E3 is not exactly well known for indie games; they are usually very small compared to the loud and flashy booths that high budgeted games are commonly known for, so they simply can’t take the center stage when it comes to presentation. However, these last few years have been seeing this trend start to change, as independent developers have started to increase their presence and become more noticed.
Once more, Indiecade is returning to E3, making it the seventh year they participated in the largest video game trade show in the West. Indiecade is a booth that has been showcasing indie games at E3 since 2006, with some being the most well-known and successful indie games we have seen in the last decade. Just last year, Indiecade presented spectators to some that would become lucrative titles, such as Edmund McMillen’s The Binding of Isaac, Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust, and Zach Gage’s SpellTower.
Indiecade has promised this year that E3 goers will be seeing 35 games featured at their booth, though little information has been given to these games’ identities.
However, Indiecade isn’t the only one that will be giving indie games some love this E3. Many independent studios have turned to Indies Crash E3, a new group backed by Semiformal Studios, known for their title Ensemble Online, as a means to showcase their work to the masses.
Semiformal Studios was given a number of industrial passes as a way to showcase Ensemble Online, but, instead, decided to give these passes to small independent studios for a chance to attend the show themselves. In a contest to decide which independent studios would gain this once-in-a-lifetime chance, gamers were allowed to vote for who they believed deserved to be part of the Indies Crash E3 group.
The contest ended with ten winners being nominated; here is the list of which independent studies will be making their appearance at E3 under the Indies Crash E3 booth:
- Saibot Studios
- Kaiju Combat
- Project Neumann
- Raspina Studio
- TripleClaim Game Collective
- Spiffy Goats
- Shabgard – Down of Darkness
- Behold Studios
- Nucleotide
- Black Annex
Though it’s still too early to tell if indie games will ever get equal attention compared to big budgeted titles, but, as their presence grows, more and more independent studios come to life. Indie games will most likely become a much more important aspect of the video game industry in the future.
