Is your dream video game all about taking a short walk through stylized suburban nights, complete with a few quick-time events, an awkward kiss minigame, and twenty-eight licensed tracks from time that feels both close yet impossibly distant?
"Is your dream video game all about taking a short walk through stylized..." No. My dream video game has gameplay. Expedition 33 was excellent. I'm not really bothered by its half-indie/half-corpo origins because it is fun.
Hopefully billionaires with similar values and optimistic views for the future that includes ethnic neighborhoods and large families will become patrons of the arts. Could you imagine if they gave a no strings attached donation to creators in our spaces and are shocked when a large portion of the money is returned unused and the end product is actually entertaining? A man can dream!
I grew up where the CD-R was reaching high schoolers and I still kept to my cassette tapes for its reusability, ditto when CD-RW arrived on the scene. I am hoping that whatever spell or spiritual and intellectual poison that was put into the water has worn off due to so many people being burned by blindly following authority during the covid-19 related lockdowns.
Thinking for one's self has definite downsides, but the upsides more than make up for it in my opinion. Another great essay! Thank you for the hard work you put into it.
Billionaires (rich people) are garbo at having good taste. Because they have unlimited resources, but more expensive doesn’t always = good.
Thus they’d be patrons of the arts. The artists would sell them “good taste”. This was the old deal which broke down during the industrial revolution. Things that had been status signalers were now massed produced. This led to a flight towards novelty which culminated in “modern art”. Yes yes it was a CIA op but the point stands.
The old way was far better and if a billionaire wants to become my patron so I can tell them about good architecture, art, and decor, my rates are reasonable.
I tend to like Annapurna's games, but no, they are definitely not indie anymore, if they ever were. Mixtape might be a fine experience, I don't know, but the dishonestly from the industry behind this game's marketing and reception is tremendous.
The simple reality is: Mixtape is not much of a game, is poorly written, and is absolutely cringe; whereas Expedition 33 is actually a game, and a well-received one at that. Ironically, Mixtape is actually well-received as well. I'm not even talking critics (lol do they even matter anymore?). No, by the players--the people who paid and played it. Mixtape is sitting at a 91% on Steam with 1,885 reviews (at the time of writing), and Expedition 33 is 96% with over 98,000 reviews.
What's my point?
The point is that games are expensive to make and, so long as the funding sources aren't illegal, who cares how they are funded? Your long-winded, often exhausting argument reeks of fart-sniffing faux intellectualism. Which flies in the face of some of your other, much better, pieces.
You seem to be stuck on the concept of "indie" and the idea that money coming from anywhere not squeezed from a stone means you can't be indie; that there's some inherent deception in the idea that a project got funded from people with connections, money, or both.
I've worked in games for a very, very long time, and I've worked for indie, quintessential AAA devs, and everything in-between. Expedition 33 and Mixtape are both indie games built by teams without the support of AAA development. Money is only a single part of the equation with development (a difficult and challenging aspect), whereas the actual MANAGEMENT and PROCESSES of development is even worse. Just because you got funding doesn't mean you're going to ship or even if you do that anyone will even see it, let alone play it.
AAA gives more than just money, it can reduce risk, it can provide talent/pipeline scaling, marketing, and a whole lot of obstruction. AAA has resources that allow for timeline adjustments, additional studio support, even entire engines and underlying tech infrastructure.
AAA reduces risk.
To note: I am not advocating for, or against AAA, here. It has a ton of its own issues. I'm arguing that your attack on the funding sources for both of these games is silly and unfruitful.
Had you convincingly linked the funding with some larger global conspiracy to undermine our youth, or to push THE MESSAGE, or whatever valid culture-rotting directive is in vogue, maybe these articles would hit harder. As it stands, these two teams got money by any legal means necessary and built AND SHIPPED games that are resonating with their target player bases.
Neither team did anything wrong and neither team is worthy of your scorn. There are a LOT of problems with our industry and if this is one, it's the least of them.
I gave a critique. It's one from a position of actual contribution to a field you've done nothing for. It's not perfect, and I admit I miss some of the mark here, but my comment is discussing both articles and my perception that you're arguing that these "indie" games, aren't.
You overstate things and it's more verbose than it needed to be. Calling my sincere feedback "goyim" is disingenuous. I never insulted you, nor was I mean or thoughtless.
