Indie...Not A Indie

[GreyFuss]

Just when does an Independent Developer lose the status of an Indie and become a developer?

Is it when they are no longer alone? Or Lonely?
Is it when they hire or join forces with others?
Is it when they sign with the big distributors?
Is it when they finally get a girlfriend?
Is it when sand is no longer kicked in their faces at the beach?
Is it when their games finally make it to the brick and mortar stores?
Is it when their games cost more than $29.95 and people are still buying them?
Is it when they can finally go out to eat at a restaurant that doesn't have Golden Arches?
Is it when strangers come to their Web sites and ask silly questions like these?
Is it when............(add your own)

[danyboy]

Is it when they are deciding to go out and have lunch with there mother.

Is it when they spend $2 buying a really dark shiny silver rock.

Is it when they finally giving me an interview about there upcoming game.

It it when they don't go out for several months, don't even take a shower or sleep to be able to released there game asap.

CU

danyboy

[Vlad]

Is it when you finally stop answering questions with "No, ma'am, I'm not going to a costume party..."?

[HiddenSanctum]

To me it is when you are no longer self-sufficient. Once you have outside investors that you answer to who have the power to dictate what you do, then you are no longer independent. You are essentially an employee of that company/investor. This does not apply to publishers who may help with you with financing or others who might throw some cash your way - and yes, those people do expect their money back at some point.  However, once they start controlling the direction of games or deciding on what games get made, then it's over as far as being independent goes.

[danyboy]

Good definition Eric.

CU

danyboy

[CaptainPatch]

In Economics, it's called "vertical integration".  The company controls its raw materials (game concepts), production (development), marketing (advertising), and distribution (publishing).  If a company does all of these things on its own, it is effectively "independent".  As soon as the company contracts with another company to perform any of those functions, it is no longer self-reliant, and therefore no longer "independent".

An interesting aspect of vertical integration is that in Big Biz, it's the biggest, monopolistic companies that are fully vertical integrated.  (They do so in order to reduce their costs at each stage, which allows them to underprice their competitors, driving them from the marketplace.) But in the gaming industry, it's the smaller startups that "do it all" because they haven't gotten the Big Boys interested enough to buy into the operation yet.

[BTW, if you're curious to know, "horizontal integration" means acquiring all (or as many as possible) of the companies at one level of manufacturing.  That is, all sources of raw materials, or all production companies, or all marketing firms **for that product(s)**, or distributors, etc.]