Misplaced Pages

#464535

148-465: Jonathan Blow (born 1971) is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for his work on the independent video games Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016). Blow became interested in game programming while at middle school. He studied computer science and English at the University of California, Berkeley , but dropped out to start a game company. After the company closed following

296-509: A proof of concept of a physics-intensive, online, multiplayer game about giant robots attacking a town. Blow and Atman Binstock did most of the programming for the game; Blow wrote the client-side code, graphics, and gameplay, while Binstock wrote the physics engine to run on the server from scratch. After submitting their final report to IBM, the team took the game to Electronic Arts , whom Blow said were not impressed. Blow's other contract work included particle effect programming on Flow on

444-481: A retro style of the 8-bit and 16-bit generations , with simpler graphics atop the more complex mechanics. Indie games may fall into classic game genres, but new gameplay innovations have been seen. However, being "indie" does not imply that the game focuses on innovation. In fact, many games with the "indie" label can be of poor quality and may not be made for profit. Jesper Juul , an associate professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts that has studied

592-445: A commercial entity could. The industry had started to coalesce around video game publishers that could pay larger developers to make games and handle all the marketing and publication costs as well as opportunities to franchise game series. Publishers tended to be risk averse due to high costs of production, and they would reject all small-size and too innovative concepts of small game developers. The market also became fractured due to

740-452: A company. He used almost all of the profits of Braid to independently fund The Witness , noting that by doing so he had total creative freedom and thereby would not have to adjust the game to please the whims of a publisher. The team which worked on The Witness said Blow gave them a lot of autonomy when working on the game. Blow does not schedule development time for games at Thekla, noting; "we don't do it like Electronic Arts. We don't pick

888-665: A fifth-or-sixth-grade computer class where the VIC-20 home computer provided him with his introduction to programming and computers. When his parents noticed his interest, they bought him a TRS-80 Color Computer , on which Blow learned to program in BASIC , often using exercise books from RadioShack . In high school, he programmed games on a Commodore 64 . Some of the games he programmed were inspired by Indiana Jones and Pac-Man . In 1989, Blow attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, double-majoring in computer science and English. He started as

1036-519: A further boost by the use of crowdfunding as a means for indie developers to raise funds to produce a game and to determine the desire for a game, rather than risk time and investment into a game that does not sell well. While video games had used crowdfunding prior to 2012, several large indie game-related projects successfully raised millions of dollars through Kickstarter , and since then, several other similar crowdfunding options for game developers have become available. Crowdfunding eliminated some of

1184-525: A game as indie is from its innovation, creativity, and artistic experimentation, factors enabled by small teams free of financial and creative oversight. This definition is reflective of an "indie spirit" that is diametrically opposite of the corporate culture of AAA development, and makes a game "indie", where the factors of financial and creative independence make a game "independent". Developers with limited ability to create graphics can rely on gameplay innovation. This often leads to indie games having

1332-457: A game created by a genius for geniuses". Blow's games have higher budgets and longer development times than most independently funded games, and have custom game engines. Braid was built with a relatively large budget for independent games at the time, while The Witness —which was largely funded with the profits of Braid —cost close to six million dollars. The development times for Braid and The Witness were very rare for independent games at

1480-472: A game developed by two people. Microsoft continued to follow up on this promotion in the following years, bringing in more games onto XBLA such as Super Meat Boy , Limbo , and Fez . Sony and Nintendo followed suit, encouraging indie developers to bring games onto their platforms. By 2013, all three console manufacturers had established programs that allowed indie developers to apply for low-cost development toolkits and licenses to publish directly onto

1628-426: A game he thought in 2017 "may be the best puzzle of all time", was rarely discussed in development circles, indicating a stagnation of the development scene. The comments attracted social-media attention, which Blow found troubling, noting; "The job isn't to be in a community; the job is to make a good game." Blow considers much of current software to be of low quality. He noted in a 2020 interview "I think we're now in

SECTION 10

#1733106811465

1776-685: A game. The goal of the 4th annual Game Design Challenge was to create a game which was a religion , or which could become one. It was won by Jason Rohrer who designed a one-player at a time multiplayer game named Chain World contained entirely on a USB flash drive . The Experimental Gameplay Workshop is an influential 2-hour game presentation session held annually at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco . The event showcases experimental video games and game prototypes. The workshop

1924-433: A gaming platform. At the time, shareware was generally associated with hobbyist programmers, but the releases of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 and Doom in 1993 showed the shareware route to be a viable platform for titles from mainstream developers. The current, common understanding of indie games on personal computer took shape in the early 2000s from several factors. Key was the availability of online distribution over

2072-476: A hobbyist programming magazine that users could share their programs with. Over time, ASCII saw the opportunity to publish game development kits, and by 1992, released the first commercial version of the RPG Maker software. While the software cost money to obtain, users could release completed games with it as freeware or commercial products, which established the potential for a commercial independent games market by

2220-425: A message related to these factors, something that could not be done in mainstream titles. In comparing indie games to independent film and the state of their respective industries, the indie game's rise was occurring approximately at the same relative time as its market was starting to grow exponentially and be seen as a supporting offshoot of the mainstream works. Indie games saw a large boost in visibility within

2368-699: A number of dedicated investor-based indie game funds have been established such as the Indie Fund . Indie developers can submit applications requesting grants from these funds. The money is typically provided as a seed investment to be repaid through game royalties. Several national governments, through their public arts agencies, also have made similar grants available to indie developers. Prior to digital distribution, hobbyist programmers typically relied on mail order to distribute their product. They would place ads in local papers or hobbyist computer magazines such as Creative Computing and Byte and, once payment

2516-548: A physics major but switched to computer science because he "just felt called in that direction". He was a member and president of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association , as well as the eXperimental Computing Facility , an undergraduate computer-interest organization. During college, Blow wrote some science fiction, which he published under a pseudonym. He spent five years at UC Berkeley but dropped out with less than one semester to go. He said; "I

2664-462: A popular form of distribution even with availability of bulletin board systems and the Internet. By the 2000s, indie developers relied on the Internet as their primary distribution means as without a publisher, it was nearly impossible to stock an indie game at retail, the mail order concept having long since died out. Experimental Gameplay Workshop The Game Developers Conference ( GDC )

2812-466: A prototype for a single-player game that was not a puzzle game. In 2018, Blow said the game had 40–50 hours of playable content. He intends for Thekla to make the game using the game engine being developed for the Sokoban game, once it has matured. He plans to work on the game for 20 years, releasing it in installments. Each installment will make the game larger and more complex. Blow noted one of his goals for

