Pixel’s Influence on the Indie Gaming Movement
Pixel, which is game developer Daisuke Amaya’s art-name, has been creating independent video games in the late nineties and released his first game in 2000. What the majority of gamers know him for is the increasingly popular indie-game Cave Story. Cave Story has reveled with an amazing reception from not only indie gamers, but also from professional game critics. Cave Story is a RPG side-scroller that is located within a cave in the game world of a floating island. Traditional story elements progress the player through the game and Pixel himself proclaimed the game has an “old fashioned feel”. Despite being originally freeware for the PC, the game has been ported to the Wii, Xbox, PSP and the Mac OS X.
It might come as a surprise that Pixel developed the game completely by himself over a time span of five years. The increasing availability of computing resources has made it possible for independent gaming to become a credible and financially feasible option of development. Cave Story has set the bar high for independent gaming, but it is also a reference to the profitability of indie game development. Pixel inadvertently created a business model that other developers look to follow. This model is somewhat based on the Web 2.0 movement of Twitter and Facebook, free to use now and ad based revenue later. The later revenue Pixel has brought in is from the ports to bigger platforms. It is the time for independent gaming, with profitable examples ranging from Minecraft to Braid as well as Cave Story.More info here: Cave Story+ Coming to 3DS