Common misconception, but not technically. Good publishers provide real value like funding, marketing, testing, localization, etc. while also giving the team full creative control.
The publishers aren’t indie, but they publish lots of indie games. Assuming you define indie as not big established studio instead of how they are published.
Indie is short for independent, as in, independent from outside support, specifically a publisher. Publishers frequently dictate how a developer does certain things as a result of wanting a return on their investment. The whole indie movement came from studios who wanted to do their own thing without a publisher squashing their ideas, and would therefore self publish.
There’s a huge misunderstanding that pervades the gaming industry where people associate small studios with being indie. They really aren’t. You can’t be indie if you depend on another entity to handle marketing, distribution, etc., who as a result has influence on your work. Being a small studio who uses 8 bit graphics or other stylistic devices doesn’t make a group indie, it just means they are trying to emulate being indie. “Indie publishers” know this is a marketing ploy that sells, and will therefore invest in and influence such projects.
Indie publisher is a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?
Common misconception, but not technically. Good publishers provide real value like funding, marketing, testing, localization, etc. while also giving the team full creative control.
The publishers aren’t indie, but they publish lots of indie games. Assuming you define indie as not big established studio instead of how they are published.
Indie is short for independent, as in, independent from outside support, specifically a publisher. Publishers frequently dictate how a developer does certain things as a result of wanting a return on their investment. The whole indie movement came from studios who wanted to do their own thing without a publisher squashing their ideas, and would therefore self publish.
There’s a huge misunderstanding that pervades the gaming industry where people associate small studios with being indie. They really aren’t. You can’t be indie if you depend on another entity to handle marketing, distribution, etc., who as a result has influence on your work. Being a small studio who uses 8 bit graphics or other stylistic devices doesn’t make a group indie, it just means they are trying to emulate being indie. “Indie publishers” know this is a marketing ploy that sells, and will therefore invest in and influence such projects.