Zolcos
Sergeant
First let me say that I love Warband and am in no way criticising the game itself or the way TW has developed it. I'm only asking a question and providing what relevant info I have so far.
I see people saying that Warband is an indie game. I don't have any real information about this, but from my observations, this doesn't seem to be true.
With non-indie games, generally, the developer makes an arrangement with a publisher, whereby the pub will front the cost of making the game (and do marketing/distribution), in return for a cut of the profits, some control over the development process, and sometimes ownership of the IP.
On the other hand, indie games have no such arrangement, so the dev has to make the game on their own budget. They retain full control over the development, profits, IP, marketing, distribution.
1. People deflect criticism from Warband: "go easy on it -- it's only an indie game". Then they turn around and say "The premature release wasn't TW's fault; Paradox made them do it". If that's true, then TW handed over a considerable amount of control to their publisher!
2. How was it funded? MB1, the first game, was funded by pre-orders during a lengthy beta phase where pre-orderers got a discount and instant beta access. It wasn't the same with Warband. You could still get beta access with a pre-order on Steam but the game was pretty close to complete by then, excusing bugs. It doesn't seem likely that it was entirely funded by the sales of MB1 either.
3. Steam doesn't show the "indie" tag on either game. GameFAQs lists Paradox as the publisher for both games. (Of course, simply having a publisher doesn't disqualify a game from being indie, but
Was MB1 even an indie game? It seems to have been one in the early stages, but perhaps this changed before 1.0?
4. Wikipedia says that TW as a whole is an indie dev, but that they are "an official brand of Ikisoft Software Company" whom I cannot find much information about.
I see people saying that Warband is an indie game. I don't have any real information about this, but from my observations, this doesn't seem to be true.
With non-indie games, generally, the developer makes an arrangement with a publisher, whereby the pub will front the cost of making the game (and do marketing/distribution), in return for a cut of the profits, some control over the development process, and sometimes ownership of the IP.
On the other hand, indie games have no such arrangement, so the dev has to make the game on their own budget. They retain full control over the development, profits, IP, marketing, distribution.
1. People deflect criticism from Warband: "go easy on it -- it's only an indie game". Then they turn around and say "The premature release wasn't TW's fault; Paradox made them do it". If that's true, then TW handed over a considerable amount of control to their publisher!
2. How was it funded? MB1, the first game, was funded by pre-orders during a lengthy beta phase where pre-orderers got a discount and instant beta access. It wasn't the same with Warband. You could still get beta access with a pre-order on Steam but the game was pretty close to complete by then, excusing bugs. It doesn't seem likely that it was entirely funded by the sales of MB1 either.
3. Steam doesn't show the "indie" tag on either game. GameFAQs lists Paradox as the publisher for both games. (Of course, simply having a publisher doesn't disqualify a game from being indie, but
Was MB1 even an indie game? It seems to have been one in the early stages, but perhaps this changed before 1.0?4. Wikipedia says that TW as a whole is an indie dev, but that they are "an official brand of Ikisoft Software Company" whom I cannot find much information about.
