Celebrating the Rise of Indie Development
How the 2010s became the decade for indie developers
2020 was the end of yet another decade of the game industry, and like with each one that came before it, the industry would grow and completely change to the point that it would be unrecognizable to anyone looking back at it in the future. For today, I want to celebrate the group that grew the most in that span of time, and how the last decade should be remembered as the rise of the independent developer.
The Indie Origins
It’s funny to sit here writing this with many of you knowing full well the major names of the indie space today. But 25 years ago, indies were a well-kept secret and not known to most consumers. During the ’90s, the only way your game was going to get into a retail store and onto a major platform was for it to come from a publisher. Companies like Sega and Nintendo had no interest in dealing with small teams, let alone anyone who was trying to push the envelope in a way they didn’t like.
The very first indies would belong to studios like Spiderweb Software, Croteam, and Introversion Software. While Jeff Vogel of…
