Interview with DevsGo: What is indie?

Alexander Semenov: Hello! The first question is related to terms. Let’s define what indie developers are (in your version)?

Alexander Mezin

Alexander Mezin: Hello! For me, an indie developer is the person who independently, independently of someone from the outside, can make decisions on the project, how this project develops. And, accordingly, to make a profit from the project.

There is an understanding of indie as an individual (creative) development, and there is – as an independent development. How do these concepts relate to what DevsGo offers?

Indeed, someone interprets indie as individual, and someone as independent.

We interpret it as independent, that is, an independent process. And the majority, in principle, is inclined to this definition. And what is meant by this – there are very large discrepancies.

Nival calls itself an indie developer on the global market, because it is more convenient for them to position themselves in this way.

Why is it more convenient?

If you enter the global market as an independent developer, as an indie, then your expectations are small.

On the other hand, they – Nival – are an independent developer, since they do not depend on any company.

But because of this definition, the concept is blurred.

Yes, it’s blurring. But we get everything blurry. You can definitely say who is not indie. This is a company where decisions are made by the publisher.

You’re signing a contract with some publisher. This publisher publishes you, this publisher has a decent enough percentage to make some decisions. That’s it, you’re not indie anymore.

And if some marketer makes a decision? For example, your company, it seems, but you don’t look at the game as an artist. The marketer told you what to do, and you do it. Is it still indie? Or not?

Yes, it’s still indie. Because decisions are made within its structure.

Is it possible, without knowing anything about the developers of the game, to say, looking at the project, is it indie or not?

In this case, we are talking from different positions. From the perspective of a user who just plays games, and in the industry, indie is a certain visual image. A certain picture formed in his head. For example, have you seen pixels? So it’s an indie game. As a rule, users who are unfamiliar with the industry say so.

Here’s another example: Minecraft. The game has not been indie for a long time, because it is completely owned by Microsoft. But for people, it still remains an indie game because of the visual style.

Not indie anymore

But we judge by the structural component of the game itself. This is a more correct approach, since there are companies that are trying to “mow” under indie in terms of visual style.

How much is this approach right or wrong (mowing under indie)?

When a company makes a decision, especially about entering the market, about targeting a certain audience, then this decision is usually weighted.

People appreciated that their gameplay would be played by such and such an audience. They appreciated that such and such a visual style would be suitable for such and such an audience. And in accordance with this, the game is being developed.

In this approach, you can pretend to be anyone. You can compose your own legend. This is what all more or less competent marketers do. They make up a legend and make you believe in this legend.

Marketing is a thing divorced from development. You can develop huge companies, make a good background and infrastructure, but position yourself as an indie. It is ok. Because this is marketing. In marketing, all means are good. If you managed to sell, then you have good marketing. It didn’t work out – bad marketing.

To talk about the reaction of the community that it will figure out what was going on with you, bring it to light and say: “Here, guys, there are a hundred of you and there is a huge investor behind you, but you have a publisher who turns millions there, and you position yourself as an indie” is not very good.

There is nothing unambiguous here. The definition of indie, it is very…

Slippery.

Yes, it can be used in the same way as any other definition.

Here is the classification of yourself, for your own positioning.

Roughly speaking, I have no investors, I develop the game myself, I have a small team, 3-5 people. We’re doing something. What will we call ourselves? We’ll call ourselves Indie. And when we call ourselves that, people will have a certain image in their head. And this image will correspond to reality. It is for communicating with people, for understanding the situation, that it is very good.

Is there an indie party in Russia? It is clear that we have a party of developers. But an indie party where everyone is independent, they want to do pixel art and so on?

I won’t speak for hangouts in other cities, but it just so happened that we have developers going not only indie.

Where do you have it?

In Moscow. We gather not only indies, but also guys from major studios, venerable developers. As such, there is no dedicated indie in Russia, from what I know. Our country is big, in some cities, maybe it is, but not in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

And in the West?

In the West, such parties are present. They exist in their pure form.

What are they in general – these hangouts, communities? How do they interact with each other?

People gather, develop games together. They mostly gather at some jams. They arrange regular meetups. The usual world practice. So almost everywhere. In any case, we don’t know any other options.

Special events are held to which indie developers gather. But mostly events for indie developers are shows for publishers.

All events of this kind are held in approximately the same format. There are some publishers who want to find independent developers to make them dependent, and, accordingly, give them some privileges for this. And there are developers who show products and demonstrate themselves.

Is there any difference when the community of “full-fledged” developers gathers and when indie? You said there’s an indie bunch in the West. But is there a bunch there for those who are not indie? And how do these two types of clustering differ?

Let’s just say there are general get-togethers that everyone comes to. These are quite large events, to which a motley crowd gathers. And there are separate indie parties. For example, in the same Finland there is a Finnish Game Jam. This is a community where, according to the assurances of the community organizers, only indie developers are present. In fact, we could also say that our party (DevsGo – approx. editorial offices) is a hangout of indie developers. But we know who else comes to it, and we can’t say that.

