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Comment by dave7 | Hacker News Reader

Can't remember who said it, I think probably Rami Ismall? But I can't find the source. Something like: "If there is another person, company or entity that while not actually working on the game, can significantly change the course of that work - that is not an indie game".

Basically, indies should be in control of their own destiny. This seems like a very reasonable definition to me.

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this is my quote https://twitter.com/TylerGlaiel/status/1724907097031414240

Excellent, that's the one! Sorry, too late to edit. Perfect definition I think.

Looking at Rami's twitter, I found these two: "made by studios that swear on social media", and "only give 200 gamerscore". https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1729470607798989273

Most indie games have a publisher and publishers have a lot of control.

We have multiple well known, well respected indie PUBLISHER'S now, like tinyBUILD and MicroProse (new) and even Humble Games, at least until Amazon milks the final few drops of value out of the Humble brand.

In a lot of cases the relationship is not that. Instead, the publisher takes a healthy cut of the revenue for doing all the things that isn’t directly developing the game: marketing, testing, release, sales, etc.

Oftentimes the publisher can act as an advisor or matchmaker for finding the right people to solve problems. But this is meaningfully different from taking control of the game’s development.

I kind of like this, however I do think that if EA funds a subsidiary or even just a team of developers making a game, that game shouldn't count as "indie" even if they promise to be 100% hands off.

Just accepting money from a major player in the video game industry is going to "change the course of that work". I prefer my indie developers to be, you know, independent.

One thing is a giant corporation „promising“ something - the other thing is reality where the promises of corporations are exactly worth nothing and you can bet on them breaking it as soon as it’s convenient.

I think you could argue that funding a game significantly changes the course of the work, by making it happen in the first place.

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