2960-429: A publisher. Indie games are distinct from open source games . The latter are games which are developed with the intent to release the source code and other assets under an open source license . While many of the same principles used to develop open source games are the same as for indie games, open source games are not developed for commercial gain and instead as a hobbyist pursuit. However, commercial sales are not

3108-519: A quarter and ship the game. We're just trying to make the best game." Blow has been characterized by VentureBeat as having a "reputation for doing outstanding work", and is known for voicing his opinions about the gaming industry. He has been described as a "prickly genius", and as the game industry's "most cerebral developer, but also as its most incisive and polarizing internal critic". Commenting on his criticism, Blow said "I honestly say what I think about games, and I honestly say if I think something

SECTION 20

#1733106811465

3256-406: A requirement for an indie game and such games can be offered as freeware , most notably with Spelunky on its original release and Dwarf Fortress , with the exception of its enhanced visual front-end version while its base version remains free. The onset of indie game development is difficult to track due to the broadness of what defines an indie game, and the term was not really in use until

3404-431: A retrospective on Braid , GQ noted the game was released at a time when the market was dominated by violent and repetitive first-person shooters, yet "made an earnest effort to make an artistic statement" that went beyond this trend. The puzzles of Braid have been described as "tough" and "formidable". Time described The Witness as "categorically defiant", and described its reception as being "widely quantified as

3552-446: A role model for independent development, Blow is uncomfortable with being described as an indie developer: he feels the indie game scene has changed into something in which he does not belong. In 2019, he said the independent development scene had changed in that it was easier to make and release a game than ever before, but that in terms of game-design "progress has not been as large as people assume". Blow noted Stephen's Sausage Roll ,

3700-443: A service that included some indie games, though these drew little attention in the first few years. In 2008, Microsoft ran its "XBLA Summer of Arcade" promotion, which included the releases of indie games Braid , Castle Crashers , and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 alongside two AAA games. While all three indie games had a high number of downloads, Braid received critical acclaim and drew mainstream media recognition for being

3848-542: A single person, though often with support of artists and musicians for those assets. More common are small teams of developers, from two to a few dozen, with additional support from external artists. While it is possible for development teams to be larger, with this comes a higher cost overhead of running the studio, which may be risky if the game does not perform well. Indie teams can arise from many different directions. One common path recently includes student projects, developed as prototypes as part of their coursework, which

3996-418: A situation where everybody in the world is flooded with low quality software, and everybody wishes that they had higher quality software." He considers most of what programmers currently do to be wasteful, describing programming in 2021 as dealing with unnecessary complexity. He has a low opinion of modern C++, describing it in 2020 as a terrible language, and was partly motivated to create Jai in order to improve

4144-437: A talk on his Twitch channel about the possibility of a new programming language designed for game development. He evaluated alternative systems-level programming languages such as Go and Rust , but ultimately expressed the desire to create a new language. Blow estimated a new programming language designed for game development could reduce typical development time by at least 20% and make programming more enjoyable. He also said

4292-559: A video game company because of the transition from 2D to 3D titles. A number of components of the game were challenging to implement, but Blow learned from the experience—he said; "we went broke, and I was burned out for several years after that from working hard ... but that's how I became a good programmer". After Blow closed his first studio, he worked as a contractor for game studios with large budgets. Games he worked on include Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee , Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows . In 2002, Blow co-founded

4440-492: Is a " I know it when I see it "-type assessment, since no single definition can capture what games are broadly considered indie. Indie games generally share certain common characteristics. One method to define an indie game is the nature of independence, which can either be: Another means to evaluate a game as indie is to examine its development team, with indie games being developed by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies that are often specifically formed for

4588-517: Is a creative activity that involves problem solving while FarmVille is about retaining the player's attention for as long as possible. According to Blow, games have the potential to have a much-bigger role culturally and help define the human condition . While Blow strives to make his games meaningful, he has noted games with relatively empty gameplay, such as massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) which keep players hooked with fake rewards, may be causing real harm to people. Despite being seen as

Jonathan Blow - Misplaced Pages Continue

4736-432: Is a section of panels dedicated to a sub-segment of the game industry, also usually held on the first two days of the conference. Past and current summit topics include mobile games, independent games, game education (for students aspiring to join the industry), serious games , social games , artificial intelligence , and online games. Regularly, Sony Computer Entertainment , Microsoft and Nintendo deliver keynotes at

4884-486: Is an annual conference for video game developers . The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival , and a variety of tutorials , lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming , design , audio, production, business and management, and visual arts. Originally called

5032-507: Is an avid dancer, and went out dancing several nights a week during the development of The Witness . He discovered that dancing helps him generate ideas, and during the 1990s took a notebook to clubs to write down programming ideas that would come to him on the dance floor. Only games where Blow has had a major role in development are included below. For example, works in which he is credited under Special Thanks are omitted. Independent video game Indie game development bore out from

5180-510: Is exactly what I wanted to put there". Blow estimated he spent more than $ 180,000 of his own money to develop Braid . Braid was released in August 2008 to universal acclaim, was "an immediate sensation", and made Blow a millionaire. Braid was one of the earliest indie games to grace seventh-generation consoles . In 2010, Blow co-founded funding organization Indie Fund together with some other successful independent game developers. Blow appeared in

5328-556: Is good or not, and why". Stephen Totilo of Kotaku said Blow's criticism is not targeted towards individuals or specific games but industry trends. Blow thinks there are individual elements of storytelling which work well in games, including mood, character and setting; but considers games to be a terrible medium for storytelling in general. As of 2016, he considered the quality of storytelling in games to be significantly lower than that in literature. In 2018, he said many contemporary games include designs that are self-sabotaging and weaken

5476-519: Is primarily referred to as an "indie game" because of its success in the Western market. It is one of the most influential indie games, also contributing to the resurgence of the Metroidvania genre. Doujin games also got a strong interest in Western markets after some English-speaking groups translated various titles with permission for English release, most notably with Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale ,

5624-554: Is simply those with little to no experience in the games industry, although they may have computer-programming skills and experience, and they may come in with ideas and fresh perspectives for games, with ideas that are generally more personable and close to their hearts. These developers are usually self-taught and thus may not have certain disciplines of typical programmers, thereby allowing for more creative freedom and new ideas. However, some may see amateur work less favorably than those that have had experience, whether from school or from

5772-443: Is some debate as to whether independent game development started prior to the 1977 home computer revolution with games developed for mainframe computers at universities and other large institutions. 1962's Spacewar! was not commercially financed and was made by a small team, but there was no commercial sector of the video game industry at that time to distinguish from independent works. Joyce Weisbecker , who considers herself