My piece wasn't calling the teams criminals or saying "funded = bad." I was pointing out that when projects with serious backing like Annapurna’s network and resources for Mixtape or Kepler’s support and grants for Expedition 33 both lean hard into the “scrappy indie underdog” branding and aesthetic, this creates a mismatch that audiences need to be aware of. “Indie” still carries a cultural signal to players: creative freedom, limited means and merit over connections. When that signal is used as marketing while the reality is venture-adjacent capital, nepo-tied wealth, or prestige publishing, it breeds the exact cynicism you see in Mixtape’s comment sections (“interactive movie,” “not really a game,” review-score vs. player gripes). Expedition 33 dodged a lot of that because it actually delivered good gameplay and scale for the budget.
Legal funding isn’t the issue. The issue is incentives and honesty. Money does shape what stories get greenlit, polished, and amplified. Pretending the source of that money has zero downstream effect on the ecosyste is the naive stance and is exactly why your concerns are Goyim concerns. Audiences aren’t wrong to question the halo when the reality is curated visibility and elite-adjacent resources. This is about pattern recognition in an industry where perception and marketing often matter as much as the game itself.
The reason you're so upset is you don't like the idea of people like me who talk aout a reality that will quietly erode player trust every time another “indie darling” turns out to have heavyweight backing and a very specific vibe. The teams shipped something people enjoyed. Cool. Doesn’t make the broader dynamic above scrutiny.
"The reason you're so upset is you don't like the idea of people like me who talk aout a reality that will quietly erode player trust every time another “indie darling” turns out to have heavyweight backing and a very specific vibe."
You're assuming a lot here.
I'm not upset, but I also strongly disagree with the take that having funding means you can't be indie or that it's always nefarious. I admit, my argument is weakened with Mixtape in the works, AND I admit that I should have written this comment on the E33 article. I crossed wires, and that's on me.
BUT, they're both still indie projects because indie isn't strictly about funding, nor is taking funding from "heavyweights" indicative of deeper cultural rot. Money is only one aspect and making games is so insanely complex and high risk, and dev cycles are so long and arduous, that money doesn't even guarantee a game ships, let alone at any quality.
I'm not pretending that money doesn't influence, but you're falling into the same trap so many who don't work in this industry fall into, that there's some global push from money to shape the output. In the case of Mixtape, Annapurna absolutely funded a studio that shares their worldview, there was no shaping needed, they were going to put out slop regardless.
But in reality, the real problem is the staff. The staff is already corrupted and shares the world view of the global elite. The money only empowers the culturally bankrupt staff. There are very few instances of money coming in and going, "You need to make these changes" because they don't have to.
I've been on so many good (and bad) projects that have fallen through for lack of funding, and projects we took funding from institutions that I wouldn't want to work with, but it kept everyone employed and it got the game shipped. The E33 team is scrappy af and they made an incredible project on an unbelievably small sum (something I think is only possible outside of the US because of a variety of things: Labor laws, social benefits, lack of overtime constraints, etc). That's as indie as it gets.
"“Indie” still carries a cultural signal to players: creative freedom, limited means and merit over connections."
I absolutely agree, the entire point of what I was trying to say--and apparently badly--is that they have the creative freedom and limited means (I disagree somewhat on the 'merit over connections', but that's a separate topic), because money is only a tiny element of getting a game done. I cannot understate the complexity of development, and money can often tank development (hello Blizzard).
I believe you're attacking the wrong part of the problem. The problem isn't the money and whose funding it, or that Mixtape or E33 aren't indie, it's that the industry is stacked with progressive, anti-human, death-cult Marxists who genuinely believe they're morally responsible to spread their disease--to be activists in their space, even if they don't consciously acknowledge that.
Expedition 33 isn't subverting anything and Mixtape is a movie-game by theatre kids posing as game devs.
Sam's argument here is that BOTH of these games are not "indie", undermined by nefarious billionaires to make Tik-Tok slop.
Mixtape is garbage, no doubt, but it's 100% in line with what the studio has made before and it has an audience. E33 is a well-received, objectively good game with a good storyline that is not slop, nor is it pushing "THE MESSAGE".
I even said E33 was good or even great. Mcdonald's is good or even great (love their McGriddles) but it'd be foolish not acknowledge the food isn't nutritionally beneficial.
