Who's Indie Now? Classifying Indie in the Games Industry.

Abstract

To state that indie in the games industry signifies an independent developer is too simple. Indie is no longer only a question whether a developer is developing independent from a publisher or not. In this thesis I argue that games (and its developers) are classified as indie through an interplay between: the developers (through examining the context of production), the audience (by criticizing games on their authenticity and using indie as an identification tool), and the publishers (through making indie a new market segment) in the games industry. The result is an overview of the indie games industry and how indie is classified there. The indie games industry has become a bigger and bigger part of the greater games industry. The once clear line, that separated indie from mainstream in the games industry, has become blurred.