Harsh Reality: Most Indies games aren't even worth your time let alone your money

Pretty much what the title says, i used to love indie (smaller games) games like Super Meat Boy, Brothers, Geometry Wars, Braid, Limbo and others, but over the past few, basically since the end of XBLA, and the beginning of the current generation of consoles, indies have basically become throwaway games you get on PS Plus, that nobody would pay for, and even then you play them for a few minutes and then delete them off your hard drive and off your mind forever...

Seriously, what happened to the great indie games of the past?

What Have we gotten out of indies (smaller games) this gen?

I got Rocket League, nidhogg, Abzu, and Thumper... That's pretty much it for me, what else do you have?

And please, can someone explain what happened to this kind of games this gen?

You're describing an era that not only was the early days of modern indie development, but also a heavily curated marketplace where games of a certain caliber were brought to your attention for marketing purposes. Now the tools, opportunities and marketplace are all wide open. Even on consoles. Early Access also presents the issue of a staggered release schedule for a game that may have lost all attention by the time it comes out.

Discovering games has been described as a problem, and while I don't find it an issue it sounds like you do. It doesn't mean games have gotten worse, it's just there are a lot more out there, and not all of them will appeal to you.

knowing what is good or bad is certainly an issue at times. especially on PC The good news for most people here is there is a network of people where you can usually have a great idea on what something is or if its for you based on whos talking about it.

I like how all different types of games are coming out now even if it sometimes feels overwhelming. but I think thats just what happens as games as a media expands in scope and popularity

Came in here expecting a thread about there being too many indie games being released but apparently not. It's hard to pin down what exactly an 'indie' is anymore but just off the top of my head

In the past month we've had Cosmic Star Heroine, Hollow Knight, Flinthook, and Thimbleweed Park.

Beyond that, some of my favourites in the recent past are Inside, Superhot, Hyper Light Drifter, Hacknet, Invisible Inc., Enter the Gungeon, Not A Hero, Darkest Dungeon, Galak-Z, Stardew Valley, Furi. That's just stuff I can think of off the top of my head, there's plenty more that I could list probably. Granted, some of these are definitely not 'indie' in the truest sense of the word since they have separate publishers and developers but since you included Thumper I figured they were fair game.

Point being that, like I implied at the start of this thread, I think most people would actually argue we have more great indie games than ever right now and they cover a whole wide range of genres so there's pretty much something for everyone. Sorry that you aren't finding anything to your liking I guess? That's the bigger problem to me right now, is the indie market being so oversaturated that it's hard for good games to get exposure but look around and I'm sure you'll find great games to play, I've been told after all that it's apparently the best time to be playing video games.

I'm surprised anyone is even bothering to give you a counter argument.

@alistercat:

100% agree. Times have changed. The barrier to entry is lower for better or worse. I will take a sea of stuff I don't care about with a few gems over the heavy curation that prevents people from finding an audience.

I would argue that it has always been this way, with one good/decent game out of ten. Now it's just one good/decent game out of fifty.

I saw the title of the thread, then I read the OP, then I was shocked to see this wasn't just some flame war or clickbait started by a new account.

There are tons of great indie games coming out. Grow Home may be one of my favorite games that I've ever played.

@bprjctx: Honestly, I rarely buy or play indies on my PS4. I have over 200 games on Steam and i'd say at least 75% of that is considered 'Indie". They go on sale quicker on Steam than consoles and I don't have beefy laptop that can run the heavy hitters.

Yeah, same, I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, if someone hates literally EVERY SINGLE indie game in the past 10 years, that's perfectly fine.
But this whole thing comes off as very over blown, there are (more than ever) a plethora of fantastic indie games.
I think the language the OP used is a little off putting is all, saying indie games aren't worth 'your' as in EVERYONES time is just an inherently wrong statement, as though there is some sort of truth in this statement they are calling out instead of their own feelings about the current indie line up.

It's just like any other form of media. 99% of indie movies are terrible. The gluttony of self published novels you find on amazon are beyond trash. There isn't really indie television, but the majority of self-made youtube videos are junk.

If an indie game, movie or book is worth your time, you'll usually eventually hear about it.

Correction: most games aren't worth your time.

Also, I completely disagree. "Indie" games have bridged the gap in quality and frequently outmatch games with larger budgets/developers.

This whole premise is asinine.

These games are just 'games' now. The proliferation of digital services means they don't really have a special category anymore.

But there are still plenty of great games of the scale you mentioned coming out.

Here's my standard response to these sorts of complaints: you don't have to buy all of the games.

Yes, there are a lot more games than there were 5-10 years ago, but a lot of them are still pretty damn good. There are also a lot of smaller niches now being serviced that were essentially dead ten years ago or perhaps didn't even exist yet.

Sure, there are a lot of games you don't want to play, but the solution is simply to not play them. Refunds are also a thing now, so if you do make a mistake, it's often relatively easy to correct.

