The IndieBeat: Saying good-bye after a year of exploring the indie scene

It’s been a year and some change since I joined GamesBeat. Now that I’m leaving, I still don’t have a good definition for what indie is. If pressed, I would probably say that indie games take risks. They move you, and they make you think. They experiment with new art styles. They draw from myriad disciplines, like marine biology, architecture, and archaeology. Sometimes they take a mechanic or genre and drill-down to perfect it on a technical level. But all of these descriptions still fall short.

One thing I know for sure is that indies are vital. In places like Brazil, Iran, Ivory Coast, and South Africa, thriving communities are creating unique spaces for games. And they’re attracting publishers and platform-holders — business, in short, that will hopefully help everyone in the long run. I’m thankful that I’ve had the chance to meet and talk to dozens of developers from these communities, who often have to overcome structural and societal hurdles in addition to the endemic challenges of creative work, like crunch time.