I could still live for a few years off of $1.3M US though. Produce one hell of a game.

But I agree, it’s difficult sometimes for larger games to compete with smaller ones. That’s why we got a better cross-section of judges for this year (including former IGF winners and indie game editors), and that’s why we’ve changed things around this year to have specifically nominated games in each category. The finalists are actually going to be announced later today, and I think everyone who posted in this thread will be pleasantly surprised about the good cross-section of budgets, styles, and entries. We’ll see

As far as i’m concerned, what makes someone independent is (as malkyne said) not cooperating with the industry, or in fact actively opposing ir or undermining it by providing gamers with an alternative that’s both more fun and cheaper. “Independent console game” is an oxymoron: to legally release a game on a console you need to be approved by the hardware company, your game needs to pass through their QA, and they get a cut of your sales. How independent are you when you give a cut of your sales to sony?

The fact that from the start all that the behemoth wanted to do was find a publisher is sad. Their whole story is the typical “hey guys, lets make it big and get rich!!”.. they could have bought blitzbasic for less than $100, spent 8 months making the _exact_ same game, and self-published it for mac/pc.

But instead they went where all the money is: consoles. It’s great that they sacrificed so much, mortgaged everything, worked so hard, blahblabblah, but the fact is that they didn’t HAVE to do that to make their game, they were only forced to do that because they were fixated on making a lot of money in the lucrative console market!

What really sucks is that this sets the precedent for other indies to get in huge debt trying to compete with the mainstream, when the reason mainstream games suck is BECAUSE so much money is involved.. when you’re financially obligated to investors, you’re forced to care about what they want. Caring about anything other than the game itself is why mainstream games suck. Keeping budgets low is necessary for crazy, inventive games, because having no obligations provides the developer with total freedom to selfishly keep their game true to what they want it to be.

As much as i might respect dan and tom in terms of talent, it’s hard to really like them or want to support them.. how would you feel about a heavyweight boxer who beats up scrawny children?

What really did it for me was how at the IGF ceremony, the behemoth had their own company table (alongside nintendo, ea, blizzard, etc.) instead of sitting at the IGF finalist tables. How much clearer does it need to be that they’re just another mainstream developer?!

Then again, this happens every year, and at least gish got what it deserved — the grand prize. The thing that’s most disturbing this time is the fact that previous big-budget IGF entries have been viewed with a bit of suspicion, whereas the behemoth intentionally positioned themselves as self-appointed spokespeople for indie developers. Maybe it’s cool that the mainstream has acknowledged the indie audience to the point where they try to spin being “indie” into their image, but that doesn’t make it any less exploitative and frustrating.

As far as i’m concerned Doom3 should have been allowed into this year’s IGF, since they self-financed (which is apparently what the behemoth thinks makes them indie). At what point did id go from indie to commercial? I guess it’s hard to tell, but i don’t think doom has a +$1M development budget.

okay.. enough ranting

p.s - dustin’s idea is great: having a budget-based criterion would definitely lead to a more even contest.. much like weight divisions in boxing.

Of course, the situation isn’t totally bad as it is now. The no-budget freeware game N won the audience award last year, up against some much higher funded titles. It was a f&^%ing awesome game, and the voters rightly recognized that.