Independent video games and the games ‘Indiestry’ spectrum: Dissecting the online discourse of independent game developers in industry culture

The independent versus mainstream production culture is one spread across all media including videogames. The aim of the dissertation was to analyze and examine the patterns and use of online communication through Twitter, endorsed articles and their studio website content among three individual development studios – Studio MDHR and Cuphead, Vlambeer and Nuclear Throne, and Anna Anthropy and Dys4ia. These developers range in their involvement with first-party developers such as Sony and Microsoft as well as the size and diversity of their team.

The application of Burke’s pentad and discovery of emergent themes through grounded theory yielded significant differences among the three cases. It is suggested that a spectrum of independent game development attitude and interaction with the audience is influenced by their involvement with mainstream game industry entities; the closer the independent studio is to first-party involvement, the more it resembles the habitus of the ‘indiestry’ of game development. Also, the research revealed there is no stated assertion of being ‘indie’ by the developers, but they use their online Twitter profile to convey the values of independent production culture.

These findings can be instructional to social media managers for independent production clientele as well as lending to the study of independent game developers, the sprawling definitions of “independent,” and the addition of the term “indiestry” to the videogame development vernacular.