Finnish Game Jam Page

Then the question arises: do we really have independent teams? Not those who “mow” under them, not those who are completely novice students. And really working indie teams in Russia.

There is, of course. There are quite a lot of them. For example, at the Vkontakte festival we had a showcase, and before that there was a showcase at Bigfest. There were guys who came there who are just completely indie.

With the first project?

No, not with the first one. For example, there is such a wonderful guy, Akim Kasabulatov. His Metal Bear team is releasing a second game. They have already released the first game, they have earned some money on it. Not much, but it brought some profit. And now they are working on the second game, releasing the second game. In parallel, they develop some other projects, go to showcases, participate in hangouts.

What is the ratio of real indies and those who pretend?

There are much more real indies. It’s easier to become a real indie.

I took a laptop, you know C++, and go ahead?

Rather, I took a laptop, put Unity on it, figured it out and went. Therefore, there are simply more such people. Technically, it is more convenient to become them. We have many such developers.

What problems do modern indie developers have that you would highlight?

If we talk about Russia, the main problem is that we do not have an educational base. It’s not that we don’t even have a base at the state level – I’m not talking about it at all. We do not have an educational base and some kind of elevator for people so that they can go up to the game room, somehow enlighten themselves.

We only have the efforts of some people who have been working on this for a long time – for example, the White Nights conference, DevGAMM…

It’s not education. Rather, they gather everyone in one pile, help to get acquainted, negotiate with each other.

Yes, but at the same time they make videos from their lectures and post them online. And it’s very informative! You then go online and know the answers to some questions. People from the industry answer some questions. You can come in, see, find out. You can find out how to get into the industry. But there is no elevator as such. For example, we do not work with universities in any way. In universities, anyone who wants to figure it out will find the strength – he will get there. But there is no such thing as someone working with universities, constantly conducting something.

There is something in the HSE.

But this is all a special case and a drop in the bucket. By the way, the HSE is doing well. Awesome fellows, we need to say about them separately. They’re doing a great job.

The Higher School of Economics has an educational program for those who want to make games

What do you associate with the fact that they do not work with universities?

Money is needed to carry out some educational programs, to prepare them, to hold such events.

Accordingly, someone should invest the money. If someone invests this money, he wants to get some kind of return. It becomes a commercial story very quickly. As soon as this commercial story ceases to pay for itself, or those who conduct educational programs begin to show excessive independence, the case is covered up. This is a common practice.

In Russia, it usually does not even reach this stage. People evaluate prospects, how much they should invest, how much they will receive. And they think: “Well, whatever! We’d rather hold the usual hunting events and snag someone. We’ll hire a staff and train them.”

Or we don’t have companies rich enough to spend money on it.

Well, how to say, not so rich… There are no things in the strategy of these companies that would allow you to spend money on it. Everything does not depend on “richness”, because companies, in principle, have enough money to do something. But it depends on what strategy you see for your company.

Well, there is already such a question that we in Russia do not really like long-term investments. And here they are just long-term – for five or six years. Considering that we have some industry figures moving rapidly… It will be strange to invest long-term investments in specialists. And what, in your opinion, would make it possible to create the elevator you were talking about?

Just the same, the creation of a competent community. Moreover, federal-scale communities.

Listen, the federal one – everyone immediately begins to be afraid and refuse. Because federal is almost equal to state. They don’t like the state here: it’s better not to interfere.

I mean a community that will not just gather locally in some city and solve the problems of this city. And a community that will work at the level of our great and huge country. And which will solve problems at the country level.

Steering towards the end: what about the mutual integration of the Western and domestic indie movement? Does it even exist? And is it necessary? And is it possible?

Of course, it is necessary. Because the international experience is often different from our experience. And I’m not just talking about the experience of the development itself – technology, methodology, experience in publishing – no, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about mental experience.

People’s approach to how they develop and what, on the basis of which they make decisions. Such an experience is very important for our development, which in many ways is now mired in mobile phones, in fritupley. I think this is a very important point.

Are our guys ready?

From the point of view of “we want”, we are ready. And from the point of view of the financial situation, they are not ready. Because we need to understand that what is considered a normal waste for a European, an American – like an American Train Jam, which costs up to $600 per person, including tickets and travel – for us, most people have a monthly salary. In this regard, of course, there is a certain barrier.

Train Jam Website

Is it only financial?

I think yes, mostly financial.

Language, mentality – does not stop?

Here the sphere is such that if you do not know English, you should not count on some kind of career future.

I’m talking about something else: how well is he known? Five or six years ago, I was told that a number of managers of high-ranking gaming companies could not communicate with developers from other countries because they did not speak English fluently. How much has the situation changed?

I think those of the big shots who couldn’t communicate, they can’t. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Our sports minister actively confirms this.

About indie. As far as I know, most of them, if not fluent, can speak English. They listen to reports without an earpiece and calmly understand when a foreigner speaks to them. The language barrier is the minimum barrier, it seems to me. Maybe for someone individually, he is scary, because the person did not bother to study English. But then – “se la vie”, as they say!