Untapped Potential: Indie Games on Consoles

It is my opinion that Indie Games are the future of gaming. These are the developers that are going to be hired by the big guns in the future to make the games we rush to the store to buy. I think more needs to be done to support Indie Game developers. I programmed a pretty pathetic game this spring and have been trying to figure out XNA. Let me tell you programming a game is hard! And I dont mean the actual programming part I mean trying to come up with an idea and finding sprites and sounds that you are legally allowed to use. What I am saying is that the people who put indie games out there, no matter how bad the game sucks, put a lot of hard work into it.

So I think companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo need to do more to help Indie developers get their games out into the world. Its great that Microsoft has developed XNA and created XBL Indie Games but there is still more work to be done. I am sure that there are plenty of great games to be had on XBL Indie Games but I am sure I am not alone in saying that I dont have the time or energy to sift through all the garbage that is on there. For one there should be a seperate tab for applications because for those of us looking for an actual game the apps get in the way. Also there needs to be some kind of user rating system. You can sort the games by best selling but that doesn't really tell you if the game is any good. If there was a user rating system and a method by which to sort the higher rated games that would help tremendously as the good games would actually get noticed and would have more people buying them. In addition Microsoft should make some kind of Indie Game spotlight, similar to gamer spotlight but for an XBL indie game. Just once a week have a new game on there that somebody thought was particularly outstanding or creative or something and say what the game is about. This way the good indie games out there will get more recognition which will likely lead to the developer making more money as we all know they aren't making nearly what they deserve. As for Sony and Nintendo, sure there are indie games on WiiWare and PSN but those are the people that can afford to buy the development kits and thus have likely already had some success as a developer. Sony and Nintendo need to create something similar to XNA to give the up and coming indie developers a chance to shine.