What do you think about indie games?

sum gamez gud.

som gamez bad.

life is purple.

I liked Thomas was alone, just because of the narrating I think

Sweeping generalizations, gotta love them. There are games you hate, you dislike, you don' like quite as much as you hoped, you find pleasant, good, excellent and so on. Whatever label you slap on them, it's still about your personal reactions.

So, figure out what you might like and do your shopping accordingly. Don't expect to always get that right, you might be surprised, like something you didn't think you liked, be disappointed by something you had hopes about, and so on.

Indies, at times, are such a breath of fresh air and actually keep me gaming more than AAA's. For example, I have way more love for Bastion than I do Tomb Raider. And some of them have very unique ideas that you'd never even really consider.

On the other hand though, they are often so poorly optimized.

Better than most AAA games IMO

I like them but I fell into the trap of thinking all indie games were awesome just because I played some really good ones. Honestly my favorite thing about them is usually there fairly shortish, they add something interesting or different to typical games and there normally quite cheapish. Unfortunately thats not always the case though and I have a lot of indie games from bundles and elsewhere where I wish I wouldv'e just key dropped or gave away instead of putting it in my steam account as my account now seems really cluttered with games I just honestly don't want there.

My advice would be unless you have the money for it and like the risk or have plenty of time, I would stay away from most indie games and just get them during sales of ones which are known to be quite good or worth the money.

I'm mostly interested in RPGs, and indie RPGs of recent times are WAY better than most AAA games.
Avadon, Avernum remake, Age of Decadence, Winter Voices, Eschalon, Inquisitor, Driftmoon, Tales of Maj'Ejal, ADOM - these are the games I like and they keep me gaming. Also, while not being an RPG, To The Moon is essentially one of the best games I have ever played, the accent put on story and emotions is really good.

On the other hand, there is a lot of indie games on Greenlight that I would never play. E.g. all these zombie apocalypses, all these strange platformers with bizzare graphic style. Not my cup of tea.

All in all, to answer your question, I'd say that it really depends on your tastes and demands. I love a rich story, a vast amount of dialogues, choices and consequences, turn-based battles (or at least RT with tactical pause), deep characters. And I get it from some carefully chosen indie RPGs.

To be honest I've enjoyed indie games alot more than most recent AAA titles. They're less industrilized and you can clearly see its a love project (in most cases). I appreciate them alot more than most AAA crap titles. Except for skyrim which is the best thing ever.

Now don't get me wrong, not every indie title is good. But if you find a good one then its worth it.

I like them, because they are similar to games I was playing as a kid. They are developed in a similar fashion to AAA computer titles of the 90's (small developer team, more freedom to experiment.) Today's AAA titles are produced in a fashion more similar to Hollywood, and this isn't always a good thing since they try to appeal to the masses. They don't have a target audience and that can make them bland and generic (examples: Skyrim, COD, Dirt.)

PS:
Yes, Skyrim is bland and generic. The reason it's played to much is because it's huge. The amount of content in it is staggering. But otherwise, it's a very generic RPG.

Indie games, for me, are nothing more but games made by small group.
Just as AAA games, they can be awesome, shitty, beatiful, meaningful etc. I think there aren't any direct differences.

Some are utter garbage.

Others are pure gems...

I don't play them I like big games with deep gameplay, most of the indie games are 'come and go' types... I played just few like FTL or Hotline Miami and wouldn't pay for them again

You complain about your backlog, and then you say "indie games are short" as is it was a bad thing, which is not.
If you're after reducing your backlog a game who offers 100 hours of gameplay is worse for your gaming time then!

PS: In fact I prefer indies more than AAA titles, except some exceptions of course

I think indie games are just like any other game. There's some gems and some that make you think you wasted your time and money. I do like that most of them are shorter games because even if the game was kinda meh, I do at least get a quick feeling of satisfaction for finishing it and less annoyance at wasting my time like I would with an AAA game that takes a long time to complete and I spent more money on. The less time spent and the lower cost does make me more willing to try different things that I may not have tried before as well.

As far as indie games sparking the idea of becoming a collector? I don't think they were fully responsible. A contributing factor is Steam itself, people's need to have a lot of stuff to show off, and bundles making it easy to get cheap games. Indie games just tend to end up being the padding to libraries because they are less costly and commonly available via bundles.

some good some bad, ive got 40hours in SHODN :\

I actually tend to prefer indie games to big AAA, albeit most of my indie games are not on steam and the opposite of mainstream.

