The lights are on
A new distribution service for indie games is on the horizon, and it’s called IndieCity. The new digital distribution channel will be packed with indie games and nothing else. It also presents a promising new venue for game makers to get their projects to the masses without stressing about deadlines or publisher pressure.
"There isn't a single one-stop destination that covers enough of the indie gaming scene in our opinion," said co-founder Chris Swan during a chat with Gamasutra. "We all found that we were browsing numerous blogs and forums to try and stay on top of the scene, and knew that IndieCity could do better than that."
“We wanted to do something that really celebrated the diversity and creativity that indie games have to offer, and ignore the generic mainstream behemoths," he continued.
Until now, Valve’s digital distribution juggernaut Steam has been the big man on campus for selling indie games. Steam’s frequent Humble Indie Bundles allow developers to enjoy increased sales while reaching a wider audience. IndieCity faces the daunting challenge of having to be a more appealing than Steam to indie developers, but Swan is optimistic.
"There are several [advantages to IndieCity]," explained Swan, "but the most important one is that only IndieCity will have customers that are there 100 percent to play indie games, so the ratio of page views to trial/purchase should be high."
IndieCity will also include personalized game recommendations, a more relaxed approval process for games, and no-holds-barred section called The Underground. The service offers creators a whopping 85 percent share of revenue. Swan says this will be made possible by maintaining a smaller crew and reducing the cost of running IndieCity.
Swan acknowledges defining what’s indie and what’s not is a tricky process. For now, the IndieCity team has settled on asking themselves “What isn’t indy?”
"I think an indie game is one that is created without an unseen guiding hand,” explains Swan. “It's the purity of the game making process that is indie in my mind."
According to Gamasutra, IndieCity will be releasing in beta form “in the next few weeks,” and will start by focusing on PC and Macs.
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Should be interesting to see what kind of numbers they pull for the first several months... or what kind of ploys will be, er, employed, to boost sales and recognition.
That's pretty cool. I'm glad someone is making something to focus specifically on Indie games. Sometimes it's hard to get the word out.
Cool more indie sales!
Wll someone see my comment? Who knows? You do...
Ah, this is great news! I've so far have been more impressed and thrilled with the Indie games :3
It'll be interesting to see how well this does.
for people that are into indie games this seems like a good place to go for getting them. an environment just for these kinds of games where the majority of the money goes back to the people that made them
That's great! It'll really give Indie developers a good boost that they need.
Wonderful.
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I'll be sure to keep this on my radar as indie games are very fun on occasion.
I'm definitely looking forward to this.
Sweet! I like getting my money straight to developers, so this will be good!
Steam is not the ones doing the Humble Indie Bundle, it's John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire Games. You also have Desura from DesuraNet, the people behind ModDB and IndieDB.
cool! I have been checking out a lot of indie games on the 360, but this will probably be a lot easier.
Does that logo look like a middle finger to anyone else?
Indie games are great, I have tons of fun with them because they are always ridiculous.
This is great news, on account that I was starting to work on a game, and was curious as to how to get it out there. This could be a nice break through.
Correct me if I'm wrong but this is just BLITZ GAMES under a thinly veiled disguise? The guys who head it up are all Blitz employees.. the offices are at the Blitz address in Leamington.. Im guessing this WONT be a boon for the indie studios but a bigger developer ripping off smaller independents.
Sounded like a good idea until you scratch beneath the surface!
This is an excellent idea, and I hope for all our sakes it works out. This would be a huge boon to the developers and creators, knowing they would be getting such a large cut of the profits.