Once the financial analysts and social pundits overcame the shockwaves from the assault of video games on our culture, they began to look at the subtleties of the sector. For numerous years, there wasn’t much item variation to see outside of shooters, dream role-playing, and sports games. The Sims brought some variety and expanded the gamer base to elder “laid-back gamers,” but for the most part, gaming has been for the young.
That’s beginning to change. Independent game developers who deal with a more specialized gaming neighborhood have actually worked under the radar for many parts. They are starting to get the recognition they should have, which, in turn, is expanding the number and intricacy of game categories that are finding their way to the marketplace. The huge game business such as Electronic Arts and Nintendo continue to end up part twos to their big money-makers such as Madden’s NFL Football and Zelda. Their sales remain substantial; however, as their audiences mature, the market finds room for games beyond sports, war, and wizards.
It sells directly to the gamer and provides the servers for their game users to play either singly or in multiplayer format via the Internet. Steam offers an outlet for some independent games to reach a larger audience.
Manifesto Games is a website committed to supporting, promoting, and distributing the independently produced game. The website has game evaluations, provides a sales mechanism for the different manufacturers, offers a “top ten” listing of present indie games, and has a Soapbox forum for comments, suggestions, gripes, etc., from active gamers.
Manifesto’s game review groups include some standards such as Adventure, Role Playing Games, and Sim/Tycoon games. But there are also classifications such as Shmup and Turn-based Strategy, categories the major producers do not advertise – and in the case of Schmup, probably don’t understand. It’s a term that appears to refer generally to games that recreate the very early space-ship shoot-em-ups but with far cooler graphics and actual plots to them.
Many of the games discovered on Manifesto follow mainstream game profiles such as war games and function-playing wizardry, however, they interject some aspect of reality or human complexity that isn’t really easily discovered in basic game fare. There’s a sim game available on the website called Democracy. Not a principle that matches the testosterone-based video game criterion.
By virtue of circulation channels such as Manifesto and Steam, indie developers have a shot at industrial exposure and hopefully, some industrial success. This foot in the door of a massive industrial monolith has produced some outrageous creativity in expanding game genres into even more original and intricate formats.
It’s like good brand-new bands that blow past the record companies, present themselves through YouTube and MySpace and offer their CDs online. The indie game manufacturers have developed a market that enables imagination and item sincerity.
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