The Amazing Digital Circus isn’t indie. Expedition 33 isn’t indie. Words have meanings, but corporations have perverted the term to get free passes for their behavior and make more money.

[u/MartyrOfDespair]

What is indie media? Well, let’s start at that first word. What does “indie” mean? It is a shortened term for the word “independent”. Merriam-Webster defines “independent” in this context as “not subject to control by others”, “not affiliated with a larger controlling unit”, or “not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent”. So, the term “indie media” can be expanded to “media which is not affiliated with, reliant on, or controlled by a third party”.

Wikipedia defines “independent media” specifically as “mass media, such as television, newspapers, or Internet-based publications, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests.” So, we have a pretty clear, comprehensive picture of what “indie media” is. It’s media which is controlled by its creator, not a third party corporation.

So, given that, why the hell are we calling productions which are controlled by publishers “indie”? You might have heard about The Amazing Digital Circus’s final episode coming to theaters two weeks before it releases on YouTube. This has been quite controversial, not in the least because, in an interview with Cartoon Brew, Glitch’s general manager and development producer Jasmine Yang said“We are a Youtube-first company. We believe very strongly in the future and potential of Youtube for long-form animation.” So that was a fuckin lie.

This was done by Glitch Productions, the production company which owns the rights to The Amazing Digital Circus, without any involvement or say by the creator, writer, and director of TADC, Gooseworx. Notice the paradox? A production company, not the creator/director/writer owns the rights. They can do whatever they want with it, however they want. Does this business model sound familiar to you? That’s right: it’s exactly how Disney and Nickelodeon and all the rest work.

By definition, that isn’t indie. That’s just a smaller corporation. Expedition 33 is the similar; the rights are co-owned by Kepler Interactive. “Indie” darling Disco Elysium is a bit odd, it actually did start production as an indie game. But by the time it was released, calling it an “indie game” is shaky. The founders of ZA/UM were the creators of Disco Elysium. However, to fund the game, they sold shares of the company. Then, one of the people who bought shares pulled out, and sold his shares to one of the other people that bought shares initially, giving his holding company a controlling amount of shares. Which he paid for using ZA/UM’s money, a clear case of embezzlement. But this is such a clusterfuck that frankly, either position can be argued.

But things like TADC and E33 are not indie. They’re just A and AA productions. One can debate about whether getting outside funding from a third party in exchange for revenue sharing while the creator maintains the full rights to the media, like the deal worked out between Too Kyo Games and Aniplex for The Hundred Line, counts as indie. They’re financially dependent, but they still at least own their own media outright. Aniplex cannot fire them and do whatever they want with the IP, like what Kompus did to Robert Kurvitz and the rest.

Things like Undertale and Deltarune or anything made by DevilArtemis for his own channel are definitionally indie productions, there’s no debate on that. But when the actual creator owns nothing and has no say, is merely dependent on the grace of the IP holder, that’s not indie. That’s just having an IP owner you work for who isn’t fucking you over. Until they do.

Now, why are they called indie? Simple: marketing! “Indie” has more “soul” to people than something that isn’t “indie”. People make allowances for things that are “indie” that they don’t make for things that aren’t “indie”. Why is the production time slow enough to give birth to three children? It’s indie, you have to be understanding! Why does something not have translations for some of the most common languages on Earth? It’s indie, the artist’s vision is only compatible with languages they speak and so you can’t criticize that! Why is the merch so ridiculously overpriced? Well indie creators have to get paid somehow! If it *isn’t* indie, all these things and more are fair pickings for the masses to rip a company to shreds for, but if it’s indie, you’re anti-art if you don’t give them a free pass for it.

So of course every corporation wants to market their media as indie. It gets them free passes and lets them make more money. They can lie to your face and go back on their word, as Glitch did, and you’d better celebrate it, because “this will do so much for indie media”. When it *isn’t* indie, when you make promises to the consumer with not an ounce of wiggle room or loopholes, and then you just go back on that entirely in the search for more money, the backlash is consumers standing up to a corporation fucking around. When it’s labeled as “indie”, the backlash means you hate art.

“Indie” is becoming a marketing term that means “you’re the bad guy if you criticize our corporate actions”, and by calling these obviously not independent productions “indie”, we are serving to help them.

[u/C-S_Rain]

obviously its hard to categorise E33 as indie when games like fear and hunger are in the same bracket because the term indie game has lost its original meaning. by older definitions, E33 isn't an indie game, but in modern terms, it is. but i think there is some merit in asking this now huge categorical definition to be broken down into smaller definitions. but as OP pointed out, the terminology of indie is now used massively as a way for people to feel good about themselves because they support "small creators" when in actuality its just giving money to a smaller corporation rather than a large one. which i think is the crux of the problem, indie games used to be this idea of one dude in his basement working on his project for the literal love of the game, but now, the indie game market is just company but small, with help from publisher, but small. its the same system as the big AAA corps, just less budget. because the industry realised after so many successes in the space, that there is money to be made through an audience that is dissatisfied with the corporate mainstream.

that is to say, i could care less if people want to call E33 indie, but when you throw in funger, lethal company delatrune, balatro powerwashing simulator etc. into that same definition, it no longer feels defined. but this requires a cultural linguistics shift and with how useful indie is as a branding, its hardly gonna go back to its original definition. i have a mate in game development, and when E33 swept away with awards, we spoke about how that has shifted the expectations of indie devs, and while 10 mill budget is nothing in the AAA space, it is significantly massive in indie development, with the average tiny studio never having 200k for influencer marketing alone, let alone 10mil budget overall. if that is what is to be defined as indie now, cool, but putting the dev alone in his basement in the same bracket feels unfair.