Developers are thinking AAA development very risk and jumping to risk free Indie Development [AAA games doomed]

[aryu]

Wright said:

aryu said:

What about marketing costs? If Sony paid for that, then I won't consider even a 'developed product' as an indie title.

That doesn't make sense whatsoever. If you're up to admit that a game can be indie with a publisher, why wouldn't the publisher advertise the game? To bomb hard in the market like Puppeteer?

 

Indie game = A game developed by an indie studio without any external funding during development. Is that hard to understand? Heavy Rain was built from scratch on the Quantic Dreams headquarters. When the game was finished, Sony published.

 

Are you telling me that from the moment Sony publishes the game, the project suddenly "loses its indie status"? And by the way, Indie is merely a word, even if its overrated nowadays by people's criteria.

What doesn't make sense? I'm taking into consideration ALL costs! and yes as soon as a publisher financially supports a game more than required, it loses its indie status.
I just checked that marketing and distribution costs and that amounted to $40million dollars with the game development only costing $12 million so Sony paid 77% of the total costs (assuming they paid for all the marketing and distribution). In that sense, Heavy Rain was backed by Sony considering how much Sony poured in to get it to the market.