EA releases its own 'indie' bundle
Electronic Arts joined the indie bundle bandwagon, offering six games through Steam for a 70 percent discount.
It's not a move one would expect from a monolithic publisher, but Electronic Arts has released its own "indie bundle" featuring six games from developers under its EA Partners label. The move incited mixed reactions, with some questioning if anything from EA can be considered "indie."
The bundle, available for around $21 on Steam, features Deathspank (seen above) and Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue (Hothead Games), Gatling Gears (Vanguard Games), Shank and Shank 2 (Klei Entertainment) and Warp (Trapdoor Inc.). The sale goes until May 9.
While the release is a bit unprecedented, the buzz that followed had some bashing and others defending the move. Among the bashers, Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson accused EA of "attempting to ruin everything," following up saying that "indies are trying to save gaming ..."
However, among the defenders, Halfbrick Studios' Ryan Langley said he didn't have a problem with it: "EA's got a bunch of things to be grumpy about, but this isn't really one of them."
Dev Mike Bithell effectively summed up the "controversy" with his own tweet: "so... did twitter decide who's indie and who's not in the end? Is there a list somewhere I can get hold of?"
-
Shacknews
replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, EA releases its own 'indie' bundle.
Electronic Arts joined the indie bundle bandwagon, offering six games through Steam for a 70 percent discount.-
-
No rebranding. EA Partners published the games when they originally came out.
-
-
I personally will not support them. In my mind "indie" means independent from large corporations. Small development companies that develop games with what budget they have that isn't under control of large publishers. If i'm not mistaken, EA is a large corporation. It feels like EA is treading on their turf.
Is EA really hurting in sales that they need to list their games as "indie" to boost them?-
[deleted]
-
There are also some people who will buy "indie bundles" for the sake of supporting smaller development companies to keep doing what they do best and to maintain their independence. So yes, EA (a large corporation) is treading on the independent (indie) game development company's turf by labeling their games as "indie" (independently developed) games.
-
Those some people are pretty dumb. No offense.
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
-
how is "so... did twitter decide who's indie and who's not in the end? Is there a list somewhere I can get hold of?" a summation of anything. 'indie' is short for independant. How freaking hard is that for people to understand?
-
Everyone would agree with you, except Notch already said basically that so we have to call you a retard
-
Apparently really hard....what do people think "indie" is short for? LOL
-
[deleted]
-
Sure. And it starts when a publisher co-opts them for marketing purposes.
-
Actually, yes, that's exactly what pop means. That's why -pop- stations play a wide range of music, ranging from rap, to pop-idol sorta stuff, to rock, etc. Have you never listened to a Top 40 station?
-
"pop" is short for popular :P
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
It goes against every fiber of my being to side with EA on this one. But I am going to have to disagree with Notch on this one.
EA is generally a "go with the flow" type company. If they see that the indy formula is successful, then they will change their development patterns to match this. This is a good thing. Presentation in games is costing too much and paying off very little for gaming. Big publishers need to see this.
-
