Industry
The indie game scene started on PCs, where it remains prominent. Indie games saw a rise via shareware distribution in the early 1990s. However, as technology advanced, requirements and high user expectations made indie gaming less prominent. Modern video games exceeded the ability of a single developer to produce.
Indie gaming industry has a constantly growing interest and popularity. Indie industry saw a steep rise in the latter half of the 2000s decade. The expansion of Internet allowed games to be distributed online moving beyond retail sales. This allowed for both developers to publish and players to download such games from platforms like Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, or OnLive. Similarly, developers have access to tools like Adobe Flash.
Like mainstream video game industry is comparable to mainstream film industry, so is indie gaming industry comparable to independent film industry. However game distribution is shifting towards online marketing. For developers, online marketing is much more profitable and more readily available than retail marketing. Although, distribution portals have been criticized for collecting a large portion the game revenue, in 2008 a developer could earn around 17% of game's retail price and around 85% if sold digitally. This also leads to appearance of more "risky" creative projects. Furthermore, expansion of social web-sites have introduced gaming to casual gamers. Nevertheless, there are few examples of games that have made large profits, and for many indie game-making serves as a career stepping stone, rather than a commercial opportunity.
It is argued as to how prominent indie gaming currently is in video game industry. Most games are not widely known or successful and mainstream media attention remains with mainstream titles. This can be attributed to lack of marketing for indie games. Indie games can be targeted at niche market.
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Famous quotes containing the word industry:
“What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from labor the bread it has earned.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“Change of fashion is the tax levied by the industry of the poor on the vanity of the rich.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)