5920-476: Is told through textual exposition between worlds, environmental art, and gameplay, and has been interpreted in many different ways. In mid-2007, Blow signed with Microsoft to release Braid via its distribution platform XBLA . Blow felt time spent meeting the XBLA certification process would have been better spent polishing the game, but he noted Microsoft was "very hands-off" with game design, and that "the final game

6068-507: The Five Nights at Freddy's series, Undertale , Cuphead , and Among Us . The term "indie game" itself is based on similar terms like independent film and independent music , where the concept is often related to self-publishing and independence from major studios or distributors. However, as with both indie films and music, there is no exact, widely accepted definition of what constitutes an "indie game" besides falling well outside

Jonathan Blow - Misplaced Pages Continue

6216-652: The Atari Program Exchange in 1981 to publish user-written software, including games, for Atari 8-bit computers . Print magazines such as SoftSide , Compute! , and Antic solicited games from hobbyists, written in BASIC or assembly language , to publish as type-in listings . In the United Kingdom, early microcomputers such as the ZX Spectrum were popular, launching a range of "bedroom coders" which initiated

6364-588: The Experimental Gameplay Workshop at the Game Developers Conference , which showcases game prototypes that include new mechanics or that are new video game genres or mediums. Around this time, he wrote The Inner Product , a monthly technical column for magazine Game Developer . During this time, Blow moved to New York City, where he was introduced to an IBM research project about servers based on cell processors . Blow pitched them

6512-872: The ID@Xbox program or the iOS SDK . While most indie games lack a publisher with the developer serving in that role, a number of publishers geared towards indie games have been established since 2010, also known as boutique game publishers; these include Raw Fury , Devolver Digital , Annapurna Interactive , Finji, and Adult Swim Games . There also have been a number of indie developers that have grown large enough on their own to also support publishing for smaller developers, such as Chucklefish , Coffee Stain Studios , and Team17 . These boutique publishers, having experience in making indie games themselves, typically will provide necessary financial support and marketing but have little to no creative control on developers' product as to maintain

6660-771: The Internet , allowing game developers to sell directly to players and bypassing limitations of retail distribution and the need for a publisher. Software technologies used to drive the growth of the World Wide Web , like Adobe Flash , were available at low cost to developers, and provided another means for indie games to grow. The new interest in indie games led to middleware and game engine developers to offer their products at low or no cost for indie development, in addition to open source libraries and engines. Dedicated software like GameMaker Studio and tools for unified game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine removed much of

6808-735: The Spotlight Awards from 1997 to 1999, the Independent Games Festival since 1999 and the Game Developers Choice Awards since 2001. The GDC is also used for the annual meeting of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is the first and largest competition for independent games, and highlights the innovative achievements of developers ranging in size from individuals building PC titles to studio teams creating console downloadable titles. A pool of judges from

6956-430: The dot-com crash , Blow worked as a game development contractor. He co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and wrote a monthly technical column for Game Developer magazine . Blow gained prominence in 2008 with Braid . He used its financial success to fund his next game, The Witness , and formed a company called Thekla Inc. After a lengthy development period, The Witness was released in 2016, and like Braid

7104-413: The seventh generation of consoles in 2005, each platform provided online services for players–namely Xbox Live , PlayStation Network , and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection –which included digital game distribution. Following the increased popularity of indie games on computers, these services started publishing them alongside larger releases. The Xbox 360 had launched in 2005 with Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA),

7252-674: The "indie" nature of the game. In some cases, the publisher may be more selective of the type of games it supports; Annapurna Interactive sought games that were "personal, emotional and original". The lack of a publisher requires an indie developer to find means to fund the game themselves. Existing studios may be able to rely on past funds and incoming revenue, but new studios may need to use their own personal funds ("bootstrapping"), personal or bank loans, or investments to cover development costs, or building community support while in development. More recently, crowd-funding campaigns, both reward-based and equity-based, have been used to obtain

7400-419: The "rant" panel has been one of the most popular sessions at the conference. Moderated by Eric Zimmerman and Jason Della Rocca , a selection of notable industry figures are invited to speak on industry-related subjects they are passionate about. According to Zimmerman, the idea of the panel "is to really take those grumblings and mutterings and bring them out into the light, speak truth to power, cut through to

7548-430: The 1978 rerelease of the book BASIC Computer Games by David H. Ahl that included the source code for over one hundred games, eventually surpassed over one million copies. The availability of BASIC inspired a number of people to start writing their own games. Many personal computer games written by individuals or two person teams were self-distributed in stores or sold through mail order . Atari, Inc. launched

SECTION 50

#1733106811465

7696-474: The 2021 event, the organizers dropped the in-person portion in February 2021 due to continued concerns from COVID-19, maintaining the virtual events. UBM TechWeb brought its flagship event to Shanghai in 2007, where GDC China was held annually until 2015. GDC China hosted the annual Independent Games Festival China (IGF China) from 2009, calling for entries developed by independent game studios and individuals in

7844-842: The Asia-Pacific region. IGF China includes the Independent Games Summit, the Independent Games Festival Pavilion, and the Independent Games Festival Awards Ceremony. About half of the time during the first two days of GDC are given over to tutorials, one- or two-day-long sessions on a given topic. Tutorials take the form of hands-on workshops and cover a variety of technical subjects such as game design, audio, topics in computer programming (such as physics, graphics programming or web technologies), production and business management. A summit

7992-553: The Austin Game Developers Conference. The 2020 GDC notably was the first to be fully postponed from its planned March 2020 dates, as a result of several companies having pulled out due to fears from the COVID-19 pandemic . Organizers ran the 2020 GDC as a virtual conference and announced GDC Summer as the next live event to take place in August. While initially planning on a mixed in-person and virtual conference for

8140-864: The Computer Game Developers Conference, the first conference was organized in April 1988 by Chris Crawford in his San Jose, California -area living room. About twenty-seven designers attended, including Don Daglow , Brenda Laurel , Brian Moriarty , Gordon Walton , Tim Brengle, Cliff Johnson , Dave Menconi, and Carol and Ivan Manley. The second conference, held that same year at a Holiday Inn at Milpitas , attracted about 125 developers. Early conference directors included Brenda Laurel , Tim Brengle, Sara Reeder, Dave Menconi, Jeff Johannigman, Stephen Friedman, Chris Crawford, and Stephanie Barrett. Later directors include John Powers, Nicky Robinson , Anne Westfall , Susan Lee-Merrow, and Ernest W. Adams . In

