MelbourneDAC 2003

ABSTRACT: An 'Independent Game' is widely understood as a game released by the company that made it, in other words a game that doesn't publish through a third-party producer. While the producer offers investment in the development budget, this is at the cost of relinquishing some financial and intellectual control over the project, hence the reference to a relative state of 'independence'.

This paper however seeks to take the term independence to its maxim; re-potentialising the term 'Independent Game' so that it may include game development practices that are independent from the restrictive mass-market rationales of the industry itself.

This revision, I propose, is the first step toward the medium of the computer-game having equal-opportunity amongst other, more established forms of 'independent' expression, like short-films or experimental music.

Alongside a revision of what constitutes independence in game development, this paper also looks toward better conditions for the development of 'Game Art', a term recently introduced to accomodate the sudden appearance of electronic artworks that directly engage game cultures and technologies.

While not as yet recognised as beneficial within the wider computer game marketplace, this paper shows how game art practices are uniquely positioned to extend the uses for the medium, it's channels of distribution and the technology itself.

Thirdly I will outline several economic and legislative challenges currently facing independent game development in all its forms. In doing so, I offer solutions that break a destructive reliance on proprietory tools and platforms, while providing a 'toolkit' for positioning the independent game outside restrictive systems of distribution control.

Finally, I will give a brief survey of a game-project currently in development that both nourishes and encapsulates this strategic solidarity, 'Developers In Exile'.

KEYWORDS: Independent, mass-market, proprietory, open-source, MMORPG, developer