As reported on earlier, EA have released a bundle consisting of 6 games on Steam.
The games are Deathspank, Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue, Gatling Gears, Shank, Shank 2 and Warp. All 6 games are generally well reviewed and I personally love Deathspank because it’s hilarious.
Available for £14.38, the bundle saves you £33.56 from their normal prices and £9.56 from their current sale prices. That’s a huge saving and taking advantage of it would make you so wise, so go buy it here.
It’s still not an indie bundle, though. They’re not indie games.
gideon1451
Can’t they just call it a bundle so logic can sleep easy tonight?
Burgess_101
This really annoys me. It demeans the whole point of the Indie bundle.
An-dz
From some of the gaming news storys that have been going about today id say logic has been in its grave for a while now
colmshan1990
I think Indie is becoming a genre, rather than a description.
Indie games (well, the good ones) have a certain ‘well-loved,’ quirky feel to them.
Kind of like the way Indie music often includes bands who are far from Indie, it’s the way they sound that gets them lobbed in there.
And Indie movies- are they still Indie movies if a big company buys the licence to distribute worldwide and make millions?
heedbaw
Although loath to defend EA – if it was even EA that labelled it, might’ve been Valve – I was thinking along similar lines to your last sentence. Isn’t it Indie because the developers are independent studios and not one of EA’s in-house studios?
I also agree with the genre thing too, seems it’s a label used on Steam if it’s a bit more ‘core’ than a casual game.
Gamoc
Majority of games published by the big publishers are not casual games.
An indie developer is one that is not backed by a publisher. All these games are published by EA, one of the biggest publishers in the world – there’s no gray area here, they’re not indie games, it’s not an indie bundle. Minecraft, Project Zomboid and Terraria are indie games, they had no publisher, they were released directly by the developers.
And EA definitely named it; it’s their bundle.
heedbaw
“An indie developer is one that is not backed by a publisher” Surely that would mean any of the games on Steam under the Indie label aren’t really Indie games, as they have all been published by Valve and not directly by the developers.
TheDemocrodile
Actually Valve dont take Publisher credit for most of the games on Steam as they didnt publish them, they just take a chunk of sales as a normal retail chain would do.
Thats why upon booting up Medieval 2 you get the Creative Assembly logo (Devs) and the Sega lodo (Publishers) not the valve one (retailers).
Gamoc
Steam is a content delivery service like PSN. By your logic all games on PSN are published by Sony ;-)
TheDemocrodile is correct.
heedbaw
I know Valve, or Sony, don’t take credit for publishing. But they are, and also distributing. I still stand by the fact that as the developers are independent of the publisher they are ‘Indie’ games, even though you could as well call Deathspank an RPG, Shank a platformer, or Warp a puzzle game. You could even go as far to say that none of them have been published as they’re digital only, or further still and say that the only things that actually get published are printed materials (books, mags, papers).
There is definitely a grey area as genres can be subjective. My PSN games are foldered in a haphazard manner as some titles could be in any of 3 or 4 genres. Though Beat Hazard Ultra gets a Seizure folder for itself, and Zen/Marvel pinball join Hustle Kings in Balls.
Out of curiosity would you say that something like Journey, Flower, or Unfinished Swan are Indie games?
Gamoc
Flower/etc are not indie games, they’re published by Sony.
Steam distributes indie games in the same way that Game distributes games. They’re not publishing them – an indie game is a game that is self-published by the developer, any notion that indie games on Steam are published by Valve is incorrect. Steam is just a shop.
Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_game :
‘Independent video games (commonly referred to as indie games) are video games created by individuals or small teams without video game publisher financial support. Indie games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution. Indie gaming has seen a rise in the last few years, primarily due to new online distribution methods and development tools.’
A publisher provides financial support to fund the development of a game. Game like any of those in this bundle are pitched to a publisher and the publisher then funds the development of the game if they think there’s money in doing so. By definition these are not indie games and this is not an indie bundle.
Gamoc
And yeah, I suppose in a way genres can be subjective, but indie isn’t a genre.
heedbaw
I would say they are, as they were developed by a company that is not Sony, even though Sony are the publishers. I’m sure I’ve seen others refer to them as Indie too.
Have EA paid for the development of any of the titles in the bundle, or have they just provided support for marketing, testing, publishing, etc. for a cut of the profits?
Who is to blame for the labeling of the bundle as Indie? EA or Valve, considering that if you go onto Steam and search the genres there is an Indie genre. Are none of the games on there Indie in that regard as it’s not a genre?
By that Wiki definition none of the games on Steam would be Indie as they are not distributed independently, but rather by a large corporation called Valve. If they were truly independent they would be distributed through the developers own website.
