Update: Parts 1-3 are now up—see the links below.
I might be a bad candidate for writing about video games, much less a series on them. The last video game system I owned was a Sega Genesis and the only iPhone games I’ve downloaded are Angry Birds and some game that involved running an Ice Cream parlor. In short: I’m not a serious gamer, or a gamer at all.
So why am I writing a series about videogames? Because I do know a bit about tech startups—and that’s ultimately what independently run videogame shops are. And the stories of these indie games studios are just as compelling, or more so, than those of the latest startup out of MIT or Techstars.
Yet unique indie game startups don’t get the attention they probably deserve from the general tech media, for various reasons. Most are small and bootstrapped—they don’t usually make headlines with big venture capital rounds. Their games—even the good ones—often do fail, since it’s impossible to predict what games will win over consumers (and there's an absurd amount of competition).
Indie games studios have immense challenges that make them very different from most of the tech startups you'd read about on BostInno.
Indie games makers also don’t necessarily run in the same circles as the broader startup community, either, which makes them a bit more hidden from people like me (though there’s plenty going on within the gaming community if you know where to look).
Meanwhile, though the failures of higher-budget, "AAA" videogame studios have shifted some talent into indie games, many think the shutdowns have still been a bad thing for the health of the indie games sector overall. The gaming world is also in the middle of an intense cultural upheaval, which maybe you’ve heard about recently.
In short: indie games studios have immense challenges that make them very different from most of the tech startups you'd read about on BostInno.
But in talking to leaders in the Boston indie games community in recent weeks, I’ve found them determined to innovate as a way through all of this. Local shops are pioneering new models to bring games to market; developing games that are inventive, breathtaking and even educational (in a non-lame way, that is); and tackling head-on the lack of diversity in games development.
What I have in mind is to highlight some of their best stories in a series of profiles. I have at least a half dozen posts planned for starters, but I don’t see any reason that it can’t be an ongoing thing. Stay tuned.
Images courtesy of the companies. From top left, clockwise: "Counting Kingdom," "Third Eye Crime," "The Flame in the Flood," "Catlateral Damage," "Vivian Clark," "Jungle Rumble" and "Revolution 60."
