Bastion is better than most AAA games i played. and its indie.

You disliked Hotline Miami?! Did you play it on a console? I cannot judge any other games on that list I haven't played them, but one thing is for certain is to be expected when playing Indie games, if you don't like 2D games as much, you won't find them interesting. I recommend you play Bastion, Transistor, Dust: An Elysian Tail, or Ori and the Blind Forest before you do a full judgement on Indie games.

I disagree completely with OP. Some of my fav games of the past 7-8 years are Indies, or started out as that.

This 1000000%

SuperGiant Games is one of the BEST studios out there and their games are proof of that. Bastion and Transistor are two of the best games ive ever played.

It is silly to generalize with this topic, there are shitty AAA games and there are shitty Indie games.

I think that your generalization of indie games is indicative of...well, something that some trigger happy mod would consider bannable.

The past catches up with Bananaking. Hardly had a moment to think about it since this thread started. Fair to say he knew what he was getting into when he posted.  (narrator voice)

I'm just interested in your opinion. If someone made the same kind of generalization of indie games but with positive approach, wouldn't it be the same?

My feelings on the matter are similar to Lawlight's, honestly, and this is my reasoning.

I understand that reviewers want to appear anti-establishment when they frequently praise the quality of extremely low budget, 8-bit retro games, but I often feel this is problematic.

The problem with indie games, especially when compared to independent movies and indie music, is that game development requires an extraordinary amount of technical skill. You can't just hope that your wonderful artistic vision will somehow come to life, because you need a great deal of technical skill to actually execute your vision.

And this is where things get... unfair, for lack of a better term. I think the harsh reality of the situation is that the genuinely skilled developers -- the ones behind games like Ori and the Blind Forest, Journey, and No Man's sky --those developers tend to get noticed by larger firms. Unlike music and film, where it's easy to say that your producer or publisher didn't "get" your intentions, it's extremely easy to differentiate a skilled developer that just hasn't been noticed from a wide-eyed developer with big dreams and no way to carry out those dreams.

Ultimately, I really think it's the psudo-anti-establishment sentiment that a lot of journalists try to champion that is trying to tell us that games that aren't worthy of notice are somehow fantastic. And don't get me wrong, I am sure there are a few gems out there that haven't been discovered, but I really think journalists have to start being more picky with what they consider to be quality within the indie scene of gaming.

Uhnnnn I have payed for very small set of indies since I preffer to pay for full games and cheaper if possible, so when I can buy an used AAA for 10 dollars or an indie I preffer AAA... but PS+ gave me a lot of indies that I liked and some I bought that were good.