Opinion: I think it is very fair to say that if a game is indie, it's indicative of its poor quality

[patronmacabre]

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.