{"id":508,"date":"2010-07-14T03:35:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-14T03:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/?p=508"},"modified":"2010-07-26T04:28:01","modified_gmt":"2010-07-26T04:28:01","slug":"mindie-bridging-the-gap-between-mainstream-and-indie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/mindie-bridging-the-gap-between-mainstream-and-indie\/","title":{"rendered":"Mindie – Bridging The Gap Between Mainstream And Indie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mindie<\/a>I\u2019m a mindie game developer and proud of it.\u00a0 But what does that mean?\u00a0 I\u2019ve noticed a trend lately when it comes to indie developers.\u00a0 It seems to be all or nothing.\u00a0 You\u2019re either Indie, with your beard and rebellious attitude or you\u2019re mainstream with your suit and love of money.\u00a0 Why does it need to be so black and white?\u00a0 Am I the only person that wants to fit nicely in the middle, making deep and meaningful games that make a healthy profit?\u00a0 Can I be the bearded guy in a suit, or the clean shaven guy in a polo shirt?\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong with wanting to be \u201cmainstream indie\u201d, or a \u201cmindie\u201d game developer?<\/p>\n

Over the past few years the mainstream has moved further towards sequels, playing it safe and limiting creativity.\u00a0 It seems indie game developers are reacting to this by becoming \u201cmore indie\u201d.\u00a0 A case in point is the IGF.\u00a0 Many of my indie friends complain that it\u2019s impossible to win the IGF without making a controversial game that has no chance of making money.\u00a0 Surely we can find a middle ground between these two opposed views.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at key parts of game development and see where Mindie developers fit into the mix compared to pure mainstream and indie developers.<\/p>\n

Profits<\/span> – <\/strong>Money is the root of all evil but the source of all Twinkie\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n

Most indie developers I know don\u2019t have the luxury of making games just for the love of it.\u00a0 At the end of the day, we all need money to live.\u00a0 Mindie developers are mindful of making a profit from their games but not at the expense of the game itself.\u00a0 The current landscape of game distribution is the perfect time for this lofty ideal.\u00a0 Digital distribution, micro-transactions and huge user bases on platforms like Facebook mean that we no longer have to make a boxed product that sinks or swims based on the first few months of sales.\u00a0 This gives Mindie developers the freedom to flex our creative muscles and then find a sales model that fits our product.\u00a0 There are many options to take opening up many more possibilities for game design and creativity.<\/p>\n

Competition<\/span><\/strong> – Competition creates better products, alliances create better companies<\/em> – Brian Graham<\/p>\n

The general consensus is that indie developers don\u2019t focus on their competition while mainstream developers are obsessed with them.\u00a0 Where does the Mindie game developer fit in?\u00a0 This time, we are closer to our indie roots.\u00a0 While it\u2019s important to be aware of the competition and create something new and interesting, it should not drive development.\u00a0 Indie developers begin with their own ideas and creativity and adjust their plans based on competition.\u00a0 Mainstream developers begin with their competition and adjust their plans slightly to create their own game.<\/p>\n

Publishers\/Investors<\/span><\/strong> – Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time<\/em> – Jim Rohn<\/p>\n

The traditional indie developer is defined by not having a publisher or large investor, hence the term \u201cindependent\u201d.\u00a0 They are usually self-funded or take on small amounts of angel investment.\u00a0 The general consensus from mindie developers is that they would take on money, so long as it doesn\u2019t water down their game.\u00a0 This is often shown by their realistic expectations of money required rather than the \u201cmore is better\u201d attitude of most mainstream developers.<\/p>\n

Project Size<\/span><\/strong> – It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog<\/em> – Mark Twain<\/p>\n

Mainstream loves big, multi-million dollar games.\u00a0 Every year the cost keeps going up.\u00a0 Indie developers either through love, or more often than not, through necessity go for simple, small projects.\u00a0 Mindie developers need to find the middle ground again.\u00a0 Projects that are of a substantial size that they can make a profit while keeping development costs low at all levels of development.\u00a0 From team sizes to feature lists, they focus on finding the fun with the least possible features.<\/p>\n

Art<\/span><\/strong> – If you think a game is \u2018Madden 2008,\u2019 then hey, games probably aren\u2019t art<\/em> – Jonathan Blow<\/p>\n

Many indie developers make art.\u00a0 Mainstream developers are skilled in the art of spending copious amounts of money making a game that is 10% better than the previous game or competitor.\u00a0 Mindie developers are pragmatic.\u00a0 They focus on making a fun, deep game and letting everyone else decide whether it\u2019s art.\u00a0 Pragmatism over pretentiousism*.<\/p>\n

*Yes that\u2019s not really a word, but neither is Mindie<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my attempt to bring some unity between the mainstream and indie developers.\u00a0 I look forward to seeing what the coming years bring for mindie\u2019s and particularly in Australia where the collapse of the mainstream game development industry has left most of my friends turning indie in hopes of fame and fortune (or at least recognition and Twinkies).<\/p>\n

What do you define as a mindie and are you one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a mindie game developer and proud of it.\u00a0 But what does that mean?\u00a0 I\u2019ve noticed a trend lately when it comes to indie developers.\u00a0 It seems to be all or nothing.\u00a0 You\u2019re either Indie, with your beard and rebellious attitude or you\u2019re mainstream with your suit and love of money.\u00a0 Why does it need Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[31,112,42,90],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-development","tag-game-designer","tag-game-development","tag-indie-game-development","tag-mindie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgEc5-8c","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}