The Condensed Version:

Considering the sometimes low quality and production values of so many indie titles out there, do you as a gamer really care about a market where releases come almost exclusively from large development houses and publishers even if it reduces the rate of concept innovation in the PC gaming industry as a whole?

Do Indie Development houses have a place in the gaming industry?

Register your answer in this Gamespot thread.

The (Explanatory?) Blather:

Over the past two years, and in the past year and a half especially, it seems that a lot of the little development houses have either folded or been snapped up by a larger development concern. To me, at least, it feels very much like Walmart syndrome, played out on an international stage in a $20billion worldwide market. You know the names: EA, UbiSoft, Valve, KOEI, etc have vast development IP and are virtually dripping cash behind them, seemingly blowing wads of it on intellectual property purchases. Meanwhile, the independant publishers which DO try and step up and bring new games to market (regardless of the particular quality of the game) have extreme difficulty gaining "mindshare" before a title releases due to the sheer amounts of money that the big guys can throw at gaming sites and magazines.

While not really immediately directly affecting your gaming experience at the immediate point of what you are playing now, it DOES have an effect on what you can play and how games are designed and built. For example, last year and early this year we ran into the never-ending repetition of world war 2 games. Yes, some of the later ones had some great gameplay but I just got so tired of the World War II theme that I dont touch ANY of them anymore. It seemed that no matter how tired a particular sub-genre became if the big players could release a title and sqeeze a few dollars out of a "proven formula", many other games got ignored because they didnt fit into the mold.

Meanwhile, some of the AAA titles were absolutely quality games from a gameplay and graphics perspective.

And heres the flipside: some indi games suck. I mean, there have been some indie-released titles in the last year that have just made me need to clense myself after playing them. Not to mention the unlucky title or two that I put in some "testing time" on and shortly thereafter found myself sharing the contents of my lunch with the tidie bowl man. yet, some Indie games out there have really cracked the market, introducing new features or making a new take on an old style of gameplay that really connects. Its this sort of innovation on the forefront of the gaming industry that filters back into the industry as a whole. Indies also have the ability to work on smaller, downloadable games as the industry moves forward offering an inexpensive short gameplay experience at a fraction of the cost of a 20-hour-gameplay AAA title.

Considering the sometimes low quality and production values of so many indie titles out there, do you as a gamer really care about a market where releases come almost exclusively from large development houses and publishers even if it reduces the rate of concept innovation in the PC gaming industry as a whole?

Do Indie Development houses have a place in the gaming industry?

Do you see yourself playing a 6-10 hour game at less than half the price of today's blockbusters (perhaps downloadable)?