the sum total of every

expressive medium of all time...

...made interactive.

How is that not...

It's AWESOME!

I want to be part of it.

I want to have a say

in what becomes of video games.

If you don't see a

vulnerability in somebody...

You're probably not relating with them

on a very personal level.

So it's the same with a game design.

My whole career has been me,

trying to find new ways...

...to communicate with people.

Because, I desperately want to

communicate with people.

But I don't want the

messy interaction of having to...

...make friends and talk to people.

Because I probably don't like them.

When you make games.

And you put stuff up online.

And people like your stuff

or don't like your stuff.

Either way, they're going to give you

some kind of feedback.

And you have this conversation.

It's why a writer writes I guess.

Because they can.

It's the most effective way to

express themselves.

And a video game is the most

effective way I can express myself.

Making it was about...

Let me take my deepest flaws

and vulnerabilities...

...and put them in the game.

And let's see what happens.

The generation indie game

developers are coming from,

and I'm part of this generation also,

we're the first generation that

grew up with video games.

But not as

an active purchasing choice.

Since I was part of

that generation...

I feel an ownership of it.

Games are mine.

For anyone that grew up

after 1975; 1980 or so...

...we were the first generation

to grow up with our parents

...giving us games.

And for us to grow up with games...

...as a natural, and relevant part of

our everyday existence.

This is not a

weird kid activity for me.

This is not like

some strange nerdy pastime.

This has been a part of my life.

There's been a tendency...

...over the past couple decades in

mainstream games...

...to make everything bigger

and more realistic.

To 'Amp Up'

everything.

[GUS]

Big games have other goals.

They want to entertain you.

They want to get 10 million people

playing at the same time.

But with Indie Games,

it's often 1 person

Who says:

I want a game to be like this.

I want a game to be about

this special thing.

Independent games are any game

that a small team...

...or individual worked on

to their own vision.

Something that they felt like making,

coding and finishing.

The major thing that made

this possible...

...is the rise of

digital distribution.

Retailers used to have

a lot of power...

...over every game creation company.

Because that was

the only way to sell games.

Nobody was willing to start

distributing games digitally.

Because WalMart would get upset

at them.

And take their products off the shelf.

And nothing would happen.

But Valve changed that,

when they came out with Steam.

They had no loyalties to retail.

So they just did it.

After that everyone else said:

'Well, we have to compete with them'

And there was this whole flood of:

XBox Live Arcade...

...Playstation network...

...and WiiWare followed suit.

2008 was the first year that

indie games started to do really well.

Audiosurf came out on Steam.

Then Castle Crashers...

...and Braid and World of Goo.

Osmos did really well in 2009, 2010.

Then Limbo came out and broke records.

And Minecraft came out as well-

Actually, it came out much earlier,

but then it really built up...

...and blew those records away.

And when we're talking about

'really well' ...

...we're talking about

millions of dollars in revenue.

So for teams of 200,

millions of dollars...

...doesn't really count for much.

But for a team of 2, 3 people...

... that's really significant money.

Hey Everybody,

Welcome to 'Elder Speak'...

The official podcast of

ElderGeek.com

With me I've got Gavin from the

news...

And special guests:

Edmund and Tommy from 'Team Meat'

Who are making 'Super Meat Boy'

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