unforum

[jlr1001]

Should We Use "Independent" Instead of "Grassroots"?

[imbri]

I don't see grassroots as a negative. To me, grassroots means that something has come up from and spread out of the community. It implies a type of movement that I respect - grassroots politics, for example, imply that it's change coming up from the people and not being forced upon us from the talking heads and party big wigs. I could be wrong, but I believe that such changes are more meaningful and tend to be stronger and longer lasting. This is a good thing and something to be proud of.

Independent, however, is a confusing term. Perplex City is considered independent in the world of games (and by your own definitions of the term), but with it's company backing, budget, and profit motives, I would be very hesitant to group it with grassroots games.

That's not to say that I don't think that grassroots games can "compete" with the big guys. They certainly can. I'm most definitely biased, but I think that Metacortechs was as good as or better than most games out there when you consider a whole host of criteria on which to measure that (production, story, engagement, etc). Based on feedback both immediately after the game and all these years later, I'd say that a number of the players agree. We did this without the budget or professional support that a company like 42 or GMD or Mindcandy has behind it. The game was created purely out of passion for design, storytelling, and the future of alternate reality gaming. There were no profit motives or thoughts of what it would do to our business model. Nope. It was a grassroots effort to make the alternate reality gaming community or "genre", as a whole, better and I'm proud of that. You can call it an independent game if you'd like, but I'll be sticking with one that has a bit more meaning and truth behind it. I'll be sticking with grassroots.

[jlr1001]

Imbri,

I see where you're coming from, and in fact the "from the community" aspect of a grassroots anything kept creeping in the back of my mind as I wrote the first post. (I'll admit that that's the problematic thorn in what I was writing).

However, you mentioned GMD and right now Brian, et. al. is/are running Elderitch Errors. A recent post on Schmelderitch mentioned that they have some intention of monetizing the game, but at this point revenue generation isn't their goal. Would you call Elderitch a grassroots game, or is it something else?

Contrast this with some of GMD's past games which were developed for corporate clients. Should we treat these two cases differently?

Some people who post here do as evidenced by a small undercurrent of distaste for CF,ARGs,EEs that are created as marketing vehicles. I haven't seen it often, but those posters have hinted that they wouldn't play these corporate-sponsored games and would instead focus on grassroots games.

I'd tend to thing that the game itself, its playability, the strength of its narrative, its penchant for fostering audience participation and collaboration would the be the litmus test, not who creates it and for what purpose...

But since some people see a distinction between sponsored and non-sponsored games. I'm just looking to further that distinction between companies that are able to secure backing from clients versus those who take the more independent route, be it non-profit, or self-funded through ancillary product sales, advertising revenue, or player subscriptions...

Is there enough room for a nomenclature that distinguishes between corporate/sponsored, independent, and grassroots games?



-jlr1001

[Jas0n]

I've had mixed feelings on this myself. I agree with Imbri though that the term independent in regards to the game can be confusing and that grassroots is a fitting term in most cases to the games and the groups behind them.

However, if you put into context the whole indie music scene - it is much like the grassroots scene here. I agree that grassroots has a kind of negative context to it as what 75 to 90 percent of the grassroots games just collapse and implode. The biggest reason is the lack of dedication and responsibility taken by the PMs. Most don't know what they're getting into or are in it just to be popular.

I'm the lead developer for a group, and though we're somewhat organized as far as team structure is concerned - we're still grassroots. Maybe in this instance where you have a long-standing, dedicated group with a structure designed to allow the group to create high quality - low budget games.. maybe then you could use the term Independent. However, the seperation between the two won't necessarily be immediately distinct to the players. Players often learn early which games are produced by the bigger corporate groups - the grassroots games they often wonder who's behind it.

It's definitely a good meta debate, and one that I'll keep stuck in the back of my head...

[imbri]

[jlr1001]

There's nothing wrong with doing it "for love of the game".

