Indie Games: The Future Of Esports?

While I enjoy esports, I’m most excited for indie games, and the incredible potential both have to help each other grow. More than 75% of all PC games are created by independent game developers.

That includes esports hits like Rocket League, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds(PUBG), and League of Legends. Speaking candidly, it’s likely that more than 75% of ALL video games are created by independent game developers, but the PC ecosystem is the only one that provides free access to that data haha. Unfortunately, because game discovery has been broken for over 30 years, indie games only make 2% of the global gaming industry’s revenue. If it looks like nobody is playing indie games, based solely on revenue, then how can they be the future of esports? It seems counter-intuitive at first, maybe even a little crazy, but I’m sure you’ll agree with the logic here.

While AAA game studios are more driven by creating concepts that have
mass-market appeal, indie devs are more driven by creating niche, novel
gameplay experiences. It’s that focus on novelty, that inspired an indie
dev team to create a soccer game that you play with rocket-powered RC
cars: Psyonix’s Rocket League was born. Fun fact: Electronic Arts created the “EA Originals” program “to find the next Rocket League”; ironically, the Rocket League team had actually pitched their concept to EA in the past, and EA turned it down.

We can even thank indie games, for the entire “Battle Royale”
trend. PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was created by Bluehole
Studios, an independent game development studio in South Korea. The
Bluehole Studios team paid Epic Games to enhance the Unreal Engine, so
that it could create a game that supported 100 players. Epic Games saw
so much potential in Bluehole Studios’ game concept, that “it inspired
them” to apply it to a poorly-performing tower defense game. You and the
rest of the world know that game now as Fortnite, and the rest is history (including the lawsuits). As you can see, by the sheer volume of games produced by indie devs, it’s only logical that the majority of esports titles will naturally be indie games.

That covers the supply side of the esports equation, but what about the
demand? Think about how many people in your family played video games, because Nintendo made them accessible via the Wii, WiiU, and/or Switch. Nintendo showed that family-friendly video games can appeal to people of any age. Compare that to the typical parent’s sentiment about more mature games like Mortal Kombat and Call of Duty. Now, consider the political climate and public opinion related to violent video games.

It’s my professional obligation to inform you, that research indicates
there is NO statistically significant link between violent video games
and gun violence. In speaking with multiple universities about esports
events, I can confirm from first-hand experience, their apprehension of
being associated with any games that involve guns or are mature rated.
That impacts 60% of the top 10 esports games of 2019.

The massive opportunity for esports and indie games, is how they
complement each other. Esports brings massive visibility to games, but
needs creative and family-friendly games to reach a broader audience.
Indie games provide novel experiences, and even create new gameplay
genres in some cases, but are in dire need of more visibility to larger
audiences. Take "Brawlhalla", for example. This family-friendly game from indie studio Blue Mammoth Games improves on the "Super Smash Bros." formula in nearly every way, which is why i'm not surprised that their indie studio was recently acquired by the AAA game publisher Ubisoft.

Together, indie games make esports more accessible to family and
schools, while esports delivers the mainstream exposure that indie games
need to succeed alongside AAA games from publicly-traded video game
companies. Don’t be surprised, if a clever entrepreneur finds a way to
combine the best of both worlds. In the meantime, keep an eye out for
indie games like Rift of Raigard, from the Dun Rite Games team in San
Diego; you’ll be seeing big things from them soon.

Originally published as "Indiescovery: How esports and indie games work hand in hand." with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license