What Counts as an Indie Game?

I’m a big fan of indie games. I’m working on an indie game right now, and since I stream a lot of indie games on Twitch, I sometimes get caught by questions about what “indie” means.

What counts as an indie game?

Just like with movies or music, “indie” means independent, or that the content creator (whether they’re a developer, musician, videographer, or other creative), isn’t backed by a publishing company or other established force in the industry. They are independent of that support and also independent of that influence.

As a natural result of being independent, indie dev teams are usually very small and work with limited resources, which gives their games a particular feel. Since high-resolution, photographic-realism art assets can be expensive or time-consuming to create, indie games often develop a distinct style that their artists can produce quickly, whether it’s 2D or 3D.

This doesn’t necessarily equate to the art assets being simpler, or less detailed. It just means they have a strong style in mind that plays to the strengths of their artists (or singular artist, as is this case for many small studios).

Because there are few (if any) company stakeholders driving decisions from outside the dev team, indie games will typically explore unusual game premises that are a little more…