EA Indie Bundle now available on Steam. What?

[ríomhaire]

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/14499/

In news today: The word indie has been robbed of its last ounce of meaning by EA. Stay classy EA.

Brought to you by EAlife2.net



Edit: Point of discussion. Considering that indie originally just meant devs that we're backed by a publisher does that mean that Valve or still independent? Or does their Steam distribution service and the fact that they very occasionally act as publishers for other devs (Turtle Rock, Hidden Path) mean that they are now a publisher and therefore not an indie developer?

 

[Edeslash]

18€?

That's not how you sell an indie bundle, EA.

 

[Eejit]

Indie just means cheap, duh!

 

[Bad^Hat]

Incredible savings!

 

[Krynn72]

Considering that indie originally just meant devs that we're backed by a publisher does that mean that Valve or still independent? Or does their Steam distribution service and the fact that they very occasionally act as publishers for other devs (Turtle Rock, Hidden Path) mean that they are now a publisher and therefore not an indie developer?

I read this like six times and I still dont know what you're asking.

Indie has always meant independently owned. Valve is an indie developer, because they're not owned by anybody. Same with Epic Games. This "indie culture" has corrupted that definition to make people think it means non-blockbuster games made by small, poorly financed teams.

 

[ríomhaire]

I read this like six times and I still dont know what you're asking.

Indie has always meant independently owned. Valve is an indie developer, because they're not owned by anybody. Same with Epic Games. This "indie culture" has corrupted that definition to make people think it means non-blockbuster games made by small, poorly financed teams.

I always took independent to mean not owned or backed by a publisher. Eg, Ninendo are not owned by another publisher but they are a publisher themselves so they aren't considered "indie". I'm saying that being a publisher and being an indie dev are mutually exclusive and asking the question: Do we consider Valve a publisher or not?

 

[Lobster]

The term "Publisher" can mean different things to different people. Technically speaking, anyone who sells games can be a publisher, whether it be a giant like EA, a digital store like Steam, or just some guy with a PayPal link.

The big giants have a negative stigma because they have such massive control over the developers they have obtained. Often cancelling projects that they don't see as financially viable or shutting down studios entirely. They are seen by many as evil ogres who eat franchises and crush creative innovation.

The term Indie became popularised because it implied that a game could be made without such interference, essentially sticking it to the man. The problem now though, is that there are so many different kinds of developer operating under the 'Indie' label, that the lines have become hugely blurred.

For example, does a kickstarter project that generates 3 million dollars prior to creating a single asset deserve to be called Indie? Valve have creative freedom to do whatever the hell they want, but they also have a bottomless pit fund.. so do they deserve the same title as a guy creating games in his bedroom? also Minecraft is a popular poster child for Indie games, but now its being distributed by Microsoft on XBLA.. so has it ceased to be Indie?

My point is.. we need better words for stuff!

 

[Krynn72]

I consider any company who makes their own decisions to be an independent developer. Because thats what it means. So yes, nobody makes Valve's decisions for them, so I consider Valve to be an independent developer. Consequentially, they're also an independent publisher.

As lobster said, this "indie movement" we've been seeing lately is just a misnomer really. Sure, lots of the companies involved truly are independent developers, but a lot of it is just riding a wave of people being fed up with massive publishers who own the development studio and have final say in everything right down to creative decisions. Very few of the games people call "indie games" are entirely self-reliant. The vast majority have partnerships with publishers and distributors to help them sell their games. The difference is that these are partnerships, where the developer can walk out of the deal if the Publisher doesnt hold up their end, or starts trying to force the developer to change their products. When the publisher owns your ass, thats when stupid shit happens to your favorite games, why people have a natural repulsion to publishers, and why they're willing to support developers who dont take shit (and loads of money) from EA or Activision.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

There's also that suggestion page now pasted on the Origin site which admits to its (relative) failure and poor reception.

Go ahead and grovel, EA, you do need your "loud forum minority" to blame when Origin becomes extinct aside from presently purchased titles.

