Swedish studio 'hopes to have co-published games released by the autumn'
Minecraft studio Mojang Specifications will co-publish other indie games in a matter of months, an executive at the company has said.
The Sweden studio’s business development director, Daniel Kaplan, claimed that other indie games could thrive with the Mojang brand behind it.
“We are in a great spot right now, we can basically do whatever we want to," Kaplan said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz
He said the firm “hopes to have something out this fall at least, some co-published games.”
Kaplan claimed the offers were coming in thick and fast, “from hardware manufacturers, other publishers, advert networks, all that stuff”.
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“We're looking into publishing our own games too though, bringing indie games under our own brand,” he added.
“We're still having to figure out how that's going to work out.
“The hardest thing for us right now is to say no to all the deals we're being offered. There are tons of opportunities out there for us right now.”
Mojang’s debut title, Minecraft, has made over £19 million for its creator Markus Persson so far, according to the Swedish developer.
Persson is also considering opening a dedicated Minecraft conference in Las Vegas. He proposes that the event, tentatively scheduled for November 11th, would tie in with the release of a final, complete version of Minecraft.
He has set up a vote on his blog to see if there is an interest in his idea.
So turning indie games into regular games. Once you've got a publisher you're not indie technically :P
Regardless this is exciting news for indie devs. Although I think Mojang is getting a little ahead of themselves having not release a single game yet.
Indie has always been a marketing ploy for any games making any real returns (over 25k USD)
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of the 'indie' term. For some people it means having no publisher, but a lot of large studios do that too, I also see someone says it's about not having significant returns, but saying successful games like World of Goo are not indie because they were successful doesn't make sense at all.
At the end, I think the best definition for indie could be as a design philosophy in game development, one where innovation is more important than playing safe, and one where it always tries to push boundaries.
Accepting that definition, a lot of 'indie' games are not really doing that, and just want to be carbon copies of the games the developers like. But that's precisely what makes the successful indie games we all know and appraise to stand out.
@miguel Indie games like Angry Birds are actually very safe and not so innovative, developing upon a game style matured through flash games with a nice aesthetic and control scheme. Sometimes the best way to make a game is to look at what is selling well and improve upon it.
In defining "indie games" I tend to think of it as simply what the term is short for. Indie is most commonly (and originally) used in place for Independent, or in the business of game development a small team (at least for the initial development).
Whether this means an Indie game is no longer "indie" after gaining a publisher's support isnt concern to me so much as it was birthed and fostered at an independent level. After being supported by a publisher the game probably changes enough that removing the independent tag would seem a worth while sacrafice to ensure the integrity of other independent developers.
