PBS Off Book video: What Are Indie Video Games

[Video Link] As I've mentioned before, I love PBS's Off Book video series about Internet culture. The videos are intelligent, well produced, and often reveal things that surprise me. The newest video, released today, is about indie video games.

The video game industry is now bigger than Hollywood, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent developing these interactive experiences. But there are also small-scale developers working in the indie game realm, creating unique and experimental video games without the budgets of the larger "AAA" games. These indie game developers devote time, money, and take great risks in a quest to realize their creative vision. They deftly balance game mechanics & systems, sound & visuals, and an immersive storytelling experience to push the gaming medium into revolutionary new territory. Much like indie music or indie film, the indie gaming movement provides a creative outlet for game designers who want to work outside of the mainstream.

• [NNelson]

  Everything about these videos is great… except for the fact that they slow-zoom in on every talking head. Every time. It makes me feel crazy. I wish they’d stop using that technique.

• [enterthestory]

  “The video game industry is now bigger than Hollywood” – hasn’t this myth been debunked several times? It’s only true if you compare hardware AND software to JUST box office. Once you add DVDs and other income, Hollywood leaves games far behind. As an opening line it doesn’t give me confidence in the rest of the piece.

• [ujin]

  How am I supposed to believe these people are game developers!?

  Why weren’t any of them waving dildos or light sabers?