Are “indie games” the “New Wave” of videogaming?

I don’t mean “new wave” like the descriptor for the shiniest, newest games for next-gen, or “new wave” like the synth-heavy 80s music, but “new wave” like the movement(s?) in film. Big companies are sinking millions into games, so to ensure that they sell, they make them like games that sold well already. Wolfenstein begot Doom begot Goldeneye 007 begat Half-Life begat Halo, etc etc etc. Sure, each blockbuster, trillion-selling game broke new ground for the genre, but Halo 3 is still just a really fancy Wolfenstein 3D. Plenty of now-tried-and-true genres have gone through the same crawling evolution: real-time strategy wargames, Japanese role-playing games (a la Final Fantasy), North American RPGs (baldur’s gate springs to mind as an example), strategy RPGs (think Ogre Battle), stealth action (metal gear or splinter cell style), rhythm games (all guitar hero did was add mainstream songs and a novel controller), platformers, shmups (they’re fucking awesome, but they’re all still Galaga), third-person shooters (we also have The Matrix to thank for “bullet time”), and plenty more I can’t be bothered to think of right now. Even the (relatively) new genre of MMOs has already fallen into its own tired clichés, but that’s another debate for another day (the entire economy of MMOs is built on dissatisfied players. Ask me more!)

But then you have games that are just different. The flash app series “Grow” comes to mind; google it if you haven’t already experienced it. It’s a game, in that you have an objective, but it’s not immediately familiar. You interact with it, and it rewards you with fun animations. It’s got what video games have always been about, at least to me: it gives you an arbitrary system, and forces you to learn it and exploit it. The system is just very different from the systems we’re seeing over and over in games. There’s another, unrelated game called “flOw,” which, admittedly, I’ve hardly played, but it is similar in its difference from everything else. It makes no sense at first, but you learn it as you go along. Katamari Damacy (and the sequels), too, is a game whose concept wasn’t really explored before, but nonetheless worked out very well. These games aren’t the blockbusters, though; I’m unsure as to how much the Grow developer made via advertising and hosting and stuff, but it can’t be even one ten thousandth of what Halo 3 made in its first 17 minutes of availability. And that’s not even including the preorders.

But, that’s not why people are making these games, I don’t think. They’re making it because they’re unsatisfied with video games’ current climate. I could just be projecting, but when I play something like Toribash (the best turn-based hyper-violent sphere-based fighting game since Ballz was played on a shitty, slow emulator). The “auteurs” of games, however, are from an older age– an age before the videogame industry WAS something to reject. There’s always been innovation (look at R&D1’s masterpiece “Super Mario Land” for the Game Boy– commissioned with making a Mario game without Miyamoto, they made something that may actually be the best game with the name “Mario” ever) and there’s always been fantastic creativity (love them or hate them, the games that put Molyneux, Miyamoto and Kojima on the map are incredible). I think the point, though, is that the door is simultaneously more closed and more open than it’s ever been to young, fresh-idea-filled developers. On one hand, you have the EAs of the world, whose bread and butter is re-releasing the same games with a new cast of characters (that they don’t even need to invent– the sports world writes itself, people!). On another, you have the “creative” break-off developers like Lionhead and Clover, which, while producing something interesting, are not allowing NEW talent to be creative– only their auteur-of-olden-tyme of choice. The third option, though, is the web (and, to a lesser degree, modding other games). It’s free, and, while you may never see anything in the way of money or career opportunities, you get to make something you want to play. I think that’s where I see the similarity. Oh, and I just remembered the name of another amazingly fun flash game: “Gimme Friction.” Check it out, it’s also really cool.