8288-617: The Education Summit, or rants during the Indie Game Summit). Eric Zimmerman created the Game Design Challenge. "The idea of the challenge, he said, was to give everyone a sense of the process behind game design, and to attempt to get everyone thinking about new kinds of games." No actual game needs to be built, just designed. The goal of the 2nd annual Game Design Challenge was to create a game based on Emily Dickinson . It

8436-552: The GDC in recent years. At the GDC Expo, developers display the latest techniques useful in game development. "GDC Mobile", first held in 2002, focuses on developing games for mobile phones . Starting in 2004, the GDC partnered with Game Connection to present Game Connection @ GDC, a live matchmaking service for developers and publishers, which in 2007 expanded to include Game Connection Services for outsourcing and other services. Starting in 2006,

8584-446: The GDC moved to the new Moscone Center West , in the heart of San Francisco 's SOMA district, and reported over 12,000 attendees. The GDC returned to San Jose in 2006, reporting over 12,500 attendees, and moved to San Francisco in 2007 – where the organizers expect it will stay for the foreseeable future. Attendance figures continued to rise in following years, with 18,000 attendees in the 2008 event. The 2009 Game Developers Conference

8732-436: The GDC partnered with Video Games Live to feature their symphonic performance of videogame music as the closing night event. In addition, the GDC has hosted a number of conference-wide game experiments designed by GameLab. The 2017 GDC included a Board Game Design Day, featuring talks from developers and publishers of tabletop games on their design processes. UBM TechWeb has also produced several spinoff events. For example,

8880-881: The Hollywood and Games Summit in conjunction with The Hollywood Reporter first held in June 2006. Additional events include the Game Advertising Summit, the Game Outsourcing Summit, the Game Career Seminar, GDC Russia, the China Game Summit, GDC London, the London Games Summit, the London Game Career Fair, and many others. In late 2006, UBM TechWeb acquired The Game Initiative, and now produces

9028-568: The Sony PlayStation 3 ; code review following MTV 's purchase of Harmonix ; and programming on the music-action iPod game Phase . Blow said of this part of his life; "I was just stumbling forward like people do sometimes, and doing the best that I knew how to do, which at that time was programming". Blow created a prototype for a 2D puzzle-platform game involving time manipulation in December 2004. Five months later, he began work on turning

SECTION 60

#1733106811465

9176-609: The UK's video game industry. During this period, the idea that indie games could provide experimental gameplay concepts or demonstrate niche arthouse appeal had been established. Many games from the bedroom coders of the United Kingdom, such as Manic Miner (1983), incorporated the quirkiness of British humour and made them highly experimental games. Other games like Alien Garden (1982) showed highly-experimental gameplay. Infocom itself advertised its text-based interactive fiction games by emphasizing their lack of graphics in lieu of

9324-399: The Western regions, bringing more interest to doujin games as legitimate titles. The Tokyo Game Show first offered a special area for doujin games in 2013 with support from Sony Interactive Entertainment who had been a promoter of Western indie games in prior years, and has expanded that since. The distinction between Japanese-developed doujin games and indie games is ambiguous - the use of

9472-469: The Year . Several other indie games were released during this period to critical and/or commercial success. Minecraft (2011), the best-selling video game of all time as of 2024, was originally released as an indie game before its developer Mojang Studios was acquired by Microsoft in 2014 and brought into Xbox Game Studios . Another indie game, Terraria , was released that same year and has become

9620-433: The antithesis of mainstream games and which highlighted the independence of how these games were made compared to the collective of mainstream titles. Many of them took a retro-style approach to their design, art, or other factors in development, such as Cave Story in 2004, which proved popular with players. Social and political changes also led to the use of indie games not only for entertainment purposes but to also tell

9768-449: The approval of a publisher, as mainstream game developers usually do. Design decisions are thus also not limited by an allocated budget. Furthermore, smaller team sizes increase individual involvement. However, this view is not all-encompassing, as there are numerous cases of games where development is not independent of a major publisher but still considered indie. Some notable instances of games include: Yet another angle to evaluate

9916-437: The audience. Crawford also founded The Journal of Computer Game Design in 1987 in parallel to beginning the GDC, and served as publisher and editor of the academic-style journal through 1996. During the late 1990s, the conference expanded from its original strict focus on game design to include topics such as marketing and legal issues. The CGDC changed its name to "Game Developers Conference" in 1999. The GDC has also hosted

10064-401: The bounds of triple-A video game development by large publishers and development studios. One simple definition, described by Laura Parker for GameSpot , says "independent video game development is the business of making games without the support of publishers", but this does not cover all situations. Dan Pearce of IGN stated that the only consensus for what constitutes an indie game

10212-437: The computer. The latter occurrence allowed for the simulation to delete itself. The 3rd time, the task was to create a game worthy of a Nobel Prize . Harvey Smith won with his PeaceBomb game. It would utilize wireless devices to organize flash mobs to engage in random acts of charity. For the first 3 challenges, Eric Zimmerman has always ended the challenge by indicating that all the contestants' ideas could really be made into

10360-508: The conference showcasing upcoming products and technologies. Next to the Electronic Entertainment Expo , GDC keynotes are one of the more significant sources of news about upcoming console hardware and platforms, but with a focus on the developer audience instead of the wider press. A number of games in development or upcoming releases are also showcased, but generally far fewer than at traditional gaming conventions. Since 2005,

10508-443: The console manufacturers as well as mobile device operating system providers released special software-based SDKs to build and test games first on personal computers and then on these consoles or mobile devices. These SDKs were still offered at commercial rates to larger developers, but reduced pricing was provided to those who would generally self-publish via digital distribution on the console or mobile device's storefront, such as with

10656-470: The console's respective storefronts following approval processes. A number of "boutique" indie game publishers were founded in this period to support funding, technical support, and publishing of indie games across various digital and retail platforms. In 2012, Journey became the first Indie game to win the Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year and D.I.C.E. Award for Game of

10804-484: The cost risk associated with indie game development, and created more opportunities for indie developers to take chances on new titles. With more indie titles emerging during this period, larger publishers and the industry as a whole started taking notice of indie games as a significant movement within the field. One of the first examples of this was World of Goo (2008), whose developers 2D Boy had tried but failed to gain any publisher support prior to release. On release,

