Before I go on, this is my opinion and i am not trying to shove it down anyone's throats. You do or use whatever words you want, that goes without saying.
Let me start with one link http://www.hellblade.com/?p=16972
This is Ninja Theory explaining its new type of development model and why it's a good idea. It's a good read. Long, but I recommend reading it
Gamescom was a good sign of this, for a few reasons
The Tomorrow Children: looks like a fairly ambitious game, being co-developed between an independent studio and Sony Japan. Very impressive 3D graphics (all you saw was in-game), and sounds like it has an ambitious gameplay scope too. With great graphics, Sony Japan co-developing and SCE publishing, i have to ask; why call it an indie? Because it might be sold at 30 or 40 bucks instead of 60 (i'm speculating here)? That seems silly
Wild: also looks quite ambitious and technically advanced (even if that was CG). If people hadn't read the news about Ancel leaving Ubi and forming an "independent studio" nobody would have even called this game an indie to begin with. And I have to agree, i don't see what makes this game an "indie". Yes, it's developed by an independent studio, but so are games made by Quantic Dream and Remedy. Are Quantum Break and Beyond Two Souls indie games?
Rime: If this had been revealed as a Wii U exclusive the word "indie" would have never been muttered at all. Tequila are, like above, an independent studio, but compare Rime with their previous game (Deadlight). Or compare it with other stylised colorful "non-indies"... Does selling it at 30 bucks (again, speculation, no official info about this) mean it's an indie? Does ICO being sold as a 60 dollar game make it non-indie versus Rime being indie? Why? AAA is a measure of how much you get ripped off?
Hellblade: already present in the link given above, NT say it's neither indie nor AAA (despite using the term independet AAA, which i suppose is better than having no word at all). Reminds me of No man's sky. Small amount of people working on it but as a very focused and experienced project, achieving AAA-like (or AA, whatever you want to call them) production values.
No Man's Sky: see Hellblade
And despite using very recent examples, it's actually been happening for some time now, just in a smaller number. Good example are Flying Wild Hog's games on PC (Shadow Warrior coming to consoles too). Independent studio with not that many people, games with great graphics and even decent voice acting, sold at ~30 on launch. Nobody on PC ever called them indie games, or AAA; they called them good FPSes. No label. They also got retail releases, even if somewhat limited (kinda like Infamous first light, Child of light etc)
To further show how pricing or release model alone are wrong ways to label the games, Wasteland 2 and Plannetary Annihilation, two games that are a lot closer to being indie (in fact, unlike FWH games, these are labeled as indie on PC), are priced at 45-60 with a physical release. Yet, they're "indie".
Not only did we have Ninja Theory (a "AAA developer") expressing something similar to what I'm saying, but also another "AAA developer", Paul something (game director of Driveclub) also said, post-Gamescom interview, that at this point in time it makes sense to drop the terms because the boundaries are getting blurrier and blurrier. And I agree.
Now, there's two last points that I need to adress.
One, a bit less important, is that despite the examples given, there'll still be games that people easily attach the indie label to. Mostly 2D sidescrollers. Maybe some top down shooters or 2d roguelikes, etc. But if it's going to be restricted to that, why not call them what they are? By genre... not indies. They're 2d sidescrolls, top down shooters, roguelikes, etc. The word indie becomes too limited to be of use.
Second and last point is that some people will claim that this is simply an attempt at rebranding or remodelling the "mid-tier" game. In a way, you are correct. But that's a great thing. Mid-tiers were sold at full price. They were legally and technically treated as a AAA release, and that's why they usually bombed, having difficulty competing with the real AAA releases sold at the same price but with higher marketing budget. The link to NT's blog post explains this bit better, I hope you read it if you are interested in the subject. Basically, with a lower price point, more focused and unique approach to its development, this "new mid-tier" can succeed where the old model never did. And it can satisfy the people that not only want good gameplay but also good technology or production values. I believe that more and more teams will choose this avenue for their games, and I like it.
I'll end this with a few pictures from NT's blog post
As well as some sections of the text:
"But the arms race towards higher budgets and more realism was in full swing. A stylised game like Kung Fu Chaos was not appealing to publishers. Kung Fu Story was in the same boat. Back then a game called Brute Force was getting the big push.
Given a £40 game, why would anyone buy a kung fu comedy game over a high budget game with sexy realistic graphics? I can’t say that I agree with this thinking but I do understand it – it’s much harder to find a unique style than to pursue realism. Publishers do feel realism means less risk so we have to go with the flow.
There was no room for Kung Fu Story."
"As creative innovation and competition goes down you start to see fewer bigger games, many of which seem quite similar to each other. Hence the observation made by some: “Everything’s Uncharted”
This list is everything a modern AAA game must have in terms of feature set to be considered viable. AAA is starting to look more like Tesco superstores: big, homogeneous, high volume, expensive, and not necessarily better quality than diverse local markets. This is a creatively destructive force that has sidelined entire genres of gaming as the demand for higher budgets and more predictable sales took hold. It has sunk many creative teams and kept many games away from players that couldn’t compete with the blockbusters simply because they couldn’t justify the retail price tag."
"1m sales were considered a hit in PS1 days, this became 2m in PS2, 3m for PS3 and it was clear that it was going to be 5m+ in the new generation. This has far reaching ramifications on what kinds of games would be signed.
The common wisdom from publishers was that any game genre, art style, gameplay concept that would not all guarantee 5m sales would be dead. We’ve variously been told point blank that single-player story games are dead, that any art style other than realism is not commercial, and that melee games do not sell."
"We pitched a novel horror game that we worked up with Alex Garland, the writer, producer of 28 Days Later, the Beach and Sunshine and collaborator on Enslaved. Only to be told that we had to add melee combat in it because that was what we could sell. Then told that melee combat wasn’t popular enough and neither was horror. A spreadsheet was shown to us that demonstrated this.
We also pitched with Alex, a co-op story based game set in the real world with real characters only to be told that super heroes and space marines would sell better so “why don’t you set it on Mars?”. That was the end of that game."
(About "Razer" sci fi title, not the horror game)"In the end, the game didn’t survive the publishing green light process because Destiny had just been announced. And no publisher wanted to go up against that game. As games get bigger, more realistic, and spreadsheet driven, they start to clash against each other. Razer was a no-go"
