this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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I guess I'm confused because I didn't know that "low budget" was now synonymous with "indie." They are an indie dev that made their first game yet their game doesn't count as "indie" because they had a budget? What about a game like No Man's Sky? They were an indie dev that got promoted by Sony and everyone shat on it when it came out and said they bit off more than they could chew. In my opinion, that seems even less fair.
I'm not saying they deserved the award more than any other game, I enjoyed all the games nominated, I'm just saying that if E33 flopped I highly doubt anyone would call them more than an indie dev that tried to punch above their weight just like No Man's Sky.
There aren't any hard rules of what an indie game is, and TGA don't set any because they don't take their jobs seriously, but it's usually accepted that indie = small teams, small budget. Otherwise, technically games like Cyberpunk 2077 are "indie" because they're self-published, while games published by Devolver Digital are technically not indie because they have a publisher despite the games being made on a tiny budget and occasionally created by only one person.
Expedition 33 had a huge budget compared to other games in its category, and much more developers. They had mo-cap, they had popular voice actors, and they had tons of contract workers overseas. It's not fair to put it up against games that didn't have any of that.
E33 is what the industry refers to as a AA game. Mid-sized budget, mid-sized team. As opposed to AAA, massive budgets with massive teams.
No Man's Sky (on release) is way smaller in scope than E33. It was made by around a dozen developers only, and they actually self-published it which makes it much more "indie".
So a successful crowdfunding campaign could make a game not indie anymore?
"Indie" means "independent", which means there is no publisher or investor that could influence creative decisions in the service of profits. (As CDPR is publicly traded and does answer to investors, Cyberpunk would not qualify.)
If you want a low budget award, call it low budget award and define a threshold for said budget.
Jesus fucking Christ people, we are talking about video games. Get a grip.
What a benign comment to respond so strongly to lmao