10952-491: The current mainstream games. A number of indie games at that time became success stories that drove more interest in the area. New industry opportunities have arisen since then, including new digital storefronts, crowdfunding, and other indie funding mechanisms to help new teams get their games off the ground. There are also low-cost and open-source development tools available for smaller teams across all gaming platforms, boutique indie game publishers that leave creative freedom to

11100-442: The decade' features from IGN , Polygon , NME , CNET , and National Post . Towards the end of development of The Witness , Blow became frustrated with C++ , the programming language Thekla used to create the game. Blow considered the language to be over-complex, noting; "C++ is a powerful language in some ways ... but it makes [software development] a lot harder than it should be". In September 2014, Blow delivered

11248-612: The developers, and industry recognition of indie games alongside mainstream ones at major game award events. Around 2015, the increasing number of indie games being published led to fears of an "indiepocalypse", referring to an oversupply of games that would make the entire market unprofitable. Although the market did not collapse, discoverability remains an issue for most indie developers, with many games not being financially profitable. Examples of successful indie games include Cave Story , Braid , Super Meat Boy , Terraria , Minecraft , Fez , Hotline Miami , Shovel Knight ,

11396-479: The development of one specific game. Typically, indie games are smaller than mainstream titles. Indie game developers are generally not financially backed by video game publishers , who are risk-averse and prefer "big-budget games". Instead, indie game developers usually have smaller budgets, usually sourcing from personal funds or via crowdfunding . Being independent, developers do not have controlling interests or creative limitations, and do not require

11544-415: The documentary film Indie Game: The Movie , in which he discusses his experiences developing and releasing Braid . In 2014 Blow stated sales of Braid had earned more than $ 4 million, which he used to fund The Witness (2016). Blow's next project was The Witness (2016), a first-person game in which players solve puzzles by drawing paths. Blow wanted to create a game using non-verbal communication ;

11692-523: The doujin soft community has generally been treated as a hobbyist activity up through the 2010s. Computers and bedroom coding had taken off similarly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the computer market was quickly overwhelmed by consoles. Still, hobbyist programmers continued to develop games. One area that Japan had focused on were game development kits , specialized software that would allow users to create their own games. A key line of these were produced by ASCII Corporation , which published ASCII ,

11840-406: The eXperimental Computing Facility. An artist later joined the company, and they created Wulfram , a 3D action-strategy game for up to 32 players where players took control of heavily armed hovertanks. At its height, Bolt-Action Software had 14 employees. It folded in 2000 due to the dot-com crash . In a 2020 interview, Blow said he was convinced 1996 was the most difficult time in history to start

11988-451: The early 1990s, notably with the releases of Wolfenstein 3D and ZZT , "indie" games from fledgling developers id Software and Tim Sweeney (later founder of Epic Games ), respectively. Game magazines started to include shareware games on pack-in demo discs with each issue, and as with mail-order, companies arose that provided shareware sampler discs and served to help with shareware payment and redemption processing. Shareware remained

12136-475: The early 2000s, aligning with the popularity of indie games in the West. Like other Japanese fan-created works in other media, doujin games were often built from existing assets and did not receive much respect or interest from consumers, and instead were generally made to be played and shared with other interested players and at conventions. Around 2013, market forces began to shift with the popularity of indie games in

12284-469: The early 2000s. Until the 2000s, other terms like amateur, enthusiast, and hobbyist software or games were used to describe such software. Today, terms like amateur and hobbyist development are more reflective of those that create mods for existing games, or work with specific technologies or game parts rather than the development of full games. Such hobbyists usually produce non-commercial products and may range from novices to industry veterans. There

12432-531: The early years the conference changed venue each year to accommodate its increases in size. Attendance in this period grew from 525 to 2,387. By 1994 the CGDC could afford to sponsor the creation of the Computer Game Developers Association with Adams as its founding director. Miller Freeman, Inc. took on the running of the conference in 1996, nearly doubling attendance to 4,000 that year. In 2005,

12580-487: The eighth best selling video game of all time, as well the highest rated game on Steam as of 2022. Other successful indie games released during this time include Hotline Miami (2012), Shovel Knight (2014), and Five Nights at Freddy's (2014). Hotline Miami inspired many to begin developing games and contributed to the rise in indie game released during this time period, while Shovel Knight and Five Nights at Freddy's spawned successful media franchises, with

12728-411: The final game. This can provide funding midway though development, but like with crowd-funding, consumers expect a game that is near completion, so significant development and costs will likely need to have been invested already. Minecraft was considered an indie game during its original development, and was one of the first titles to successfully demonstrate this approach to funding. More recently,

12876-598: The first GDC Europe (GDCE) was featured at the European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) in London between August 31 and September 1, 2001. Other GDC-related events include the Serious Games Summit, first held in 2004 as a GDC tutorial, and spun off as a standalone event in 2005, focusing on developing games for practical purposes, such as education, corporate training, military, and health care applications; and

13024-501: The first indie designer, created several games for the RCA Studio II home console in 1976 as an independent contractor for RCA . When the first personal computers were released in 1977, they each included a pre-installed version of the BASIC computer language along with example programs, including games, to show what users could do with these systems. The availability of BASIC led to people trying to make their own programs. Sales of

13172-493: The first such doujin to be published on Steam in 2010. Mikhail Fiadotau, a lecturer in video game studies at Tallinn University , identified three primary distinctions between the established doujin culture and the Western idea of indie games. From a conceptual view, indie games generally promote independence and novelty in thought, while doujin games tend to be ideas shared by a common group of people and tend to not veer from established concepts (such as strong favoritism towards

13320-449: The full game from the vendor after trying it. As such demos were generally free to distribute, shareware demo compilations would frequently be included in gaming magazines at that time, providing an easy means for amateur and hobbyist developers to be recognized. The ability to produce numerous copies of games, even if just shareware/demo versions, at a low cost helped to propel the idea as the PC as

13468-432: The funds from interested consumers before development begins in earnest. While using crowd-funding for video games took off in 2012, its practice has significantly waned as consumers became wary of campaigns that failed to deliver on promised goods. A successful crowd-funded campaign now typically requires significant development work and costs associated with this before the campaign is launched, in order to demonstrate that

13616-550: The game development community. The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an event held during the main GDC in the early part of the year, open to games from small independent studios and from students at universities. The IGF culminates with the presentation of several awards to games which have been nominated and voted on in the months prior, and which are given space at the IGF to showcase their game. These awards have cash prizes associated with them, ranging from US$ 1,000 to US$ 30,000 for

13764-409: The game engine. In 2023, Blow described the game as "the biggest single-player puzzle game that anybody's ever made", and estimated that it would take over 400 hours for a player to complete. Among other things, Blow hopes the language will improve the experience of game programming and allow programmers to build more functionality with less code. By working on the Sokoban game, its engine, and Jai at

