For reasons entirely unrelated to this job, I recently read a paper on indie game development that I keep thinking about. Author Bonnie Ruberg essentially argues that indie game devs, who are often marginalized people to begin with, are doing what is effectively unpaid labor in the games industry. People hold up indie games as being a bastion of innovation and creativity while indie game devs make next to nothing from their effort – meanwhile, AAA studios are free to yoink those ideas and profit from them, exploiting that free labor.
Ruberg’s paper is not about MMORPGs, but I can’t help but make those connections. The most interesting things happening in our genre right now are not coming from AAA games. They’re in weird, poorly populated MMOs like Project Gorgon, Embers Adrift, and Pantheon. Sometimes they’re happening in rogue servers and emulators, too. And games like World of Warcraft just pick and choose from the creative works of others and churn a massive profit from it. Just look at how long it took Blizzard to finally swipe all the best bits of housing that had been tried before!
So today I want to highlight some of the cool work going on in the indie MMO space. Tell me about the indie MMOs you frequent. Let’s give credit where it’s due! What impressive innovative idea came directly from indie MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!