The movie we watch was very interesting and informing. These creators of the games live a stressful and tiring life trying to get their work to the public eye. They work non-stop to get their work is perfect and completed. These indie games differ from mainstream because most of the creators have personal connections with the game and they don’t have as much money to promote/produce their games. They are usually created by one or a few people. These games are most definitely in the niche of the long tail. They only reach out a selective audience. In Napoli’s reading he discusses media fragmentation, which fits the technique of how the creators were show casing their games. Media fragmentation is the growth in new techniques of delivering media. Xbox Live Arcade allowed the creators of these games to be showcased and be played at an expo by people who could be future buyers.
I can’t imagine how much stress the creators of Super Meat Boy and Fez were going through. They all basically had no lives outside of creating their games. The creator of Fez was on the verge of having a breakdown for like 2 weeks straight before that video game convention because his ex partner just would not give that last signature. I can imagine a lot of people in the video game industry being extremely cruel for absolutely no reason because a lot of gamers are just naturally assholes when it comes to their games. I do not know if Fez ended up being as successful as Super Meat Boy but I can imagine that it did. I can also imagine all of that stress, frustration, and depression must have seriously been worth the success of their games. It was worth it emotionally, personally, and financially. To have niche games like those appeal to the masses has to be highly, highly pleasing.
Yeah, they do live stressful lives. But that Seth Rogen looking guy was a little bit more relaxed than his partner (must’ve been the pineapple express). During one scene in the movie, the guy that created Fez said that he had 2 push Fez’s release date back because his art work had gotten better. In my opinion he was obsessing over something that was minor (the pixels)….if i was looking forward to his game i might’ve been a little pissed off 2!
You’re right Doug, I thought the same about the FEZ guy. Redesigning the whole game because of that seemed to be a bit over the top to me, too. That’s the problem, when you don’t work for a big company – you might actually care too much about your game.
About the original post: It’s funny though that even though they were “independent”, they had to rely on Microsoft in the end.