13912-451: The game industry selects the finalists and winners, and the individual creators are named as the recipients of the awards. The IGF is managed and developed by UBM TechWeb , the organizer of the GDC. The Game Developers Choice Awards is the game industry's only open, peer-based awards show. Any member of the IGDA may nominate games, and then the membership votes on the finalists. As with the IGF,

14060-471: The game released in the US. In a 2009 interview, he however expressed some criticism of the format, saying the games chosen felt gimick-y and the presentations being uninteresting. Held at the main GDC event in the first part of the year, the presentation for the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) is held. The GDCAs are available for any game made in the previous calendar year, nominated and voted on by members of

14208-425: The game to people in contrast to off-the-shelf engines that come with no such guarantee. Braid artist David Hellman said Blow was not stressed about time or budget, and that for him "the game always came first." Blow said when he makes a game, he tries to make something he would want to play and be interested in. He wants to understand the world from many perspectives, and tries to uncover and understand truths about

14356-437: The game was recognized at various award events including the Independent Games Festival , leading to publishers that had previously rejected World of Goo to offer to publish it. The success of indie video games on crowdfunding platforms also inspired a wave of indie tabletop role-playing game developers to follow the same business model. Console manufacturers also helped increase recognition of indie games in this period. By

14504-400: The game will likely be completed in a timely manner and draw in funds. Another mechanism offered through digital distribution is the early access model, in which interested players can buy playable beta versions of the game to provide software testing and gameplay feedback. Those consumers become entitled to the full game for free on release, while others may have to pay a higher price for

14652-520: The games anywhere, with the storefront otherwise handling the distribution and sales factors. While Steam itself initially began heavy curation, it eventually allowed for indie publishing with its Steam Greenlight and Steam Direct programs, vastly increasing the number of games available. Further indie game growth in this period came from the departure of large publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision from their smaller, one-off titles to focus on their larger, more successful properties, leaving

14800-666: The goal passed as the scope of the game increased. By 2015, the core team had grown to eight. At the time, it was very rare for a small, independent game studio to spend more than seven years on a game. The game was released on Windows and the PlayStation 4 in January 2016. Blow reported that the first week sales revenue of The Witness totaled over US$ 5 million, and was one of the top downloads on illegal BitTorrent websites. The game received critical acclaim, several BAFTA and Game Developers Choice Awards nominations, and appeared on 'Best of

14948-504: The indie game field since 2015, there are concerns that the market is far too large for many developers to get noticed. Very few selected indie titles get wide coverage in the media, and are typically referred to as "indie darlings". In some cases, indie darlings are identified through consumer reactions that praise the game rather than direct industry influence, leading to further coverage; examples of such games include Celeste and Untitled Goose Game . However, there are also times where

15096-599: The indie game space to provide shorter and more experimental titles as alternatives. Costs of developing AAA games had risen greatly, to an average cost of tens of millions of dollars in 2007–2008 per title, and there was little room for risks in gameplay experimentation. Another driver came from discussions related to whether video games could be seen as an art form ; movie critic Roger Ebert postulated in open debates that video games could not be art in 2005 and 2006, leading to developers creating indie games to specifically challenge that notion. Indie video game development saw

15244-597: The individual creators are named as the recipients of the awards. Specialty awards such as Lifetime Achievement and First Penguin are determined by the GDCA committee, and all are revealed at the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony at the GDC. The IGF and the GDCA are presented back to back, in an awards show produced by UBM TechWeb, typically on the Wednesday of the GDC. UBM TechWeb has added several other events to

15392-664: The industry, relying on game development toolkits rather than programming languages, and they may associate such titles as amateur or hobbyist. Some such amateur-developed games have found great success. Examples of these include Braid , Super Meat Boy , Dwarf Fortress , and Undertale . Typically, a starting indie-game studio will be primarily programmers and developers. Art assets including artwork and music may be outsourced to work-for-hire artists and composers. For development of personal computer games, indie games typically rely on existing game engines , middleware and game development kits to build their titles, lacking

15540-417: The labeling of a game as "indie" still can be highly subjective and no single rule helps delineate indie games from non-indie ones. Games that are not as large as most triple-A games, but are developed by larger independent studios with or without publisher backing and that can apply triple-A design principles and polish due to the experience of the team, have sometimes been called "triple-I" games, reflecting

15688-475: The language would be relatively easy to create compared to creating a game like The Witness . In 2014, Blow began designing the language, which is codenamed Jai, and started creating a compiler for it. The first year and a half of work on Jai was part-time because Thekla was shipping The Witness . In mid-2016, he began full-time work on the language, a game engine written in Jai, and a Sokoban -style puzzle game for

15836-422: The largest fan convention in the world, have allowed independent developers to sell and promote their physical products since its inauguration in 1975, allowing game series like Touhou Project and Fate to spread in popularity and dominate the convention for years. As the media shifted to higher-capacity formats and with the ability for users to make their own copies of programs, the simple mail order method

15984-447: The late 2010s. Several indie developers have found it critical to have a good public relations campaign across social media and to interact with the press to make sure a game is noticed early on in its development cycle to get interest and maintain that interest through release, which adds to costs of development. Several games during this time have still seen success, including games that were referred to as "indie darlings." Some of

16132-563: The latter becoming a cultural phenomenon. Mobile games also became popular with indie developers, with inexpensive development tools and low-barrier storefronts with the App Store and Google Play opening in the late 2000s. In 2012, a documentary, Indie Game: The Movie , was created that covers several successful games from this period. Leading into 2015, there was concern that the rise of easy-to-use tools to create and distribute video games could lead to an oversupply of video games, which

16280-502: The market in indie games is more competitive than ever but continues to appear healthy with no signs of faltering. Gamasutra said that by the end of 2016, while there had not be any type of catastrophic collapse of the indie game market, there were signs that the growth of the market had significantly slowed and that it has entered a "post-indiepocalypse" phase as business models related to indie games adjust to these new market conditions. While there has not been any type of collapse of

16428-471: The middle ground between these extremes. Ninja Theory 's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is considered a prime example of a triple-I game. A further distinction from indie games are those considered double-A ("AA"), tending to be from mid to large-size studios ranging from 50 to 100 team members and larger than typically associated with indie games, that often work under similar practices as triple-A studios but still retain creative control of their titles from

