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Message: [QUOTE="Gorse, post: 27727, member: 73"] OK, you guys want a [I]really [/I]hot take – i.e., something controversial that probably only I agree with? I'll fucking give you one so hot it'll melt your little ears off: [B]I think the indie gaming space is fundamentally broken – just as much, if not more so, than the modern AAA space[/B]. And there's one big reason for it: lack of [I][U][B]originality[/B][/U][/I]. Think about whenever you see a modern indie game get really big and popular, like Undertale ([I]spit[/I]), Stardew Valley, or even UFO 50. Isn't it funny how about 95% of them are [B]based on an older game[/B]? Undertale is Earthbound. Stardew Valley is Harvest Moon. UFO 50 is Action 52. Every modern Metroidvania is Super Metroid and/or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Lethal League/Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is Jet Set Radio. Minecraft is Infiniminer. Again and again. The same games. Repeatedly endlessly. FOREVER. I'm not saying that any of these games don't [I]develop[/I] or [I]alter [/I](or even [I]improve![/I]) elements of the games that they're based on. But I am absolutely saying that, from their conception, they're unoriginal – and, by definition, repetitive and tedious. (In my opinion, of course.) Can you mention Undertale without also mentioning Earthbound in the same breath? How about Stardew Valley – can you describe that game without using the phrase "Harvest Moon"? Even Cave Story, the ur-example of this sort of indie game – could you tell me about the game without, in good faith, referencing Metroid? On one hand, I get it. If you're someone interested in conceptualizing, funding, developing, and releasing a video game on your own, without the backing of a major developer or publisher, you're probably someone who loves a certain video game so much that you want to make your own version of it. (Let's put aside cynical market pressures for the sake of this post.) My problem comes in with just how [I]repetitive [/I]all these games are. When Undertale got big, every game wanted to be Undertale, and imitated its writing, music, and graphical style (and even many design sensibilities) to a T. When Stardew Valley got big, roughly 40 trillion identical farming games were (and continue to be) released. Same with Metroidvanias. Again and again. The same games, repeatedly endlessly, forever. [I][B]WHAT IF I DIDN'T LIKE THOSE OLD GAMES IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?[/B][/I] [CENTER][IMG width="311px" size="220x165"]https://media.tenor.com/ti-CVux_p2QAAAAM/the-ren-and-stimpy-show-maniacal.gif[/IMG][/CENTER] Yes, I actually [I]don't[/I] like the vast majority of those millennial SNES games, and I truly do not want to play them – or any variation of them – again! But they've [I]never gone away[/I]. I can't complain, because this is clearly what the audience wants, but I truly do think it's to the detriment of the medium. [B]Whenever I see a new indie game, my mind immediately says "Oh, what [U]other game[/U] is this supposed to be?"[/B] I know that no piece of media is truly "original", and that every game is, in essence, building on what came before it. But what yobs me off is the fact that both gamers and developers seem to [I]reject[/I] originality outright. The people making these games don't [I]want [/I]to "break the rules", and there's really no demand from consumers to do so, so the entire indie space becomes an ouroboros, constantly devouring itself only to defecate its own head in perpetuity. And we get Earthbound, Super Metroid, and Harvest Moon again and again. We get [I]genres [/I]named specifically to limit imagination and creativity – roguelike (games like Rogue), Metroidvania (games like Metroid/Castlevania), "boomer shooter" (games like id games), et cetera. I'm not saying that if you like any of these games you're a dullard or something, but I [I]do [/I]think they're a big reason why people younger than Millennials gravitate towards Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite over [INTERCHANGEABLE INDIE GAME #718942]. If you didn't grow up playing (or emulating) the very limited pool of Japanese console games that almost every indie game takes influence from, there's really no reason to play one over the other, because they're all – in a basic sense – the same. Their creators all speak, think, and are aged about the same, too, so why wouldn't they be? Playing old Flash games on Flashpoint – which were the lion's share of the games [I]I[/I] grew up with – really depresses me, because many of those games [I]WERE [/I]original! (Not all of them, certainly, but I'd be so bold as to say most.) Even if they were copying other Flash games, at the very least it was a new template to build off of – a new space to explore, with new ideas to [U]introduce[/U] and gestate. They weren't Earthbound, Super Metroid, and Harvest Moon. But I guess people didn't want that design sensibility – they wanted SNES games. Again and again. Forever. Here's what I think: [B]a lot of gamers are too soft on indie developers.[/B] [B]You should be demanding more. [/B]Maybe it's because of nostalgia, or because of a heavy affection for older games that I've never personally known (on my own [URL='https://retrogametalk.com/threads/my-favorite-games-my-recommendations-in-no-particular-order.791/#post-6850']favourite games list[/URL], you won't find any of the stock SNES games I mentioned). It might also be because of a sense of camaraderie with indie developers – they're the "little guy", so it's fine if they re-release Pixel Art Farming Simulator #11249 with character designs copied wholesale from "old school anime" ([I]barf[/I]) in-between Twitter rants, right? Because they're just like us... right? Honestly, the whole indie space just [B][I]makes me sick.[/I][/B] Oh, and, for the record, Cave Story sucks gorilla dick through a crazy straw. ?? [/QUOTE]

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