Mojang boss vents anger over recently released 'indie bundle' from the publisher
EA is methodically destroying gaming whilst Indie developers are saving it, Markus ‘notch’ Persson has claimed.
Speaking out on Twitter, the Mojang boss spoke angrily about EA’s recently released ‘indie bundle’ on Steam, which includes games such as DeathSpank, Shank and Warp.
“EA releases an ‘indie bundle’? That's not how that works, EA,” he said.
“Stop attempting to ruin everything, you bunch of cynical bastards.”
Whilst Persson did not doubt the quality of the games, he said his anger was targeted at EA for relating itself to the indie scene, and that he didn’t even feel the title was appropriate for his own studio anymore.
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“I don't even call Mojang indie any more,” he continued.
“Vlambeer is indie. Polytron is indie. Stephen, Ed, Terry, Derek, Tommy and Chris are indie.
“Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it.”
Indie means nothing anymore.
Everybody's calling themselves Indie. Magicka dev. with 15+ people and a publisher is Indie. Orcs Must Die's developer Robot Entertainment is 'Indie' while having almost 50 employees. Then why not go one step further and consider Modern Warfare a sort of Indie title also.
No team with over 1-4 people should call themselves Indie.
Sadly, being Indie has become fashionable.
I guess this is a case of denotation versus connotation. "Indie" is short for independent, which can basically mean any company that isn't owned by another is independent. Terms like "indie" are nebulous at best, so they can be used in ways that have different connotations than many people have of the term and still be technically correct. It's the new "green".
I'm going with 'boutique' from here on...
EA is Greedy. First they saturate the Indie marketplace with their AAA games, and now they're selling as Indie Developers. LOL
"Indie" meant 'Independent from a money grabbing soul destroying exploitative publisher".
The documentary "Beer Wars" get into this. Small indie micro breweries has to compete with big brand beer giants tapping bud into bottles with micro brewery labels, thus destroying the business for the little guys. Fans of the gaming industry knows about this, but the average consumer is blind to the fact and probably dont care. Indie music got to be a style, more than a way to describe the label that published it. Still it is only a play with words, until indies make up some sort of alliance and protect the name used to describe their products. Indies need some sort of philanthropic council to monitor this. And I disagree with Notch. Mojäng is truly independent as they can afford to give the finger to all kinds of sharks trying to gobble them up. Maybe Notch can create this association of indies and truly save independent game development. He has so much clout that even the most egocentric dev would listen.
