Indie games pave the way for creativity 

Genre fatigue has had many gamers scratching their head at the mundanity of the AAA sphere, but indie games are offering a way out. 

By Jake Boyette

The gaming industry feels like a desert for consumers. With games taking too long to produce, genres being overused, and taking too long to beat. Gamers have turned away from major installments to the indie side of the industry to find new and true change. Saving fans and the industry as a whole. 

The time it takes for games to come out is taking too long. Fans of series like “Grand Theft Auto” have been waiting 12 years for the newest instalment, “GTA6.” Causing a dragging feeling in the industry as fans wait patiently, wondering if they’ll even make it to see the release, according to Gaming Bible. 

Frequently released games like the “Call of Duty” and the yearly sports franchises like “Madden” have little changes to gameplay, causing the games to feel repetitive each year. 

This has caused the gaming landscape to feel stagnant, with multiple posts on social media sites like Reddit and YouTube parodying the sentiment that games are boring now. 

The problem with these feelings is that people often limit the scope of gaming to these few popular genres. These genres, like open-world games, sports, and action games, have dominated the industry for a long time, causing genre fatigue.  

This begs the question of why the high-budget and profile games typically produced by large and well-known studios (AAA games) haven’t responded to this outcry. 

 
However, this completely ignores the indie gaming scene.  Indie games have taken over the video game landscape, making up for 48% of all revenue from online stores like “Steam,” according to Stream Hatchet. Indie studios have been pushing the bounds of different genres, offering more creative games than what the AAA industry has given us. 

Unfortunately, as much as we want the industry to change, the highest-grossing games are still these genres of open-world games, sports and action games, according to Statista. 

Game development has become incredibly expensive, with games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” costing $700 million, according to GameRant. With so much money on the line, companies have focused all their efforts on high earners. 

This was seen with “SquareEnix”, which has switched gears in their development, canceling multiple games while focusing on their larger IPs, according to Gamespot. This was due to their financial losses from underperforming games, according to Games Industry Biz. 

The risk for these companies to put so much time and money into games that might lose them a few million dollars causes these studios to stay with what works, which increases genre fatigue. 

There are still great AAA games that break from the current trends, like “Baldur’s Gate 3” and “Kingdom Come Deliverance 2,” but these games are rare in the larger AAA scene, so the same genres will keep being made. 

The other issue with games now is that they have become too long. Games like “Baldur’s Gate 3” take an average of 74 hours to beat, with that number easily exceeding 100 hours on completionist runs, according to How Long to Beat. 

It’s an overwhelming process of tasks to complete as these games take weeks, if not months, to play fully, which causes some to get burnt out. 

AAA studios like Ubisoft have made smaller games, like “Assassin’s Creed: Mirage,” selling it for a reduced price because they understand these long games are tiresome, according to PC Gamer.  

However, games have a window with ever-expanding technology, and it’s easier to make a game longer with the new technology than to restart development, according to the Washington Post. Unfortunately for gamers, this means we won’t see smaller games from most other companies. 

Faced with longer games and the stagnation of the genres on demand, it can feel like the industry can’t offer gamers what they want, dooming the consumers to even more genre fatigue. 

This is where indie games come into play. Indie games over a wide range of genres, stories, and gameplay that is wildly different than anything you can get in a AAA game. 

Indie game publishers like New Blood and Devolver Digital have been publishing highly acclaimed indie titles in a variety of Genres. Larger AAA studios have abandoned genres like immersive sims, rogue-lites, and real-time strategy games. 

These indie studios have even created new genres, like the movement shooter, which takes inspiration from the gameplay of older titles like “Quake” and “Unreal Tournament” while adding a new spin to their game. 

Indie games have also pioneered new styles, with retro graphics like in “Ultrakill” or the bizarre aesthetic of “Cruelty Squad.” 

If we want to continue to enjoy games, despite the genre fatigue that holds us back in the AAA landscape, we must look to indie games to find something fresh, new and exciting.