‘Indie explosion’ brings a fresh face to the gaming industry

Now that the technology behind digital downloads has matured, the gaming industry has undergone something of a renaissance.

At the forefront of this creative revival is the ‘indie explosion’. Independent game creators almost single-handedly created the ‘casual game’ genre. Their work has led to the revival of many classic game genres and the creation of some entirely new gaming concepts.

Indie games are important because they challenge the status quo. In an industry that is now dominated by franchises and sequels, innovation is a dirty word. The latest big name releases (Grand Theft Auto IV, Gears of War 2, Halo 3 etc) probably cost as much to make as most Hollywood A-list films, so game developers are at the mercy of publishers who want a product that gamers are familiar with.

The beauty of independent games is that they can take risks to explore new ideas that most game studios would never consider. This freedom to experiment benefits everyone.

Gamers get to enjoy new experiences and concepts. Those in the industry benefit from the the introduction and testing of techniques that can be used to enhance more traditional games.

Take the example of flOw, which attracted approximately 350,000 downloads within its first two weeks on release.

The game was developed as part of an undergraduate thesis exploring the concept of dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) in video games. The player must guide a tiny, worm-like micro-organism through various depths of the ocean to consume other organisms.

Most games rely on pre-determined challenges or settings to keep a player involved, but flOw allows players to customize the game’s difficulty through their own actions during the game. In essence, flOw adapts itself to the skill of its player.

It is not just in technological terms that indie games are pushing the boundaries. Like in any medium, games are an important communication tool- or at least they could be.

Traditionally, mainstream games have not spent much time exploring the power of their expressive nature. A video game can engage its audience on a much deeper level than a book or film because its audience can actively participate.

Politics and race are issues that the mainstream game industry would never touch. Thankfully, independent game creators have started to tackle these emotive subjects.

Peacemaker, for example, is a game that simulates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Players can choose to be either the leader of Israel or of the Palestinian Authority. Through the use of contextual information, news articles and videos, Peacemaker offers the player a realistic view of one of the most pressing situations in the world.

Of course, all this freedom comes at a price. For better or worse, independent developers are just that, independent.

Without financial backing from large publishers, many small independent studios and developers can fall beneath the cracks of the gaming industry. The internet is awash with half-finished, half-forgotten tech demos. It is only the lucky few that manage to break into the mainstream.

With the transition from small, independent projects to large, publisher-funded ones, the games industry has lost something. There is no longer a desire to create something fresh and innovative - the risk is too great.

Mediocrity has taken precedent over innovation, but at least independent games and their creators seeking to push the industry forward and challenge the gamer with something new.