For a cut of the money Valve markets and distributes the games, likewise for a cut of the money EA have marketed and distributed the games included in the bundle. The studios are still independent of the publisher, therefore they are Indie games.
Gamoc
Again, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Steam is. It is a shop, a store, somewhere you buy things from. Game is also a shop in exactly the same way, as is Amazon, Play.com, Shopto, etc. If I buy Uncharted from any of those the publisher is Sony, not the shop I’m buying it from. Steam is a distribution system, a shop, not a publisher – buying a game from Steam does not mean it is published by Valve.
There is an indie ‘genre’ so it’s easy to find indie games on Steam, in the same way there’s a Free to Play genre. Unless you think Free to Play is a genre too?
Steam does not provide marketing or anything else for the games it sells, it just sells them. As an example, Terraria was released on Steam and only Steam, it was marketed by the developers by releasing the game to certain popular Youtube channels such as the Yogscast and by doing their own lets plays. Steam had absolutely no part in that, Re-Logic made the game and had it sold on Steam, that is all, Steam/Valve did not publish it.
heedbaw
I know that Steam is a shop, of sorts, and it’s not Valve that are actually the publishers. Really the point I’m trying to get across is that the definition of a word is elastic to a certain degree. By labeling something as Indie, or Free to Play, it has thus been categorised in the Indie or Free to Pay genre regardless of whether you agree with that classification or not.
As to the marketing I would assume that Valve, or a retailer, will do some marketing on behalf of the developer, or publisher, themselves purely in order to actually shift the product and make some money.
I would also point to the definition of publishing, as even though Valve aren’t actually the publisher, the developer has submitted the game to Valve in order that Valve publish it on Steam and sell it through Steam. Originally a publisher would prepare text or information for printing, so by that definition EA aren’t a publisher either, but over the years it has expanded to include music, film, and software.
To use a couple of analogies some people would consider Darts a sport, others wouldn’t. My own bugbear that pops up frequently is the use of meme, as I don’t regard the use of the word meme in the context of how it is used to categorise some internet fads as a meme.
My original understanding of the theory of memes is that information is a virus that distorts a persons perception of reality in order to propagate itself, not something that is vaguely amusing that people pass about for a laugh but rather a religious or scientific belief system that shapes a persons view of the world and encourages them to convert others to their way of thinking in order that the information is kept alive.
Gamoc
Again, ‘indie’ and ‘free to play’ are not genres any more than ‘psn game’ or ‘boxed game’ are genres.
Valve are not publishing indie games on Steam, they are selling them. This is like saying Birds Eye’s Fish Fingers are produced by Tesco’s because Tesco’s sells them.
The definition of ‘publish’ did not change, it just expanded to encompass other mediums as they appeared. It is not at all similar to what you are trying to do to the term ‘indie game’.
colmshan1990
Indie is a music genre, as well as a film genre.
Why not expand into games? Other than semantics, there’s no reason. I’m normally a stickler for stuff like this, but… Indie is ALREADY a genre in other mainstream entertainments.
Gamoc
Yes, but music and film both have a style that tends to come with indie due to the limitations of doing them with a lower budget. The same is not true for games; Hard Reset is one of the best looking games I’ve seen for a long time yet is an indie game, as is Terraria, Dungeon Defenders, Minecraft, Eufloria, etc.
The only thing separating indie games from other games is the publisher status, whereas there are obvious differences in other mediums.
yogdog
God I love Eufloria… and Medieval 2 (both popped up here at points).
Sorry for a non-constuctive comment, just wanted to proclaim my love for 2 of my favourite games of all time.
heedbaw
I’m not trying to change anything, to define genre as a style or category of art, music, film, literature, game. Indie and Free to Play would be genres as they are categories of game even though it doesn’t actually refer to the gameplay style, while digital or boxed games are a form of distribution rather than a type of game.
I will stick by Steam and Sony publishing stuff to their stores as well since they are delivering code to you which is information in the form of a game, that would be analogous to a book delivering you information in the form of text. A publisher would either produce, or just distribute, the final product to a store for selling . In the case of digital stores the store is both publisher and distributor of the final product, be that product from a publishing house or straight from the developer.
Kennykazey
Indie bundle, my backside! I decided to not support it after reading it’s by EA. Luckily, I already have half the games.
Tuffcub
As far as I am aware, all the games were developed THEN the teams went to EA and signed them, as opposed to EA saying to in an house team “Make this game for us” – so the intial developement was ‘independant’.
ron_mcphatty
And they’re not actually using the word ‘independent’, so they can’t be got on trade description. It still doesn’t sit right though.
Sympozium
Most of the games are poor anyway.