Recently I played a few Indie games. From "AAA" Indie Games to those made on RPG Maker and some of them are awesome. Still I don't like most of the horror ones.

I think Indie games whether good or bad are great because it really brings some fresh air to a rather unimaginative big companies that are afraid to get out of the box because of profits. Also, big studios are learning a few gameplay tricks from indie developers.

Most of the computer games I own are indie. In one case, one was indie until it was bought out. When it comes to survival horror, I tend to prefer indie games because I find most "survivor horror" games made by AAA companies aren't really survivor horror, they're third person shooter action games with horror elements.

I haven't tried many, but all were crap. So I stopped trying.

Most of them are horrible. Which is not surprising, there must always be a pile of trash for every truly unique concept. But what I like about indies is that they can still be made for a specific audience instead of trying to appeal to everyone like AAA titles which need to cover their huge production costs. Trying to be the next Skyrim, CoD, WoW or whatever was the undoing of many AAA games. Because of that kitchen sink approach, the innovative bits often get somewhat diluted. It doesn't help that everything needs to be a neverending franchise - maybe it was fun and fresh the first time, but after the fifth sequel even the best ideas get kinda stale... Indies, smaller in scope, leave a distinct and memorable impression.

Exactly. Assassins Creed is a perfect example. Ubisoft should pick that ship mechanic and create a game about pirates and you could still work with the XIV to the middle of XIX centuries.

Love them. I think majority of my Steam library are indie games actually. Hotline Miami, The Binding of Isaac, Risk of Rain, Mark of the Ninja, and Don't Starve being some favorites. Hell, I'd say Don't Starve is one of the best survival games out there. Probably because, you know, it's actually finished and full of content.

I don't care for most.

Some are good others are ho-hum.

Indie games are great, as indie games tend to come from "a new idea" rather than "what makes the most money".

Klei (Don't Starve, Mark of the Ninja) is a perfect example of why people should be paying attention to indie games. IMO, they make great games that put the majority of AAA titles to shame. In Klei's case, you're actually getting superior art production as well, but they're unusual and probably have much bigger budgets than the "typical" indie studio.

Two of my favorite games in the last few years, Don't Starve and FTL, were indie games. I'm just starting with Divinity: Original Sin, but that might end up on the list as well. And Paradox is the only name that matters in strategy games (though there are other indie devs that put out good strategy games). These days I pay more attention to indie titles, and usually ignore output from the AAA companies until word of mouth convinces me otherwise.

Is Paradox an indie company? Maybe not as well known but thats more a matter of publishing/developing a less played genre.

I don't need indie, my AAA backlog is full.

There are a lot of cynical cashgrab indie games as well, see: the flood of Minecraft clones on XBLA before the real deal launched, or the dozens of "Call of Action Duty" or Temple Run clone games on mobile.

This is true. Same with DayZ, which saw massive success followed by a wave of Steam Greenlighters throwing up concepts for zombie-survival games only to never hear anything about it again.

FTL was fun, with the Ebon Hawk Mod of course

True though those ones aren't "famous" and more so are just annoyances.

Also, didn't Minecraft technically started as an indie game itself?

it did, and was likely the most successful indie game of all time..

I like indie games, I've tried quite a few good ones, and wether they are good or not I think it's good for the industry to see some new ideas.

Granted there are some crappy games out there too, but there are crappy big budget games too.

And there are cashgrabbing games that aren't indie games, so Indie games are a lot like normal games, of course they are often more simple in their graphics etc.

Anyways, I think it's good for the industry.

Yup, or it is. It's like the Indie game dream story, kinda. Notch never wanted all that much fame and attention and that's one of the reasons why he sold it to Microsoft, that and those billions of dollars probably.

Yes, minecraft was that rare instance of an Indie game hitting it big.

Honestly, I don't know, it depends on your definition. I was wondering that as I typed. But I think they are in terms of philosophy. CD Projekt is a similar case that would have been considered indie a few years ago, but is now more like a AAA studio, except for their philosophy.

I'd personally say no they aren't, but obviously they aren't in the same league as Blizzard or Bethesda. They certainly make enough money DLC to be a AAA company (I say, having just bought the Indian expansion)

I've tried a lot of them and enjoyed playing most of them. I spent A LOT of hours playing Banished this year. That game was fun.

Critical to the industry. If any field is to advance, there must be competition, and not just among established figures. Whether they are good or not is completely irrelevant, and varies widely.

That being said, I haven't actually played any indie games, so I can't say. My first will be a new MMOFPS that goes to live testing sometime in January, called http://www.cpudreams.com/.

Paradox Interactive is a publisher, so no. They do publish some games that are a littlbe bit more creative, so they kinda are a different brand of publisher than say Activision or EA. And some of the games they publish started as crowd funded games, like the upcoming pillars of eternity from Obsidian. Which, if no publisher was found, probably would have ended up as an Indie title.

But yeah, when you get a publisher you kinda leave the indie scene. Of course some publishers let developers make what they want etc. But I'm not sure if they could be called Indie games, though they do have the same "spirit" in lack of a better word.

Of course there is a Paradox studio that develops games, so maybe their games could be considered Indie games by some, but they wouldn't be any Indie games than Skyrim and other Bethesda titles.