Calling Expedition 33 an “indie” game is a disservice to independent developers

No disrespect to Clair Obscur; it’s a great game and Sandfall should be immensely proud of their work. But calling a game with a $10,000,000 budget, 400 credited developers, and the backing of a major publisher “indie” (as opposed to, at the very least, double-A) is a disservice to small developers.

Gamers see the quality of Expedition 33 and start to form a notion of expectation for independent games, whether they’re made by a large team with major backing, or a single person making games as a hobby. It’s hurtful to see someone labeling these kinds of games as indie as if they’re comparable to the scale and quality that can be produced by single-person teams, groups of friends working on passion projects, or small studios working out-of-pocket or running on crowdfunding. And it leads to sentiments I’ve seen like “They made a AAA-quality game with 30 people!” Which, beyond being a misleading statement, is an unrealistic expectation that harms smaller developers.

Again, no disrespect at all to Sandfall or their work. But I just think this broken notion of how we view and associate scale and quality with funding and studio size is really hurtful and disrespectful to all of the amazing developers working *without* these kinds of extraordinary resources.