Squandered Good Intent and Charity

So today I threw some money in the direction of the Red Cross (in Sweden) to show some support for the people in Japan. Such a small country with so many people, and they get hit not only with a tsunami but nuclear reactor meltdown in the midst of it which some say is as bad as the Tjernobyl incident.

Now, these are not the only ones in the world right now needing help. Let's not forget the unrest down south where dictators send in air strikes on his own people for protesting against him. While monetary support for these is probably good, one other good way of helping is actually awareness. Exposure. The media has turned its eyes towards Japan and their crisis, forgetting for a moment places like Libya which in turn makes it easier for their president to strike without as much media attention. Not that his actions aren't already bad enough.

Anyhow, I have seen a "campaign" a few days now called "Pray for Japan". It leads to a site (twibbon) which says something like "Japan needs our support so lets pray for them". Pray? Pray? How about actually helping? How about at least inform viewers in how to help? Spreading that kind of information?

So today I sent a donation. I certainly haven't got a solid economy at the moment, but I felt that in the midst of good intentions getting squandered on "praying", at least I could do the right thing.

And yeah, I know, that's very un-Swedish of me to say. You should just get back to your place in line, don't make a sound, don't sound like you're better than anything or anybody else, and be a good citizen (and today, ironically, the Swedish government will vote about the "data retention directive" - a law that ultimately allows them to track our every step, when and with whom we communicate with).

For information on how to actually help the people in Japan (or for example Libya) you can go to Red Cross (Sweden) or Red Cross (America). Remember though, even if you can't help directly, you can always indirectly help by informing others. It's definitely worth more than a million prayers...

When do you become non-Indie?

I'm getting more and more annoyed at people on the internet. Yeah, I know, how can that possibly be? Unusual stuff!

Shortly put; it's the label "Indie". I love that label, and for me, that has always had a rather simple definition. Indie means independent. In music and movie business, it means that the creators are independent from any record labels or publishers that usually own part or the whole of the artist or production team. They stand on their own legs and handle most things themselves that a publisher usually would, and must deal with the expenses themselves, and all that.

For me, it has always been obvious and natural to assume that indie, when it comes to game development, means the exact same thing.

The game industry is in some ways very similar to that of music and movies. The usual scenario is that we have a publisher that sits on a lot of money, and give you (the creator) some of that money in order to produce something that the publisher can publish. They invest money in you so that you can create something that will earn them the invested money and a profit.

If you don't have a publisher or similar more external investor or owner, no middle-men that control your creative process so to speak, and fund everything yourself using money coming directly from your own (personal or company's) pocket or directly from sales, and make all your own decisions being your own top dog, then you are indie. You are independent.

Yet for some reason, people online tend to argue that selling a lot of copies of a game makes you less indie. Or, forming a company makes you not indie. The company is still independent.

Example: Dice (the creators of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge among other games) are not independent as they depend on Electronic Arts (their owners). Mojang (the creators of Minecraft) started out as one guy making a game and ended up in a small company which is still independent as they are their own owners.

I hate when good and descriptive labels gets watered down.