Abyss Odyssey
Assault Android Cactus
Barony
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Castle in the Darkness
Caves of Qud
Crawl
CrossCode
Crypt of the Necrodancer
Darkest Dungeon
Don't Starve
Downwell
Factorio
Firewatch
Freedom Planet
Gunpoint
Hacknet
Her Story
Infinifactory
Ittle Dew
Keep Talking and No One Explodes
Kerbal Space Program
Lisa
Long Live the Queen
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Mini Metro
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
N++
Night in the Woods
Nuclear Throne
Pit People
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Rimworld
Salt & Sanctuary
Shadowrun Returns
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero
Shovel Knight
Skullgirls
Slime Rancher
Stardew Valley
Steamworld Heist
Stephen's Sausage Roll
The Talos Principle
This War of Mine
Transistor
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Undertale
Videoball

Noting that there is a lot of low-budget crap on the modern digital storefront isn't exactly a revelation. The barrier of entry for releasing a title on Steam has never been lower, and there are far more methods, such as Kickstarter and Early Access, to acquire funding for games still in development/prototyping stages.

While this means that you get a lot of crap on the page it's also opened up avenues and allowed for the release of titles that would have otherwise never seen the light of day. While I can potentially see titles like Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight maybe having received support from a larger publisher if they were not crowd-funded, more experimental games like Lisa would not exist if not for community based funding and the ease of entry onto the Steam storefront. These three games are also all superior to a fair amount of AAA titles that came out in the same year they did.

There might be a greater volume of titles to sift through, but Sturgeon's Law still applies.

Shovel Knight? Darkest Dungeon? Furi? Ultimate Chicken Horse? I don't play a ton of indies but haven't noticed any decrease in interesting ones.

Motherfucker what.

I bet you're great at parties.

Limbo dudes made Inside, and that Team Meat Team have been doing whatever they want without a release for years. It's okay, I'm good and I got a life. They were doing Mewgenics, and then canceled it, I think.

It's kinda not like a big deal.

The harsh reality is most games at every level Triple-A, Indie, and Mobile are not worth playing. That has always been the case. Indies are not singular in that being true.

Most games aren't worth your time or money.

Oh, like 3 people here have said that already? I see.

It's not that there are less worthwhile indie games now than there were around the time of that first amazing "Summer of Arcade." There are undoubtedly more worthwhile indie games released on a regular basis now than there was back then. The problem is that there's just so many indie games, specifically flooding steam every day, that are nothing but shovelware.

The combination of much less curation, even on consoles (and virtually no curation on steam), along with the sheer volume of games, makes finding the good games among the crowd much harder than it was when 1 game came out on XBLA a week and there a decent chance it would be good. For those willing to wade into those waters, there are plenty of great games to be found, it just takes more effort than it used to.

Harsh reality: this thread isn't worth anyone's time.

You're right, there are a lot less Indiana Jones games than there were in the past.

@dukeofthebump: thats all well and good, but where are the REAL games??

video games were a mistake

I only play Madden and Call of Duty. Get that indie GARBAGE out of here!

^ yup

Most games are not worth my time, the same way that most TV shows, films, and novels are not. But there is not a smaller number of indie games that I love from 2016 than from 2006. If anything, the number is rising.

2016 had Hyper Light Drifter and INSIDE, two of the best indie games I've ever played. On the side it also had The Witness, Death Road to Canada, Grim Dawn, The Final Station, Event[0], Oxenfree, and ABZU. 2016 in indie gaming ruled.

I've only played one indie this year, but it's Hollow Knight, and it's my current favorite game of the year. Playerunknown's Battleground, Night in the Woods, and What Remains of Edith Finch look pretty cool.

Something like Inside or Little Nightmares is way easier for me to play for hours on end than most of these disruptive cutscene-heavy AAA movie games. They tend to be jack of all trades, master of none, meaning they include all the mechanics and pseudo-RPG elements people expect. I've kinda had it with the carrot on the stick upgrades that are in everything now.

I mean, I guess this is LITERALLY true, in that there are like a thousand indie games released a day and they can't all be winners. But there certainly aren't less good ones coming out than there used to be, or anything like that.

Frankly, I have the opposite problem. There are far more games I want to play than I actually have time to play.

There's plenty that go underappreciated. Coverage is a nightmare for smaller titles. Especially if your first port of call is an aggregate site like metacritic.

Pretty much this, yeah.

You should totally check Dead Cells. Bought it this weekend, haven't played much of it yet.. but oh boi, I'm loving it so far.

What the fuck am i reading.jpg

If rocket league, nidhogg, abzu, and thumper are the only indie games that have stuck out to you lately, you have not been paying much attention to the indie scene, like at all.

Sure there are a lot more indie games than before and the average quality isn't too hot if you start taking mobile ports into consideration, and it can be hard to find the gems in such a huge selection but the indie scene is by far the strongest it has ever been.

All the good stuff is getting harder to find, everywhere.

The only indie game I ever liked was Superhot and there is a few ok VR indie games but that's it.

They're definitely worth more of my time than the majority of the homoginized open world tripe that western AAA games have become.

The weird apologist and clinginess that some of the staff and forum posters here have towards the AAA western games and their belief how they're a neccessity to define the identity of the video game industry is beyond baffling to me. Feels like misplaced nostalgia for the 2007-2011 era of vidya gaymes.

Harsh Reality comes at you quick when you've been in a coma since the last Summer of Arcade.

What about people like me who just think they are fun?