The past 5 years have been quite interesting for the gaming industry. There were several interesting game releases from small to large studios. We have games like Elden Ring and Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 breaking all sorts of records, while all the same time waiting for the new Elder of Scrolls game or Grand Theft Auto 6 to come out eventually. As we progressed through these last few years, I have noticed a clear shift in the attitude, mood and comments from video game players in social media and gaming forums.
A common sentiment of distrust in major game studios and the longing for changes in the gaming industry, putting their hopes in indie studios and their games. Now this sentiment is not necessarily a new phenomenon, when you consider how many influential and important indie games have been released in the past 15 years or so like Binding of Isaac, Bastion, Braid and many others. This shared sentiment has been exacerbated in a post-COVID era, after major gaming companies laid off thousands of workers, cancelled hundreds of game projects, followed by badly optimised game releases, not even mentioning in the advancement of Generetaive AI and language models.
As such, I noticed a significant increase in popularity of the ‘Indie is king’ phenomena. The phrase “Indie is king” refers to video game consumers preference for indie games as opposed to games developed by major studios. If you go around reading comments from gaming fans about the current state of games and the gaming industry as a whole, you will come across statements reflecting this sentiment, comments such as ‘buy indie’ or ‘AAA companies make soulless games’. Indeed, if you have been a consumer of this medium for a long time and have been following game culture, you may have noticed a decline in quality of AAA games releases.
To mention a recent example, take a look at the multi-million-dollar projects like the game Concord seamless dying on release after years of development. At the same time, it is also possible to notice an increase in popularity of indie games among video games fans, fans of the medium started to voice their preference of games made by indie developers over mass produced AAA games being released by major studios. But how true are these statements? Are Indie games really kings and are AAA games just mass-produced low-quality products? Are AAA games really that bad to warrant such phenomena?
One of the unique aspects of Indie games is that they foster innovation, reformulate existing concepts or they introduce brand-new ideas to the gaming sphere, be it through art style, combat or game mechanics. AAA games on the other hand are on the safer side, major companies know what generates profit, so they stick to the same old formula that everyone knows. This doesn’t mean they are bad, quite the opposite, a lot of the time they are decent games, but they all feel very samey because of this formulaic approach.
Looking at the Meta Critic and user scores, the majority of games part of the best rated games of 2025 are either Indie or “Indie” games such as Blue Prince, Animal Well, Hollow Knight: Silk Song and Clair Obscure: Expedition 33. Speaking of Expedition 33, there was a lot of discussion surrounding if the game itself is an indie game. To paint some context on this discussion, the game was nominated for a total of 12 categories in the 2025 Game awards, winning a total of 9 awards, including Game of the Year, Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game. The team behind the game is group of experienced veterans of the industry, backed by investors and publisher – hence the “indie”. Nonetheless, the game is universally praised and has received several awards as such. But once again it has made me and other video game players question, what even is an Indie game at this point?
Indie stands for Independent, and Indie games usually refer to games created by small studios or small group of people, at a low budget and often by new developers entering the game industry. However, every few years the goal post gets pushed, broadening the definition of what an indie game or indie developer is. Every year there is discourse surrounding the topic of the definition of indie, because the definition gets challenged on a yearly basis. In 2025, Expedition 33 nominations and awards was what did it. Developers are even going as far as dropping out of awards shows and claiming they are not an indie developer such as the Megabonk and Dave the Diver developers due to having experience developing games.
So, my dear reader, I pose you a question, in the age that Indie games are regarded as the future of the gaming industry, should we redefine what we consider to be indie games and indie developers? If indie is truly king, is there a benefit to have a very defined definition of what being indie truly means? As it currently stands, the definition of indie is pretty much being used to separate major AAA game studios to non-AAA studios. Fifteen years ago, an indie game meant that someone or a very small team of developers were making a game, now it is that definition much broader as I have previously mentioned.
I still think of indie games and developers as a very small team of people developing games. I also believe it would be beneficial to have a better definition of what indie games are rather than being an ambiguous entity. Many calls for bringing back the AA category/definition, which is not used as often anymore. AA games or studios is how you would define studios or developers that are not quite indie but also not quite AAA, essentially someone in the middle of the pack. I believe many of the most popular games that came out in the last 5 years such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2 and Expedition 33 could fall into this category. Perhaps if this definition comes back, then maybe the notion of ‘indie is king’ will dissipate, as then there will be a competition between indie, AA and AAA developers.