[catherwood-offline]

[imbri]

Re: There's nothing wrong with doing it "for love of the gam

[jlr1001]

catherwood:

[Rogi Ocnorb]

To me, it comes down to our individual experience with either term.

I associate "Grassroots" with the common man while "Independent" seems more elitist.
The former (again, to me) bespeaks a certain passion that the latter may not always include.
Additionally, while I can see the Indie group sometimes being "professionals" (paid for their effort), the grassroots groups rarely fall into the professionals category, for me.

ETA: The term "Independent", in movies and music doesn't make me feel like the product will be any better, somehow. A lot of times I'll bet that when you ask the artist why they're independent, you hear stuff like' "The studios/labels are money hungry know-nothings.". But, if you were to ask the studio/label about the artist, you might hear something like, "Well... Frankly, They suck.".

Just because someone hangs out a shingle proclaiming themselves something, doesn't mean they are really any good at it (A lot of computer repair people come to mind here.) In the ARG genre, many of the best developers have a day job that pays the bills and that they are very good at, but would be awesome as professional ARG developers, if there was a way to make that happen.

[FLmutant]

So the word "independent" has very important meanings for me -- and I don't think "grassroots" describes the same thing at all. Independent is a professional rejection of the rules of dependent corporate art, or a deep rewriting of those rules into something the indie feels is more fair. Grassroots seeks to take place outside of the entire marketplace.

Forgive me a moment if I sound opinionated about some of this, but the last 27 years of my life have been focused on the independent arts movements, so I have rather strong feelings and opinions in that regard (in part because I spend alot of my time defending the phrase "indie" in the film community from being completely misappropriated by Hollywood the way "alternative" was misappropriated from the music community.)

But first, this also strike to the core of one of the most interesting things about being involved with this community -- it is one of the few places that people look at me as The Man instead of as The Rebel. Part of it is because we do big work for big clients, but keep in mind that we try to spend only half our time doing corporate work (and then, primarily, because it helps keep the team fed and lets us spend the other half of our time pursuing our independent art and media goals.) So when I think of myself and GMD Studios, I think of us as a ten-person firm with 14 years of experience trying to figure out how to be "functional independents" -- to let our independent work being our jobs and not just our passions.

For me, "independent" has a very specific meaning -- it is a choice to do, first and foremost, the things that you don't have to seek anyone else's permission to do. In the film world, the "dependent" route involves coming up with a script, shopping it to studios in hopes they will fund it, dealing with the fact that your work becomes corporate managed, but maybe eventually making some money from -- usually a lot less money than the general public would guess.

So GMD Studios, for example, has advantages that "grassroots teams" might not have -- experience, GMD is our 9-to-5, the ability to dedicate profits from corporate work towards the development of our own passions. Let's be clear about that scope, though: our plan is to spend about $150,000 on Eldritch Errors in its first year (in addition to our staff time, which isn't unpaid volunteer labor either.) That's about the same as what we spent making the independent film "Nothing So Strange". Who Is Benjamin Stove was burning through that same level of cash each month. The Art of the Heist was running through more money than that each week.

In the film and music worlds, the motivations of independents are vast and varied. Experimental filmmakers don't think about any commercial application of their work, but travel the film festival circuit for the artistic connection. Other fimmakers are sure when they get to Sundance someone will buy their film and they'll stop being independents and go on to the "phat cash" of Hollywood: I think of them as film speculators. Some, like many documentarians, make films out of their passion for the subject matter and wouldn't mind finding money from it to fund their crazy passion project. Others are completely punk rock: they throw a kegger weekend, and in the process film a movie like "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" (a lovely camp classic) and sell the DVDs directly from their website. Still others are a step more business-like than that: Morgan Spurlock, for example, took the money he made selling his Internet gameshow to MTV and used it to make a little film called "Super Size Me" and now has a fair-sized production company making all kinds of stuff.

