VGCulture - Short Rant about Indie Games

I watched one of Dorkly Bits newest videos yesterday and find it to be one of the best ones they've made:


The indie game community, for the most part, is alright.  There's lots of laid-back, innovative individuals who like to experiment and find something new and fresh to make or play.  But there still are those, like many indie music fans, who find the indie scene to be above and beyond the main stream because it's considered different.  I think that's the joke that they're going for here in this video.  Saying that indie games are "original" compared to main stream isn't very accurate as most genres, concepts and tropes have been firmly established.  Much like art, indie games rely a lot on innovation rather than trying to be "original".  From the three indie games referenced in the video (Braid, LIMBO, and Super Meat Boy), what made them so fun was that it fell back to the concepts that made games like Super Mario Bros. fun = simple, but great design.  All three games involve jumping a whole lot, but the way they establish the concept with level designs, core gameplay aspects and how they're utilized is what makes them so fun.  Indie game developers (at least most I've heard of) know that their game will be referenced upon other games, but they also know that accepting that fact will help them establish a more well thought out game.  I feel like indie gamers would argue the former more than developers would, but I've luckily haven't met a pretentious indie gamer who finds himself and indie games king among the "garbage of the world".  I have met a lot of people who hate Call of Duty just for being too main stream, mainly because Call of Duty was "sorta" indie-ish in its own way when it had its humble start on the PC and is considered "complete garbage" when it hit main stream audiences with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  I think Indie games are becoming more main-stream with digital distribution becoming a norm in everyday gaming.  Indie games are available on Steam, Desura, PSN, XBLA, WiiWare, DSiWare, and 3DSware.  Anyways, if you want to check out the games referenced, they're all available on Steam (albeit Super Mario Bros.):
-Braid: A Puzzle-Platformer manipulating time and alternate realities
-LIMBO: Simple platformer with challenging level designs
-Super Meat Boy: Fast-paced, hardcore platformer with wall jumping
-Super Mario Bros.: C'mon now...anyone who hasn't heard of this game needs to play it right now