You could literally make that same comment about 99% of the games industry and it's output. Selecting these 2, then grinding on them because you perceive them to be faux indie trojan horses is 10,000 words about nothing. The whole industry isn't nutritionally beneficial. At least E33 explores serious themes of grief, which is more likely to invoke serious thought for people than most.
It's funny how you keep on saying I'm "grinding" on a game I've said is "good or even great" two times now. You're the textbook definition of "leave the million-dollar corporation alone!"
The thing is, normies won’t play walking sims, Or anything without a huge “madden”, “gacha” (gambling), or braindead “FPS” logo slapped onto it. A story based walking sim has 0 chance with that demo. (There are a few other “normie friendly” genres like friendslop but the point stands)
As for storybook choose your own adventure type games. Telltale is still the gold standard for that. The average gamer takes one look at this piece of trash and turns up their nose.
This game had no audience and nobody to market to. Doesn’t matter how slick or totalizing the propaganda is. The player count on steam barely topped 1k. Lmao.
"Is your dream video game all about taking a short walk through stylized..." No. My dream video game has gameplay. Expedition 33 was excellent. I'm not really bothered by its half-indie/half-corpo origins because it is fun.
Man this game is so cringe. Megan Ellison is so dysgenic. So hard to believe these ppl are our betters.
"Elite" means "chosen." Use that as you will.
Hopefully billionaires with similar values and optimistic views for the future that includes ethnic neighborhoods and large families will become patrons of the arts. Could you imagine if they gave a no strings attached donation to creators in our spaces and are shocked when a large portion of the money is returned unused and the end product is actually entertaining? A man can dream!
I grew up where the CD-R was reaching high schoolers and I still kept to my cassette tapes for its reusability, ditto when CD-RW arrived on the scene. I am hoping that whatever spell or spiritual and intellectual poison that was put into the water has worn off due to so many people being burned by blindly following authority during the covid-19 related lockdowns.
Thinking for one's self has definite downsides, but the upsides more than make up for it in my opinion. Another great essay! Thank you for the hard work you put into it.
Billionaires (rich people) are garbo at having good taste. Because they have unlimited resources, but more expensive doesn’t always = good.
Thus they’d be patrons of the arts. The artists would sell them “good taste”. This was the old deal which broke down during the industrial revolution. Things that had been status signalers were now massed produced. This led to a flight towards novelty which culminated in “modern art”. Yes yes it was a CIA op but the point stands.
The old way was far better and if a billionaire wants to become my patron so I can tell them about good architecture, art, and decor, my rates are reasonable.
Looks creepy as F.
I tend to like Annapurna's games, but no, they are definitely not indie anymore, if they ever were. Mixtape might be a fine experience, I don't know, but the dishonestly from the industry behind this game's marketing and reception is tremendous.
I loved Donut County and I think everyone should play it especially if they don't like racoons.
You're tilting at windmills here.
The simple reality is: Mixtape is not much of a game, is poorly written, and is absolutely cringe; whereas Expedition 33 is actually a game, and a well-received one at that. Ironically, Mixtape is actually well-received as well. I'm not even talking critics (lol do they even matter anymore?). No, by the players--the people who paid and played it. Mixtape is sitting at a 91% on Steam with 1,885 reviews (at the time of writing), and Expedition 33 is 96% with over 98,000 reviews.
What's my point?
The point is that games are expensive to make and, so long as the funding sources aren't illegal, who cares how they are funded? Your long-winded, often exhausting argument reeks of fart-sniffing faux intellectualism. Which flies in the face of some of your other, much better, pieces.
You seem to be stuck on the concept of "indie" and the idea that money coming from anywhere not squeezed from a stone means you can't be indie; that there's some inherent deception in the idea that a project got funded from people with connections, money, or both.
I've worked in games for a very, very long time, and I've worked for indie, quintessential AAA devs, and everything in-between. Expedition 33 and Mixtape are both indie games built by teams without the support of AAA development. Money is only a single part of the equation with development (a difficult and challenging aspect), whereas the actual MANAGEMENT and PROCESSES of development is even worse. Just because you got funding doesn't mean you're going to ship or even if you do that anyone will even see it, let alone play it.
AAA gives more than just money, it can reduce risk, it can provide talent/pipeline scaling, marketing, and a whole lot of obstruction. AAA has resources that allow for timeline adjustments, additional studio support, even entire engines and underlying tech infrastructure.
AAA reduces risk.