16576-400: The most played games of 2023. More commercially successful games from this time include Stardew Valley , Hollow Knight , and Cuphead . Indie games are generally associated with Western regions, specifically with North American, European, and Oceanic areas. However, other countries have had similar expansions of indie games that have intersected with the global industry. In Japan,

16724-431: The most popular indie games from this time were primarily popularized over social media and spawned cultural phenomena, such as Undertale (2015) and Among Us (2018), with the later being one of the most popular games during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 with half a billion players. A similar example is Lethal Company , which released in 2023 and was popularized through internet culture, becoming one of

16872-414: The one he liked the most, despite it being a 3D game which he "absolutely didn't want to do". Throughout development, Blow hired developers full-time and founded the company Thekla, Inc., of which he is president. The Witness was revealed to the public in 2010, when three people were working full-time on the game. Blow hoped to release The Witness in 2013 as a launch title for the Sony PlayStation 4 , but

17020-569: The onset of the Internet in the 1990s, such as shareware and other file sharing distribution methods. However, by this time, interest in hobbyist programming had waned due to rising costs of development and competition from video game publishers and home consoles. The modern take on the indie game scene resulted from a combination of numerous factors in the early 2000s, including technical, economic, and social concepts that made indie games less expensive to make and distribute but more visible to larger audiences and offered non-traditional gameplay from

17168-470: The players' imagination, at a time that graphics-heavy action games were commonplace. By the mid-1990s, the recognition of the personal computer as a viable gaming option, and advances in technology that led to 3D gaming created many commercial opportunities for video games. During the last part of the 1990s, visibility of games from these single or small team studios scene waned, since a small team could not readily compete in costs, speed and distribution as

17316-435: The prevalence of video game consoles, which required expensive or difficult-to-acquire game development kits typically reserved for larger developers and publishers. There were still significant developments from smaller teams that laid the basis of indie games going forward. Shareware games became a popular means to distribute demos or partially complete games in the 1980s and into the 1990s, where players could purchase

17464-409: The programming barriers needed for a prospective indie developer to create these games. The commercial possibilities for indie games at this point helped to distinguish these games from any prior amateur game. There were other shifts in the commercial environment that were seen as drivers for the rise of indie games in the 2000s. Many of the games to be indie games of this period were considered to be

17612-454: The project is to expand his design abilities. In his youth, Blow liked playing text adventure games by Infocom ; his favorite was Trinity , which Blow said "affected me in a relatively deep way in terms of the way that I think about games". In college, his favorite game was Netrek . Early in his career Blow frequently played Counter-Strike . Blow's games are known for being artistic, challenging, and not following industry trends. In

17760-534: The prototype into a proper game, and by December 2005 the first version of what would be known as Braid was completed. Much of the work was done part-time because Blow also did consulting work and martial arts training. Blow felt the graphics and art style of the first version of the game "looked extremely amateur", and hired David Hellman to create all of the game's art. For the story, Blow drew inspiration from some of his favorite books and films such as Invisible Cities and Mulholland Drive . The game's narrative

17908-460: The puzzle rules are never explained with words but the puzzles themselves teach the player the rules. Blow felt solving puzzles in this way could generate epiphanies for players, and tried to design the game so the player experiences "miniature epiphanies over and over again". Blow estimated solving every puzzle in the game would take more than 80 hours. Work on The Witness began in 2008. Blow created prototypes of several game ideas before choosing

18056-504: The quality of life for programmers. Although several of Blow's hobbies are well-known, Blow has been described as being "intensely private". Blow began kung fu training when he began working on Braid , doing 15 hours a week towards the end of development. Through the training he learned meditation practices that helped him with game development, noting "I don't know if I would have finished Braid if I wasn't doing kung fu." He practiced tai chi during early development of The Witness . Blow

18204-426: The real s***, and talk about what is going on in our industry—what's wrong and what we can do to change it." Many rants inspire controversy, discussion and a good deal of media coverage in industry press. Most rant sessions focus on a particular segment of the industry to draw their speakers from: The Rant panel has inspired similarly structured sessions, with more specialized topics (e.g., "Game Educators Rant" during

18352-701: The resources to build custom engines. Common game engines include Unreal Engine and Unity , but there are numerous others as well. Small studios that do not anticipate large sales are generally afforded reduced prices for mainstream game engines and middleware. These products may be offered free, or be offered at a substantial royalty discount that only increases if their sales exceed certain numbers. Indie developers may also use open source software (such as Godot ) or by taking advantage of homebrew libraries, which are freely available but may lack technically-advanced features compared to equivalent commercial engines. Prior to 2010, development of indie games on consoles

18500-572: The same basic concepts behind video game development for mainstream titles also apply to indie game development, particularly around the software development aspects. Key differences lie in how the development of the game ties in with the publisher or lack thereof. There is no definitive size for how big an independent game development studio might be. Several successful indie games, such as the Touhou Project series, Axiom Verge , Cave Story , Papers, Please , and Spelunky , were developed by

18648-410: The same concepts of amateur and hobbyist programming that grew with the introduction of the personal computer and the simple BASIC computer language in the 1970s and 1980s. So-called bedroom coders, particularly in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, made their own games and used mail order to distribute their products, although they later shifted to other software distribution methods with

18796-437: The same time, Blow is able to test the language's design and adjust it early in its lifetime. As of August 2023, the Jai compiler is in a beta release . In August 2020, Thekla announced Braid, Anniversary Edition , a remastered edition of Braid . Blow said the remaster will be faithful to the original, saying Braid will not get any "Greedo shoots first" changes (a reference to a change made to Star Wars ). The game

18944-454: The school demanded rights to the game. Another route for indie development teams comes from experienced developers in the industry who either voluntarily leave to pursue indie projects, typically due to creative burnout from the corporate process, or resulting from termination from the company. Examples of games from such groups include FTL: Faster Than Light , Papers, Please , Darkest Dungeon , and Gone Home . Yet another route

19092-460: The structure of the game they are in, despite such designs existing nearly a decade earlier, indicating stalled progress in the medium. He does not consider microtransactions to be inherently unethical, but thinks many games made for phones are "just pretending to be games in order to have a microtransaction button or show ads". He considers social network games evil, and noted while SimCity and FarmVille appear superficially similar, SimCity

19240-429: The students then take into a commercial opportunity after graduating from school. Examples of such games are And Yet It Moves , Octodad: Dadliest Catch , Risk of Rain , and Outer Wilds . In some cases, students may drop out of school to pursue the commercial opportunity or for other reasons; Vlambeer 's founders, for example, had started to develop a commercial game while still in school and dropped out when

