Vancouver has many feathers in its cap. We are Hollywood North. We have a lot of great animation talent and a lot of thriving technology startups. And once you pick up your controller, you'll find that this city is also home to one of the best indie gaming scenes in the world.
That's part of what drew American developer Davey Redden to the city, which he's called home since 2019.
One of the continent's most famous game authors, Wreden became an overnight sensation with the release of his first game. stanley's fable. (The experience, which he blogged about, wasn't great.) His 2013 story of an office worker who struggles with an unreliable narrator. stanley's fable It is considered a metamodern masterpiece that has become one of the most beloved titles in indie gaming. It has sold millions of copies, won countless awards, and received rave reviews on television. tower on the sand and Severance pay. More than that, this game's deliberate deconstruction of typical tropes crystallized the self-conscious humor and structural subversiveness that is now woven into much of his DNA in the indie game scene.
Since then, the notoriously secretive developer has ultra deluxe Version with more content (2022), and A Game About the Pressures of Making Games (2015) Beginner's guide).
“When I say I work in video games, a lot of people are surprised and surprised, as if I said I BASE jump for a living,” Redden says. . “The reality is that creating a video game, even the most creatively unique, exciting, fresh, and groundbreaking, is just a job.”
Indie games cover a wide range of fields. There is no exact definition of this concept other than games made without a major publisher. Compared to triple-A studios like Electronic Arts and Relic Entertainment (both of which have offices in Vancouver), indie developers create games with small teams and budgets. That could mean anything from a team of a few dozen people. crypt of necrodancer Creator Brace Yourself Games — Intended for independent developers who create entire games from scratch, complete with art and music.
In Leden's case, he has gone from working alone to now heading an international studio called Ivy Road, which he co-founded with American artist Carla Gimonja (best known for her 2013 work). I've done everything up until now. Gone Home). Having a team freed me from administrative duties and allowed me to focus on creating games.
“It's allowed me to focus more on really creative work and just sit back and try to make cool content,” he says. “I'm really happy that everyone I'm working with now has such a great skill set and talent. [didn’t] You can go back to earlier games when the team size was much smaller. ”
Leden also has people in the gaming industry to thank for his move to Vancouver.
“I have a lot of friends here and a lot of people in the community here,” he explains. “Among them are Northways. They were the ones who first invited me to come here on vacation. I stayed with them in his 2015 and the city has become I fell in love with it.”
Northways (Sarah and Colin Northway, who run Northway Games) started making indie games in the 2000s while studying at the University of Victoria.
Colin's 2008 Flash Game, wonderful contraptionwhich challenged players to create strange and bizarre machines, was the real start of his career as an indie developer.
“This has been a blessed year for Flash,” Sarah said in a video call from Antigua. “Games were easy to create and immediately available for everyone to see on a browser. Those were the most glorious times.”
At the time, Sarah was working in game development in San Francisco, and Colin was creating “websites for lawyers.” wonderful contraption It was something he made on the side and it exploded. The Northways quit their jobs and became indie game developers, spending the next five years of their lives traveling around the world, making small games like Sarah. Rebuilding Zombie Apocalypse Series and 2012 Incredipede.
The late 2000s and early 2010s were something of a golden age for indie video games, with development tools becoming easier to use and more accessible. At the same time, digital distribution began in earnest. Games, especially those for consoles, used to have to be purchased on physical hardware, but in 2008 Xbox's Summer of Arcade began promoting select indie titles to a wider audience . Meanwhile, Steam, the largest digital platform for PC gaming, began allowing developers to sell their own indie titles through it around 2012.
“The timing was incredibly lucky,” Sarah recalls. “Many of the Vancouver indie developers we've been in touch with started working around the same time, and it was out of the blue. [shift]”
Finally, in 2014, the couple decided to settle somewhere permanently. And with friends and family in Vancouver, it was an easy decision for them. By that time, there was already a flourishing scene of independent game developers here.
“He's our roommate from Victoria. He started a meetup for indie developers in Victoria, and I think he took that with him when he moved to Vancouver,” Sarah says. “But in 2010 it was just a really small community.”
She's referring to Full Indie, a game developer networking group founded in 2010 by Jake Burkett and Alex Vostrov. At its peak, the organization's membership numbered 5,000. The organization hosted regular indie meet-ups, as well as a large annual conference, the Full Her Indie Summit, until the coronavirus forced the cancellation of in-person events.
Full Indie's new president, Aryo Nazaradeh, returns to the role from Toronto in 2022. He wanted to get into his audio gaming and was looking for an industry networking event for him.
“Full Indie was originally shut down due to the coronavirus, but we just didn’t restart it because the people running it ran out of time,” Nazaradeh said in a video call from Colombia. . As he was planning a meetup, Full Indie offered to let him use their email list and offered to take over the role.
