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MS announces initial list of ID@Xbox devs, first games "early 2014"
- Thread starter cartoon_soldier
- Start date
I guess it is an error
They probably want to release games like Warface on PS4 and XB1 eventually.
Crytek counts because, while it is a big company, it's still not big enough to publish its own retail games. Everything it's ever done at retail has bee published under Ubisoft or EA or someone.
When you think about it Crytek is a tier of developer that's become rare these days -- the mid-sized independent team. In terms of the products it makes it's on the same level as DICE or BioWare, except Crytek isn't wholly owned by anyone. These kinds of game companies used to be fairly common up until around the PS2 era (BioWare used to be one of them) but over the course of the AAAmageddon of the last console generation so many got either bought up, dissolved, or both.
Examples of "indiependent" developers like Crytek:
CDProjekt
Platinum
Q Entertainment
Insomniac
etc.
Witcher 1-2 are considered indie games for example ?
No, because CDP found a publisher for those games (only self-publishing them on GOG, their own distribution service).
The definition of indie is releasing a game with no publisher at all on a distribution channel you don't own.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Huh, why did it take for it becoming public knowledge for them to drop this requirement?
So you do know the definition of indie. Then what's with your previous comment? Seems like they are coming from 2 different people!
Also, CD Projekt cannot be considered indie because they have their own publishing channels. They are a "developer and publisher". Not an indie developer. Indie developers don't own publishing channels. They self-publish (with or without assistance) on an open/controlled marketplace.
So you do know the definition of indie. Then what's with your previous comment? Seems like they are coming from 2 different people!
A game being indie and a developer being indie aren't the exact same thing. Any indie developer can, theoretically, go up to a publisher and have their game released like any other game. At that point it's not indie in the same fashion as a guy who puts his own game up on Steam or Desura or the iOS app store since it went through the gate of a publisher. This is what a lot of mid-sized studios did before so many of them disappeared or got bought during the last console generation. This is what Crytek does when it develops a Crysis game that's published by EA. Microsoft and Sony deciding to essentially publish a lot of indie digital games on PS3 and 360 was kind of a weird thing because it put unnecessary gates into the process. This is what's so different about the ability to self-publish on PS4 and Xbox One. The indie game market on PS3 and Xbox 360 was, honestly, severely gated.
This is not to say Crytek and similar companies are the same as, say, Vlambeer or Capy. They're two different tiers of developer, but neither is able to publish their own games. Before the current wave of indies showed up, companies like Q Entertainment, Insomniac, or Tri-Ace were called "independent." Back then it was a word for full-sized studios not owned by bigger publishers. Now there's really no name for them because so few still exist.
CDP can self-publish... on PC. But the retail versions of the Witcher games were still published by Atari (in the US). Then they had to go get WB to publish the Xbox 360 version of Witcher 2. WB will also be publishing the retail version of Witcher 3. If CDP didn't care about releasing a retail disc they could probably go ahead and self-publish Witcher 3 on PSN, Xbox Live, and PC. In that situation it would, essentially, be an indie game, despite the fact that it has a multi-million dollar budget.
And yes CDP owns GOG, and within GOG it's essentially a first party company (just like Valve is within the Steam marketplace), but that doesn't extend everywhere. That doesn't mean they can publish their own games at retail (they can in Poland, but nowhere else). If any other indie developer suddenly had the capital to run its own game distribution website like GOG or Steam, but were still unable to publish retail console games on their own, would they cease being indie?
Indie isn't really about the size of a team or the size of their projects. It's about the ability to get a game to consumers. In fact, it probably makes less sense to call a developer indie, and more sense to say they release games independently. Crytek released Warframe independently, but it can't release Crysis independently. CDP released the digital PC versions of the Witcher games independently, but not the retail versions. If Platinum games for instance wanted to release a game digitally on next-gen consoles and PC, they could do so independently.
Thanks for the detailed write up! Now I understand where you are coming from. I agree with most of what you said. There are minor points of debate, but your conclusion mirrors my thoughts quite well, so I will refrain from picking your other comments apart.
I completely agree with this and it's the reason why I called your previous statement out in the first place. Let's not start calling Crytek, CDP, Platinum and others such as Bungie or Valve as 'indies', just because they are capable of occasionally releasing games independently. This would really muddle the waters and confuse readers who aren't as deeply plugged into this topic as some of us are. The nature of indie development and distribution is a little different from a typical model that involves publishers and it's better to classify companies based on their usual modus operandi, as opposed to the occasional edge case.