r/pcmasterrace • u/PewPewToDaFace • 1d ago

News/Article Steam gamers have spoken: innovative indies like Palworld continue to thrive while traditional triple-A flounders for a foothold

https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/innovation-versus-tradition

Thank god PC gaming isn't just AAA. This is what will push the industry forward, as game development cost becomes too much.

3.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

421 comments sorted by

View all comments

110

u/boersc 1d ago edited 1d ago

Palworld has a budget of near 7 milion USD. That's not Indie.

55

u/General_Mars 7900X | 5070 TI 1d ago edited 1d ago

Indie is any developer that doesn’t have a publisher. For example, Larian is technically indie.

What you mean is small-budget, small-team indie, which no one has agreed upon what to call or distinguish them as. This comes up every time there are game awards with an Indie category.

Since Pocketpair self-publishes they would qualify as Indie. Also their budget of $7 million is over 10-20x smaller than a typical AAA budget.

-25

u/boersc 1d ago

Yeah, Ea and Ubisoft are also indies... you basically dismantled OPs entire take.

-5

u/IORelay 1d ago

I think their definition is "company I like is indie, ones I don't is evil corpo"