Indie Games Are On The Rise, Bringing Innovation and Creativity to Gaming 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
Indie Games Are On The Rise, Bringing Innovation and Creativity to Gaming
3 min read
Updated: Jul. 6, 2021 at 5:24 pm UTC
Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash
Over the past few decades, video game popularity has soared along with its media attention – particularly the topic of whether violent video games lead to increased violence in the real world. Most research, however, concludes no direct, definitive link between them.
Although, there may be another link less explored: are video games – specifically, “indie games” – making people more creative?
Indie Games and Creativity
It’s actually possible to learn many transferable skills from video games that can help us in the real world.
For starters, working on something challenging gives us energy and amps up the dopamine reward centers in our brain which is one of the strongest drivers of work ethic. This can dramatically boost both our motivation and willpower.
In addition, multiplayer games can teach us how to work in a team with other players, how to be a successful leader, and how to confront difficult problems head-on.
Finally, playing games – particularly indie games, which often provide a very unique set of problems that differ from mainstream games – often challenge us in new ways and requires us to find creative solutions and workarounds to problems that we encounter.
For example, a quick YouTube search for ‘Minecraft’ shows tutorials on how to build huge, complex structures from building blocks. Some people have even designed their own games within the Minecraft world.
Meanwhile, indie games like Terraria allow users to build structures to support non-playable characters and help them in their quests. They can also create their own power-ups and armor structures which require either in-depth research or trial-and-error-based creativity to master.
Ultimately, this can provide significant boosts to our creativity, which we can then apply in our everyday lives.
Indie Gaming and Decentralization
Blockchain seems to be a technology with the potential to shake up pretty much every industry imaginable – and the gaming industry is no exception.
Game Protocol is the platform leading the charge in decentralized gaming. It focuses on building a thriving community that allows fans to fund developers and benefit from their success.
At the same time, developers can work together to share ideas and create the best games possible. The GameStarter crowdfunding platform is designed to make crowdfunding easier, faster, and more accessible for all.
It allows developers to raise money for their ideas in as little as 48 hours and access the funds instantly. In addition, unlike all current mainstream gaming platforms that take a significant 30% cut from developers, Game Protocol will take only 10% commission in return for developers using their platform to leverage sales.
Such a platform could prove to be a huge milestone for the industry, taking the $91 billion video game market by storm, and ultimately making the development of indie games easier than ever before.
The platform is already advertising some of the games that will soon be available to users. One example is the Special Guns project, a first-person shooter that will be released on Game Protocol after being successfully funded. The funding goal for this project is 200,000 Game Protocol Tokens (GXT).
The Increasing Popularity of Indie Games
Over the past few years, indie games have become popular. Unlike publishers such as Ubisoft, Blizzard, and Sony, who don’t usually experiment and tend to use one format for games which they know will sell well, indie game developers are much more likely to strike out and create something unique.
Of course, in some cases, this doesn’t work at all, and the game flops. But in an increasing number of cases, it turns out to be a huge hit.
Stardew Valley, the RPG farming simulation game that was designed by a 28-year-old first-time developer and released in February 2016, was one of the biggest success stories of the year.
In the few years the game has been available, it has amassed over 80,000 Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam. It was estimated that within a year of the game’s release, its single developer had earned in excess of $30 million.
Similarly, Don’t Starve, the open world ‘uncompromising wilderness survival game’, and Don’t Starve Together, the multiplayer version of this title, is another game that has witnessed huge popularity and stood the test of time, receiving Over 45,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam since its release back in 2013.
The Future of Indie Gaming
With the rise of crowdfunding platforms like Game Protocol that allows fans to give money directly to developers for creating content they love, getting funding for indie games will be easier than ever before.
As a result, it’s likely we will see a significant rise in the number and variety of indie games available for users to play over the coming years.