I imagine it's an entity which corporate resents. That swapping from Steam has lost them sales. Who the **** networks on Origin. Perhaps those whom operate mostly within the realm of BF3 while gaming. Even then, Steam is often superimposed.

 

[ríomhaire]

Is there really anything wrong with Origin other than that it's owned by EA? All I've heard that's wrong with it is some customer support horror stories and banning people because their forum accounts were banned, both of which I thought had been sorted out already.

 

[Absinthe]

I only used Origin for the BF3 beta, so I can only comment so much on it. It's not terrible per se, but I think what a lot people don't like is the corporate mindset behind it. Its lacking so many of the features that Steam has, not to mention its pitiful game library by comparison. It just wasn't ready to be released in the state it was, so why was it? Defenders of Origin like to point to Steam's growing pains when it first came out, but it's been a decade since then. I could put up with bugs, latency, missing features, and infant library when digital distribution just started to get rolling because it was all so new to me and nobody was doing what Valve was. Ten years later, I'm not going to sit and wait for Origin to get its shabby ass shaped up into a proper competitor when the golden model is right there to learn from.

If it sat in gestation for a while longer it could be worth it. But instead it feels like EA was just trying to shoehorn their service with a hit IP (Battlefield) in order to grab marketshare rather than making something of true quality. I know that's what irks me about it, especially when Valve has spent years cultivating an image pretty much opposite to that.

 

[Yorick]

Is there really anything wrong with Origin other than that it's owned by EA? All I've heard that's wrong with it is some customer support horror stories and banning people because their forum accounts were banned, both of which I thought had been sorted out already.

Being made by EA is exactly the problem. It's not a case of "EA is rubbish so I hate this on principle", but rather, it sucks for the same reasons that a lot of what EA does sucks - it's developed in a half-assed and cheap way and is painful at best to use.

 

[Evo]

This is a must read about the EA/Indie issue, RPS interview with someone in the know - http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/05/interview-kleis-anderson-talks-upside-of-eas-indies/

 

[Omnomnick]

EA hasn't even released this bundle. All of these 'Indie' games have been on Steam since their release, all EA did was come along and stick a big corporate stamp on it by putting them all in a stupid bundle nobody will buy.

 

[Evo]

EA hasn't even released this bundle. All of these 'Indie' games have been on Steam since their release, all EA did was come along and stick a big corporate stamp on it by putting them all in a stupid bundle nobody will buy.

Read the article I linked to, all these games are from the EA Partners label!

 

[Laivasse]

In the comments of the RPS article was a link to an interview with a guy from Free Radical, the Timesplitters devs who were involved in N64 GoldenEye and who later bombed with Haze. Of EA Partners, he says:

"EA Partners was this part of EA that was involved with third-party things," says Doak. "It was a bit like being groomed, you know. Here's all these friendly avuncular people that will give you all the love and attention you need to get your game out, and then after a while they go away and all the bad guys come around and it's like you're in borstal. Getting held down, beaten around the head with a cue ball in a sock."
...
The publisher demanded Future Perfect have a strong lead character in order that it appeal to the US market. "EA turned up with this stuff that was supposed to help us," says Doak. "And it was just big boards with pictures of Vin Diesel on them. Wesley Snipes was on one in his Blade outfit." Future Perfect ended up with Cortez, a cowardly and dumb marine whose catchphrase falls flat every time: "It's time to split!"
...
Future Perfect had the longest development of any TimeSplitters game, and there was a sting in the tail. "We had quite a frank conversation with EA," says Ellis. "Where they told us they weren't going to bother trying to market it very much. Because at the time they had their GoldenEye game [GoldenEye: Rogue Agent], and they said that for every dollar they spent on marketing that game they would get more dollars back. It didn't match up with their original promises."

Doesn't sound to me like EA Partners is very distinguishable from EA at all, or at least it wasn't back in 2005.

 

[Omnomnick]

Read the article I linked to, all these games are from the EA Partners label!

Never said they weren't, I just said this isn't a "New release" at all, its just all the same games that have been released before, but with a big stupid EA logo smacked on the front.

 

[ríomhaire]

If Valve are in the EA Partners thing too why isn't Portal 2 part of the bundle?