Meetups are currently held at The Gaming Stadium in Richmond, where over 100 people gather each month to show off their games, meet other manufacturers, and hear short presentations from industry insiders. Masu. It's not exactly the same as before, but it's a continuation of the collaborative, cooperative scene that arose from the early days of geeks gravitating towards each other and sharing the experience of building games from scratch.
“The people here are really, really passionate,” he added. “People are really helping each other.”
There's no question that community is part of what makes Vancouver vibrant. And while it's hard to quantify, insiders suggest that some of the early indie wave may have come from the presence of established studios already in the city.
Gordon McGladdery, studio director at game audio company A Shell in the Pit, started creating sounds for games in 2012. (Between A Shell in the Pit and his fellow studio Power Up Audio, Vancouver has also done an incredible number of indie soundtracks for his games). Established studios likely contributed to indie talent, whether it was developers who came looking for work. An employee is fired and becomes independent. Or even an animator moving from television work to game art. For example, Red Hook Studio is a highly successful local team. darkest dungeonwas founded by people who had experience working on major games before going indie.
“There were a lot of big triple-A studios, and they brought up a lot of really good developers, and then they fired them because the bean counter wasn't happy,” McGradery says. “So they started something on their own. They had really talented people working together in high density.”
The global video game industry is worth an estimated US$347 billion, but it is also a volatile industry. Approximately 10,000 video game developers will be laid off by major companies in 2023, and more than 8,000 jobs have already been lost by 2024. In contrast, the indie game market was worth about US$2 billion in 2020, making up only a small portion of the market, but it is growing in popularity.
Last year, A Shell In The Pit released its first game, an aquarium simulator. fish game— as part of the company's pursuit of stability.
“We're serious about providing job security, so part of job security is providing multiple streams of income,” McGradery explains. “We're not going to make our money back for a long time, but we've achieved the goal we wanted, which is to be a popular game in this micro-genre, and people really like it.”
What's another factor changing the local gaming landscape? Little House in Richmond.
“Indie house is a huge part of history,” insists Colin Northway.
What became known as Indie House was a literal home for aspiring game developers near Steveston. A semi-legendary presence in Vancouver's video game scene from 2012 until late 2016, the indie house served as a base for electric indie talent, meeting regularly with residents, friends and fellow queer game makers. We hosted a networking event.
celesteThe hit mountain climbing game from Maddie Thorson and Noel Berry comes from the indie house.Same goes for adventure games. night in the woodsand Chevrolet Ray Johnston's magical role-playing title Eichenfell.
Former Indie House resident Greg Lobanov moved from Philadelphia to the Vancouver suburbs in 2015.
“Vancouver was where I had the largest community of friends and other game developers that I knew,” he explains. “It seemed like the most fun place to go, so I went there and moved into a house in Richmond with some friends.”
Lobanov started making games as a child, and his early experiments were making waves on the internet. Most recently, he produced a musical puzzle game. wonder song (2018) and 2021 Chicory: A colorful story, which won numerous Game of the Year honors from various publications. But he quickly added: “We're probably the worst-selling game to ever win an award from these websites.” Now incorporated as Wishes Unlimited, he says the four-man studio is working on an upcoming volleyball romp. is. beastie ball.
“I always felt like I was young and baby-faced and a little below everyone around me. I was excited to learn from them,” Lobanov reflects. “Nowadays, even if chicory As I meet new game developers and many of them look up to me, I also realize that many of my colleagues are making much bigger games than I am. chicory”
Lobanov has lived here for about 10 years and has noticed a steady influx of new talent into the local indie scene. What started as people relocating from small cities in British Columbia and Alberta has expanded to include much of Canada and even parts of the United States.
“I think people in Canada who were really good at game development ended up moving to Vancouver because that's where other people were flocking to,” says Lobanov. “When I moved here, I was one of the few non-Canadians who moved here. Now there are many more.”
The gravitational pull of the indie scene continues to draw people in, and developers continue to find new ways to connect. Nazarade is considering plans to bring back the big full-indie summit. Colin Northway dreams of hosting a video game festival in his city. Lobanov runs a team of volleyball developers.
“It's very natural to build a community here, where people come together in the same space,” says Lobanov. “I feel like we’re taking over a little bit.”
There are no exact numbers on how many independent game developers there are in Vancouver. Or how many people lived here before moving elsewhere? Or how many of you are working on the next big thing right now? But the excitement is palpable.
“When it comes to indie games, we have become a kind of cultural center. It's like a black hole,” Lobanov muses. “I think Vancouver might be the biggest indie game city on the planet.”