19388-422: The term usually refers to if their popularity formed in Western or Eastern markets before the mid-2010s, and if they are made with the aim of selling large copies or just as a passion project; the long-running bullet hell Touhou Project series , developed entirely by one-man independent developer ZUN since 1995, has been called both indie and doujinshi. Meanwhile, despite being Japanese-developed, Cave Story

19536-431: The time. Blow created a custom game engine for both games, which in the case of The Witness took a large amount of development time. He noted that when development of The Witness began, off-the-shelf engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine were not sufficiently capable to build the game. Blow also noted that he tries to make games which stand the test of time, so owning his own engine means he can continue to provide

19684-433: The universe through game design. Blow enjoys exploring the permutations of a simple idea. He described an ideal player of his games as someone who "is inquisitive and likes to be treated as an intelligent person". Blow hopes the design skills he developed by working on complicated games have made Jai better designed than most languages. Blow founded Thekla because he wanted creative freedom rather than out of aspiration to run

19832-469: The video game industry and the rest of the world starting around 2005. A key driver was the transition into new digital distribution methods with storefronts like Steam that offered indie games alongside traditional AAA titles, as well as specialized storefronts for indie games. While direct online distribution helped indie games to reach players, these storefronts allowed developers to publish, update, and advertise their games directly, and players to download

19980-571: The video game market, wrote in his book Handmade Pixels that the definition of an indie game is vague, and depends on different subjective considerations. Juul classified three ways games can be considered indie: those that are financially independent of large publishers, those that are aesthetically independent of and significantly different from the mainstream art and visual styles used in AAA games, and those that present cultural ideas that are independent from mainstream games. Juul however wrote that ultimately

20128-890: The video game media may see a future title as a success and position it as an indie darling before its release, only to have the game fail to make a strong impression on players, such as in the case of No Man's Sky and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine . Discoverability has become an issue for indie developers as well. With the Steam distribution service allowing any developer to offer their game with minimal cost to them, there are thousands of games being added each year, and developers have come to rely heavily on Steam's discovery tools – methods to tailor catalog pages to customers based on past purchases – to help sell their titles. Mobile app stores have had similar problems with large volumes of offers but poor means for discovery by consumers in

20276-436: The well-established RPG genre). From a genealogical standpoint, the nature of doujin dates back as far as the 19th century, while the indie phenomena is relatively new. Finally, only until recently, doujin games tended to only be talked about in the same circles as other doujin culture (fan artwork and writing) and rarely mixed with commercial productions, whereas indie games have shared the same stage with AAA games. Many of

20424-608: Was critically and financially successful. During its development, Blow became frustrated with C++ , the programming language Thekla used to create the game. He began designing and creating a new programming language . Full-time work on the language, code-named Jai, and a new game implemented in it began after the release of The Witness . A compiler for the Jai language is currently in beta release . Blow's games are known for being artistic and challenging. They are made with custom game engines , and have larger budgets and longer development times than most independently funded games. Blow

20572-671: Was featured in Indie Game: The Movie , and is known for his strong opinions about the gaming industry. Jonathan Blow was born in Southern California in 1971. His father worked as a defense contractor for TRW , and his mother was an ex-nun. He is the fourth of five siblings, having two brothers and two sisters. Blow was raised as a Christian and said his family regularly attended church. Blow went to middle school in Northern San Diego County . While there, he attended

20720-457: Was founded by Jonathan Blow , the developer behind the game Braid . As of 2021, it was headed by Robin Hunicke and Daniel Benmergui . The session generally showcases 20 titles from over 250 submissions each year. Keita Takahashi showcased his title Katamari Damacy before it was released in the US at the workshop in 2004. At lecture at the GDC in 2005, Keita credited the session for helping get

20868-462: Was held in San Francisco, on March 23–27, 2009. The IGDA awarded 25 scholarships to send qualified students to attend the 2009 GDC. Crawford continued to give the conference keynote address for the first several years of the conference, including one in the early 1990s where he punctuated a point about game tuning and player involvement by cracking a bullwhip perilously close to the front row of

21016-528: Was highly restrictive due to costly access to software development kits (SDKs), typically a version of the console with added debugging features that would cost several thousands of dollars and come with numerous restrictions on its use to prevent trade secrets related to the console from being leaked. Console manufacturers may have also restricted sales of SDKs to only certain developers that met specific criteria, leaving potential indie developers unable to acquire them. When indie games became more popular by 2010,

21164-519: Was really depressed about being at school, I didn't like it. I didn't have a good time." After leaving UC Berkeley, Blow worked at a "really boring" enterprise software company for six months, before taking a contracting role at Silicon Graphics , where he ported Doom and Doom II to a set-top box . In early 1996, Blow co-founded the game company Bolt-Action Software, which was based in Oakland, California , with Bernt Habermeier, whom Blow had met in

21312-465: Was received, fulfill orders by hand, making copies of their game to cassette tape, floppy disc, or CD-ROM along with documentation. Others would provide copies to their local computer store to sell. In the United Kingdom, where personal computer game development took off in the early 1980s, a market developed for game distributors that handled the copying and distribution of games for these hobbyist programmers. In Japan, doujinshi conventions like Comiket ,

21460-524: Was termed the "indiepocalypse". This perception of an indiepocalypse is not unanimous; Jeff Vogel stated in a talk at GDC 2016 that any downturn was just part of the standard business cycle . The size of the indie game market was estimated in March 2016 to be at least $ 1 billion per year for just those games offered through Steam . Mike Wilson, Graeme Struthers and Harry Miller, the co-founders of indie publisher Devolver Digital , stated in April 2016 that

21608-405: Was threatened since one person could buy the game and then make copies for their friends. The shareware model of distribution emerged in the 1980s accepting that users would likely make copies freely and share these around. The shareware version of the software would be limited, and require payment to the developer to unlock the remaining features. This approach became popular with hobbyist games in

21756-408: Was to include more than 15 hours of developer's commentary. Thekla originally planned to launch the game in early 2021, but it was pushed back, and eventually released on May 14, 2024 for multiple platforms. Blow was frustrated with the weak reception to the launch, saying Anniversary Edition "sold like dogshit" and that Thekla could not afford to pay any of its employees. In 2013, Blow began making

21904-406: Was won by Will Wright who designed an Emily Dickinson personality simulator contained entirely on a USB flash drive . The personality would interact with the player by sending Instant Messages and email . The goal was to maintain a stable relationship and avoid the two extremes: romantic obsession with the player or suicidal depression. The first occurrence meant constant interruptions when using

#464535