Going Indie

    
       


      For every form of entertainment in the past, more production value has equaled  a better quality product and thus better sales. Gaming however, broke that notion I looked at two articles that addressed the idea of indie gaming The first focused on a newer game called "Shovel Knight", whose creator is actually a family friend of ours. And the other focused on Minecraft, which more or less, was the indie game that really made headlines and brought the whole genre into the spotlight.

The first article by Develop:

http://248am.com/entertainment/category/wii-u/

"Yacht Club Games’ retro action adventure Shovel Knight has sold more than 300,000 copies.

The developer had originally hoped to sell as many as 150,000 copies of the title after its release in June, and then went on to sell 180,000 in the first month. Game sales have now doubled that initial target.

Yacht Club took Shovel Knight to crowdfunding site Kickstarter in March last year asking for $75,000 to help make the game. The campaign eventually raised $311,502 from 14,749 backers."

    I wanted to pull an example outside of Minecraft because using that as the only example of indie success is like saying college isn't necessary because Steve Jobs dropped out. Indie gaming and development has boomed because of the complete freedom of expression that it allows. Even if there is relative job security at large game companies, ideas are snuffed out and there is little hope of moving up. With indie developing, you're taking a risk of losing money at the benefit of artistic expression. This is the career that I hope to have, artistic freedom, entrepreneurship, and hopefully, fiscal success. Speaking of fiscal success:

Here's the second article by The Guardian:

"Minecraft creator Mojang is being sold to Microsoft, the studio has confirmed. According to a statement released by the Swedish developer on Monday afternoon, the purchase price is $2.5bn...."

"...Minecraft has become a global phenomenon since its launch in 2009 as an incomplete “alpha” project. Since then, the game, which provides users withrandomly generated environments in which to craft all manner of buildings, has sold over 50m copies on PC, smartphone and consoles."

     Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it demonstrates what a game made by one man can become. As I look forward to the future, I think what I need to focus on is developing my skills and getting a degree so I have job security. After all that is done, then I can really star to do what I love.