I'm very surprised that neither this article, nor any of the comments I've read so far have addressed the fact that Sandfall (the developers) outsourced over 200 developers to help make this game. To me, THAT is the deciding factor in making this game not indie. Clair Obscur was definitively developed by at least 230 developers in total, whereas the other actual indie games nominated this year had teams of 50 at most.
There's also the fact that, although I believe an indie game can be published by a different company and still be indie (like Balatro), Kepler Interactive simply isn't one of the smaller publishers: they announced 4 brand new games during The Game Awards. That tells you all you need to know.
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Re: Talking Point: With Expedition 33 Winning Best Indie Game, What Does 'Indie' Mean to You?
I'm very surprised that neither this article, nor any of the comments I've read so far have addressed the fact that Sandfall (the developers) outsourced over 200 developers to help make this game. To me, THAT is the deciding factor in making this game not indie. Clair Obscur was definitively developed by at least 230 developers in total, whereas the other actual indie games nominated this year had teams of 50 at most.
There's also the fact that, although I believe an indie game can be published by a different company and still be indie (like Balatro), Kepler Interactive simply isn't one of the smaller publishers: they announced 4 brand new games during The Game Awards. That tells you all you need to know.