1781

If you can call Stardock “indie”, then you have to call Valve “indie”. I’d like to see someone make an argument to support that.

1782

Stardock is an indie by any reasonable industry definition in terms of number of employees, number of copies they sell, lack of dependence on a publisher, etc.

A lot of people don’t use reasonable definitions, of course, preferring to judge a studio’s indieness by the size of their monocle, or which bands they liked Before They Were Cool.

(By the movie business definition of “indie,” incidentally, Valve would absolutely be an indie studio.)

1783

No but it’s far more interesting than voiceover discussion :)

1784

By definition, if they dont receive money from publishers, they are. The difference is, that there is another part of their company (Or at least I think its another part of the company) that distributes games, and makes tons of money on it.

Again, Indie simply means independent.

1785

I admit I don’t follow Valve too closely, but aren’t they? I had thought (and I could be wrong) that the purpose of Steam was to publish their own games and give themselves some more control… as well as make a buck, of course.

Again, I don’t follow Valve that closely, but does any outside party control what games they make, the content of those games, or when those games ship by? If not then yea, I’d say they’re a large, highly successful, independent studio.

If Notch of Minecraft fame ends up selling twelve billion copies of the game and buys his own small nation, it wouldn’t make him any less of an indie game developer.

1786

You guys are correct, but being to literal. People don’t use the word “indie” to mean any studio that is independent. Most people use it to subjectively label games made by one (or just a few) people.

Braid is an indie game.

Is Half-Life 2?

1787

Well… yes. But I do understand that you’re saying “indie” has a connotation of being small, shoe-string budget projects. I just see that as a typical byproduct of the industry though, not a requirement. As in, most indies are independent because their games are niche/different enough that they wouldn’t see the light of day if EA, Activision, or the other big publishing houses were calling the shots. As such, they fund the projects themselves, and typically there’s not a lot of money to work with.

In my mind, I’ve never revoked anyone’s Independent credentials just because they found success.

1788

I agree with you, KevinC. My only point is that the label “indie” is a very subjective one. When it is used by most people, they don’t mean any independent studio. They mean games made by a very small, self-funded team.

I’d bet good money that if you took a poll asking whether Valve is an “indie” studio, more than 90% would say no.

1789

I’ve started a new thread, so that we don’t completely derail this one.

Jon

1790

Yea, I’d lay the same wager. :) Thanks for the discussion, Cory (I mean that sincerely, I want to make sure that didn’t come across as sarcasm).

1791

I think we are all just waiting for the final release now. :D

1792

So true - right now, despite all my misgivings throughout the beta, its my most anticipated game this year - so, It had better be good!

1793

So APB is starting to get depressing and I’m looking at a new game…

If I were to get one strategy game, should it be Starcraft II or Elemental? Honestly, Elemental looks like a 30 dollar game to me (or less) and while I really like Master of Magic, I’m not sure I dig the way the adventurer aspect was playing out in the videos I saw.

Starcraft II though, may or may not run well on my machine. I like (or at least find them entertaining enough) terrible single player campaigns for RTSes, but suck at competitive multiplayer.

Suggestions?

1794

You’ll get a lot more playtime out of Elemental, I imagine, plus a ton of post-release support, mods, and gameplay innovations from the last 15 years. If you’re just getting one, get Elemental.

1795

SC2. The campaign is fantastic, and even if MP isn’t for you, chances are you have a bunch of friends you’ll have a blast playing with & against, because they also have the game, suck just as much as you do, and actually have time to play with you because matches take less than an hour (usually less than half an hour).

1796

Elemental, because SC2 is an RTS and Elemental is a TBS. The choice is easy!

1797

Is it? Because you have to ask yourself… was it really all worth it in the end? Tough decision… and it’s not one that’ll get any easier. You see, this is a long road you’ve gotta walk, Jimmy, and it ain’t gonna get any shorter.

Starcraft 2’s story mode is worth it, just for counting the cliches in the writing. I’d say make it a drinking game, but you’d die of alcohol poisoning before you even saw the Zerg.

1798

I am incapable of providing a non-biased answer to that question since, while I loved the original Starcraft, the second one has no appeal to me. So clearly, I would pick Elemental.

I am curious though, Mordrak, what aspects of Elemental make it seem like a $30 game to you?

1799

How can you even make an informed choice if one of your options isn’t released yet?

1800

You could be wasted just by the end of the trailer. God was that awful, but I figure the gameplay bits (more like RTS puzzle solving) would be worth it and the pew pew factor.

I really can’t but we’re coming up on release and some people have been playing the beta here, so I figured I might as well ask.

Mostly the presentation, along with reading some of the gameplay change logs. It seems like there really isn’t a cohesive idea of what they think the game should be, with an ad hoc feeling to the changes. Plus some of the gameplay descriptions of the GalCiv series feel a bit cold in its upgrade paths, etc, and I wonder if that design style will carry over into Elemental.

The modding support interests me and like I said, I enjoyed MoM quite a bit.