14 DAY TRIAL // Indie titles have become very visible during the last few years, complementing their presence on the PC with big launches on the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony, but at least one company believes that there’s a danger that they could become the new casual genre.
Video game developer Double Fine has recently announced that it plans to also act as a publisher for other companies and Justin Bailey, the chief operating officer, says that the decision was made in order to make sure that indies have a way of getting to the market with proper support.
VG247 quotes the executive as saying that, “I don’t think that’s a problem from the development side. Indies are approaching it as an artform and they’re trying to be innovative, but what’s happening in the marketplace is indies are being pushed more and more to have a lower price or have a bunch of games bundled together.”
The first video game that Double Fine has published is Escape Goat 2 from Time Bean and the company apparently has plans to deliver more news on other collaborations in the near future.
Justin Bailey adds, “Double Fine wants to keep indies premium. You see that in our own games and how we’re positioning them. We fight the urge to just completely drop the price. That’s one of the things we want to encourage in this program. Getting people to stick to a premium price point and to the platforms that allow you to do that.”
The company has plans to help smaller development teams with their promotional activities, while also offering some support when it comes to fundraising if they need it.
At the moment, a large number of video games are being launched using the Greenlight service that Valve has created for Steam and there are also companies that offer their titles via their own sites.
At the same time, a large number of small and innovative titles are being launched on the Xbox One and on the PlayStation 4.
Microsoft has announced a dedicated program called ID@Xbox that is designed to support indie teams and make sure that they use the entire potential of its next-gen console.
At the same time, Sony sees indies as the best way to make sure that a constant stream of new releases is being delivered to its own platform between its own high-profile AAA launches.