The reason indie games are tepid is the ability of niche content to radiate.
But the fatal wound is an act that has long since "disappeared".
Wen | Zhang Shule (Columnist of People's Daily And People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)
Indie games are on the table, but as always, the most common thing in the game industry and rare now: piracy.
On August 18, 2020, Pacia Technology, together with nearly 20 game vertical media and nearly 100 game manufacturers, accused Alibaba's Taobao platform of selling pirated games without censorship and allowing infringing merchants to sell pirated games without authorization.
Some media said that such a large-scale collective voice is the first time in the history of games.
In fact, it is not the first game anti-piracy statement, but after adding the two qualifiers of independent games and Taobao, it gives people a sense of "news".
As a branch of single-player games, indie games face the problem of piracy, cat and mouse games, almost unsolvable, but that was in the past.
With the rise of cloud gaming, the de facto savior has emerged – online.
The reason why online games in the past can jump out of the curse of piracy is that the local client is just an interface, and in order to truly get the game experience of "fighting with people endlessly".
Of course, in the history of the development of online games, there is also another kind of piracy: private servers.
As a means of stealing its source code, set up a separate server, and use magic or nostalgia to satisfy the experience of some specific gamers, such as the World of Warcraft private server and the legendary private server.
But in general, due to the networking function, iteration speed, operation services, etc., most online game manufacturers can easily solve the loss of customers that private servers may bring...
Stand-alone games obviously don't need to be connected to the Internet, which makes it difficult to resist piracy.
Previously, some domestic stand-alone game masterpieces even had to negotiate "expedient measures".
For example, the "Ancient Sword And Strange Tan" series has been exposed to form a non-pirated environment in a period of time after the release by "agreeing" with pirates in the emotional mode of protecting the survival opportunities of domestic stand-alone games.
However, cloud games, in which all games run on the server side, compress the rendered game screen and transmit it to the user through the network, can achieve "networking" and anti-theft for stand-alone games.
But is the theoretical model really feasible?
At least on top of TapTap and Steam, the two main distribution platforms for indie games, we've seen the light of day.
In January 2021, TapTap launched the cloud play function and launched 15 cloud games such as "300 Battles" and "Crash 3".
As a rival, Valve (V) Steam used two operations to show its technical strength.
It first launched a new feature in March, "Remote Fun", and made a promotion with a cloud-like model.
That is, players who own the game can invite players who do not have the game to connect remotely, in which case the latter does not need to download or purchase the game to play together.
Such a "cloud game" mode, with its own sharing function, forms a game social.
Steam went one step further in August, with its handheld game console Steam Deck receiving more than 100,000 orders in the first week of pre-sale.
Why is the handheld machine that has been hit by mobile games and mainly carries the entertainment experience of single-player games resurrection at this moment?
It's cloud gaming.
This handheld machine, which realizes cloud gaming as the core selling point, has been highly affirmed in the trial process of a number of senior game practitioners.
For example, the head of Microsoft's Xbox home game console department posted online after a week of trial play, saying that the handheld is a very good device, you can play games anytime, anywhere, the screen size and feel are great. He experienced Halo and Age of Empires through cloud games on it, and he felt good. ”
In addition to removing the components of commercial mutual praise (the games they play are classic games produced by Microsoft), there should still be considerable expectations and affirmations for the commercialization of cloud games that this handheld can achieve for stand-alone games.
Looking back at indie games, this announcement is ultimately just a gesture, and the deterrent effect on profit-driven piracy is almost zero, just like the various anti-piracy statements made by predecessors for decades.
And independent game manufacturers themselves have a small (profit) small force, and it is almost difficult to have more practical actions when their own survival is still difficult.
In other words, from a realistic point of view, the only way for independent games to solve the problem of piracy is not legal means, but to achieve the cloud game model as soon as possible.
Only by allowing users to connect through the network, the game client is in the cloud, as long as the source code is not leaked and the pirate is unable to set up a cloud server (the technical difficulty is extremely difficult), there is naturally no piracy problem.
Technology is the ultimate moat against piracy, and that's it.