"Independent" is a big top word, with plenty of room for all kinds of people under it, many of whom still think there others in their same community who still have blinders on. It is ultimately about giving up cash in order to retain artistic or business control of your work. They tend not to take "no" for an answer, and tend to snicker if people tell them "that will never work."

GMD Studios is one of those "types" of independent -- "entrepreneurial independence": how do I make a living doing what I want without having to sacrifice the control and vision? This has, historically, not been the most popular or prevelant form of independence (the "Cinderella Story" continues to be the dream in independent music and film, sadly.) The Web is altering that, though: bloggers, for example, tend to think more like independents ("how do I start making some money from all this time I'm putting into this?") than like dependents ("how will I sell my blog for phat cash to the next Jason Calacanis?")

Here's maybe on distinction that helps from my perspective: "independent" is the semi-successful community of "grassroots," smack dab where the community is engaged in conflict with the "dependent" community (which is facing a whithering future.) Fortunately, Hollywood is looking for the next "Sex, Lies & Videotape" at Sundance (and even when they find something more grassroots, like "Tarnation," they rarely know what to do about it.)

As a life-long indie, that phrase doesn't mean "artistic pretention" or "difficult listening hour" or anything like that. It means a punk rock, D.I.Y. revolution against "entertainment as optimized product" perhaps best summed up by the views of Sarah Jacobson, who was taken from us way too young by cancer:

http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040218sarah.html

[jlr1001]

Thread killer? I think not.

Your take on what it means to be an independent "X" is definitely in line with what I was (hopefully) getting at. By just calling all non-sponsored games grassroots seems to say that they aren't in any way engaging with "the market".

Not that reclassifying labels will "save us" or anything, I'm just wondering if what we call "ourselves" has a direct correlation with the long-term viability of the community and genre of art/entertainment it creates.

Maybe if more people considered themselves independent developers who are (rightfully so) interested in monetizing their games, though not necessarily via corporate clients, then we'd have fewer (crossing my fingers here) games that are released before they are ready.

If this is just a hobby then I can take a stab at it and if it doesn't work out, oh well... I wasn't fully engaged in it anyway. But if I have a vision and I'm willing to dedicate myself to it so much that I define myself by it, then that's a little more serious...

Or, from the audience side, if I know a game is labeled "independent" or the studio developing it is labeled thus, then I can feel that my expectations for a reasonably mature product are justified. A grassroots game is more luck of the draw...

Again, I know the name alone won't change anything. But if people start thinking of themselves in a certain way their output might change. And those who are truly in it for the fun can still develop under a grassroots "label" and we as their audience might be more forgiving of their faults and missteps...

But, let's be honest, we can hope for the longterm growth and widespread adoption of this form of play if 90+% of the games out there aren't "serious". Sure the bigger games draw in additional players, but I can imagine that most of them leave feeling frustrated at what seems to be little else that matches what they just experienced.

So I'm saying we need more people who will identify themselves as independent developers. Or, as Brian mentioned, a healthy mix of independent projects and client-commissioned work.

I can only see that helping the community and genre as a whole.



-jlr1001

[FLmutant]

Heh heh ... "threadkiller" is because of the length of my post. Brevity is the soul of communication, but when you feel really passionate about something brevity is tough.

I think hit a nail on the head though earlier:

[imbri]

I find it utterly fascinating how emotionally tied you are to the term "independent" just as I am to the term "grassroots". Perhaps this explains why we work so well together. It's an interesting philosophical union.

One thing that I noticed is how you associated these thoughts as reactions to the marketplace and, while I don't disagree, the way in which you implied the grassroots reaction gives me pause.

[vpisteve]

For what it's worth, I always refer to Metacortechs as an Independent game, produced out-of-pocket by those developing it, and not aimed solely at those within the fledgling little (at the time) ARG community.

Maybe that's just from my career in the music industry, as to me, it was the same as producing an indie-album.

And Brian, for what it's worth, I've never thought of you as being The Man.