I saw a handful of "next gen projects", I saw the devkits for "Piston", "Orbis", "Ouya" and "Durango" and was talking to two major publishers about my status as an indie developer and what they could do to get me working on high fidelity games.
That might not seem like a big deal but you've got to understand, to me AAA basically means death. I've wasted my talent doing a great job for little pay in fields that have nothing to do with my strengths.
The other pat of this, is that games as an industry and medium are changing. I'm not sure what to believe anymore. The success of The Walking Dead is great, its a good thing that people are being so deeply affected by such a good narrative. Thing is, this isn't new, this exists and it has existed for a while. Whats more, when a great writer who doesn't have a popular tv/comic series to work with creates a set of believable and well rounded character, will they get the recognition they deserve? Everything that seems like a step forward is really two steps back.
The whole obsession with power and hardware seems so pointless. I saw games running on console sway more powerful then what we have today but some of them looked like crap, why? because they aren't finished. Animations, modeling, texturing, meshes all that stuff still needs to be done, but all that stuff requires more work then actually getting the game running, which loses priority. Does the game run is less important then, does the game look good, and all this power that people are going to be paying hundreds of $$ for is being used to cover the pockmarked cheek of the gaming whore. Its all just dressing without offering a real change in how we play games at all.
Then theres this idea that anyone can make games, which is good because anyone CAN makea game, but not everyone should make a game. The War Z is a prime example of how messed up things really are. actually you could point at any content protection service and call bullshit. why are tere 90 Suduku games on DSishop that have the "Official seal of quality", how is it that certain default texts will flag an iOS game as unfinished but a complete clone of mario won't hit any problems. There are games on Droid and iOS that crash n startup 100% of the time.
and I'm scared. I'm afraid I won't make it as an indie, just like the publishers told me I wouldn't. I want to tell the story of a man who was molested, examines the definition of rape and contemplates suicide before he can hurt anyone. I don't know if anyone would play the game. I want to make a game that basically goes through what its like to be a native. I want to write about men who love men, about understanding balance and harmony. I want to write about things that terrify people even if they don't admit it. But "they" might be right, and I might not be able to reach a single person.
I want to resist, but I don't want to hold myself and other back stubbornly. Is it the right thing to just go with the flow? What if I'm wrong, what if i just keep making things worse?
All of this (and much more) got dumped in my lap in just one sitting.