Dwarf Fortress is just mind blowing and imho a masterpiece, aurora ( pentarch ) is comparable for the space 4x, some like steam and iron explore horizons that are pretty much ignored, Dominions ( the 4th is recently out on steam ) offers a lot, none of those games imho has anything to be shy except graphics compared to AAA, and those examples are even mostly just one or two guys.

I find that they put much more care into their product and i love seeing them go the way they want even if its not the way that will bring them the most customers or money. I tend to have a better immersion as well, perhaps because of the inferior graphics requiring more imagination.

some good and some bad.

I like mark of the ninja, swapper, etc

i even spent 46h to get all achievements (before dlc) and feels very pleased about that game..

Yes, there's much backlog, plus there's these massive bundles everywhere. just be selective to buy you favorite game genre

i like the idea of them, they tend to run on my lower end computer when aaa games couldn't and their cost allows much more variety for me, if its great thats awesome, if it sucks well i'm only out like $5 vs the 70+ I'd blow on a sucky aaa

Indie games are the last bastion of creativity left in the video game world.

Mainstream games haven't advanced in storytelling or gameplay since at least 1999. They're all about shiny objects, which is fine if you don't want to use your brain.

It's not really their fault. In many ways, System Shock 2 (from 1999 and the example which I draw from when talking about this sort of thing, because it's memorable) is an example of the apex of traditional storytelling and gameplay. It's not pretty by modern standards but has all of the hallmark gameplay components we expect from a modern AAA title. It took the storytelling from its predecessor (backstory advanced in small bits from audiologs) and more thoroughly integrated them into the gameplay: and set the standard which is still used, although using different gimmicks to deliver it (by the way, Bioshock took a step backward in this department). We haven't perceptively moved away from this. And it's probably because this is the absolute height of traditional gameplay and storytelling.

Additionally, these games have to appeal to a wide range of customers across multiple game systems. And let us all be plain here: PC gamers and Console gamers have radically different standards. Which is why each successive Call of Duty is a console gamers' game and PC gamers don't give a crap anymore (for instance CoD Ghosts has sold 480,000 units on PC compared to 7 million on just one console, taking into account that CoD is also falling in popularity across the board maybe console gamers are becoming a little smarter or maybe video game sales are a good indication of the state of the economy).

Indie games lack the restrictive demographic controls that mainstream games are stuck with. The small companies lack the overhead which big companies have and can make significant profits from a small market segment. They can experiment. They can devise new ways of telling stories.

They can make you question what exactly a video game is or can be.

I lecture history, so I have draw a comparison to the past.

Consider Germany of the 1920s. Apparently free of the restrictions of Wilhelmine society, technology and emotional peaks coincide and new forms of art are pioneered. From the proletarian art of photography to experimental films which still test the viewer to question their very being and architecture which questions the very nature of human settlement.

Does this mean that the national socialists will take over video games?

Well, maybe. The illusory walls of net neutrality were struck down. The entire "entertainment industry" is ripe for takeover.

Some are amazing (They Bleed Pixels, Super Meat Boy), while many are shovelware.

I LOVE indie games!

I'm currently in a torrid love affair with Hero Siege, it's a lot like The Binding of Isaac, just with less Edmund McMillan insanity. lol

I highly recommend grabbing the game if you don't have it, it was in one of the recent bundles, IndieGala I believe.

One of my favorite areas in gaming is indie, and I like it better than AAA, while there are quite a few AAA titles I love (Batman games (Lego, and such like Arkham Asylum) and other big franchise Lego games, Beyond Good & Evil, Diablo series, Elder Scrolls series (though I might never get past Morrowind, not just because the massive world of great mods available, but later games in this series are really only better in graphics), Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Myst series, Neverwinter Nights, Prince of Persia series, and various LucasArts (Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones series, Loom, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island series, Zac McKraken) to name what I can remember off hand) AAA has gotten very stunted, cliche even at times. AAA companies are afraid to branch out of the exact formula that's earning them money and to experiment, while indie devs are pioneers, thinking out of the box in most cases, pushing the mold. There are things that both sides in gaming, indie and AAA, could learn from each other though.

Some of my all-time indie faves: An Untitled Story (free online, the amazing OST is free too), Aquaria, Auditorium, Ben There Dan That, Blocks That Matter, Botanicula, Braid, Cave Story+, Machinarium, Splice, SpaceChem, Stacking, VVVVVVV. BasketBelle and Lume were exceptionally rewarding in spite of being very short. I need to get back to Bastion and The Binding of Isaac sometime to have a better idea of it.

Usually they are better than games from big companies. Depends and you really, do you trust a small group of people working on a game you are about to spend your money or do you feel more comfortable buying games from big companies like EA, Valve, Activision, Ubisoft, etc.

I don't know, what do you think about books?