And speaking of indie developers, they, too, were out in full force at GDC. First at the Independent Game Festival itself and the accompanying awards ceremony, then at Thursday's Experimental Game Sessions (which, one attendee caustically pointed out, used to be called the Experimental Game Workshop). Jonathan Blow, the erstwhile MC of the Sessions, pointed at the free games on display, saying they'd given him "more pleasure than a lot of $60 games." He then amended his statement to suggest one could do away with $60 games entirely.
And then there's Portal. A lot of people have made a lot of noise about Portal starting life as the student project of a couple of young women called Narbacular Drop. Many of these glasses-pushed-up comic collector types were at Kim Swift and Erik Wolpaw's post mortem on Friday. One such attendee questioned the team's decision to change the color of the portals between the indie and retail versions of the game. But most people seem genuinely pleased a game started by two college students and finished by a team of fewer than 10 was more inherently satisfying than the rest of the big-budget titles accompanying it on The Orange Box disk, and many other games released this year. Especially Gabe Newell, who can pat himself on the back for the foresight to hire those young ladies.
But what does all of this mean for the industry in general, and is the democratization of development really a good thing? One has to wonder what the audience of hundreds of thousands of folks who make their bones contributing to the old guard publishing system think about the idea their entire operating procedure may be obsolete. If 10 people can make an award-winning game, bringing home millions, why, exactly, do we need teams of 100 people or more? The people paying the bills have to be asking themselves the same question.
Considering Microsoft, and everyone else, have been asking themselves how they can continue to make games when development costs are exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars, and retail prices above $60 equal market death, cutting payroll from 300 to 10 sounds like an awfully sweet proposition. Especially when the lion's share of the industry's $19 billion in sales rests on the shoulders of a handful of giants. Halo 3, we're looking at you.
Now that videogames have trounced the music industry in terms of dollars spent, it's time for them to take another page out of that industry's book. I'm talking now about talent scouting. While some legendary acts were assembled from remnants of bands already in the spotlight (Led Zeppelin anyone), a great many are "discovered" in the bars and amateur performance venues that dot the great music cities of this nation. But when it takes hundreds of millions of dollars and upwards of 100 people to make a videogame, how do you scout for talent? By putting the tools for development in as many hands as possible.
2007 can rightly be considered the year of the big-budget blockbuster game, with Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Half Life 2: Episode 2, BioShock, Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted and a great many more taking home awards and glorious cash prizes in the form of landslide retail receipts. But in the years to come, don't be surprised if those big-budget extravaganzas start sharing the stage with lesser acts.
Will 2008 be "The Year of the Indie?" Perhaps not, but it's coming. And probably sooner than you think.