To note: I am not advocating for, or against AAA, here. It has a ton of its own issues. I'm arguing that your attack on the funding sources for both of these games is silly and unfruitful.
Had you convincingly linked the funding with some larger global conspiracy to undermine our youth, or to push THE MESSAGE, or whatever valid culture-rotting directive is in vogue, maybe these articles would hit harder. As it stands, these two teams got money by any legal means necessary and built AND SHIPPED games that are resonating with their target player bases.
Neither team did anything wrong and neither team is worthy of your scorn. There are a LOT of problems with our industry and if this is one, it's the least of them.
All I can think of when reading your comment is, "Goyim."
Get out of here with this stupid comment.
I gave a critique. It's one from a position of actual contribution to a field you've done nothing for. It's not perfect, and I admit I miss some of the mark here, but my comment is discussing both articles and my perception that you're arguing that these "indie" games, aren't.
You overstate things and it's more verbose than it needed to be. Calling my sincere feedback "goyim" is disingenuous. I never insulted you, nor was I mean or thoughtless.
My piece wasn't calling the teams criminals or saying "funded = bad." I was pointing out that when projects with serious backing like Annapurna’s network and resources for Mixtape or Kepler’s support and grants for Expedition 33 both lean hard into the “scrappy indie underdog” branding and aesthetic, this creates a mismatch that audiences need to be aware of. “Indie” still carries a cultural signal to players: creative freedom, limited means and merit over connections. When that signal is used as marketing while the reality is venture-adjacent capital, nepo-tied wealth, or prestige publishing, it breeds the exact cynicism you see in Mixtape’s comment sections (“interactive movie,” “not really a game,” review-score vs. player gripes). Expedition 33 dodged a lot of that because it actually delivered good gameplay and scale for the budget.
Legal funding isn’t the issue. The issue is incentives and honesty. Money does shape what stories get greenlit, polished, and amplified. Pretending the source of that money has zero downstream effect on the ecosyste is the naive stance and is exactly why your concerns are Goyim concerns. Audiences aren’t wrong to question the halo when the reality is curated visibility and elite-adjacent resources. This is about pattern recognition in an industry where perception and marketing often matter as much as the game itself.
The reason you're so upset is you don't like the idea of people like me who talk aout a reality that will quietly erode player trust every time another “indie darling” turns out to have heavyweight backing and a very specific vibe. The teams shipped something people enjoyed. Cool. Doesn’t make the broader dynamic above scrutiny.
"The reason you're so upset is you don't like the idea of people like me who talk aout a reality that will quietly erode player trust every time another “indie darling” turns out to have heavyweight backing and a very specific vibe."
You're assuming a lot here.
I'm not upset, but I also strongly disagree with the take that having funding means you can't be indie or that it's always nefarious. I admit, my argument is weakened with Mixtape in the works, AND I admit that I should have written this comment on the E33 article. I crossed wires, and that's on me.
BUT, they're both still indie projects because indie isn't strictly about funding, nor is taking funding from "heavyweights" indicative of deeper cultural rot. Money is only one aspect and making games is so insanely complex and high risk, and dev cycles are so long and arduous, that money doesn't even guarantee a game ships, let alone at any quality.
I'm not pretending that money doesn't influence, but you're falling into the same trap so many who don't work in this industry fall into, that there's some global push from money to shape the output. In the case of Mixtape, Annapurna absolutely funded a studio that shares their worldview, there was no shaping needed, they were going to put out slop regardless.
But in reality, the real problem is the staff. The staff is already corrupted and shares the world view of the global elite. The money only empowers the culturally bankrupt staff. There are very few instances of money coming in and going, "You need to make these changes" because they don't have to.
I've been on so many good (and bad) projects that have fallen through for lack of funding, and projects we took funding from institutions that I wouldn't want to work with, but it kept everyone employed and it got the game shipped. The E33 team is scrappy af and they made an incredible project on an unbelievably small sum (something I think is only possible outside of the US because of a variety of things: Labor laws, social benefits, lack of overtime constraints, etc). That's as indie as it gets.
"“Indie” still carries a cultural signal to players: creative freedom, limited means and merit over connections."
I absolutely agree, the entire point of what I was trying to say--and apparently badly--is that they have the creative freedom and limited means (I disagree somewhat on the 'merit over connections', but that's a separate topic), because money is only a tiny element of getting a game done. I cannot understate the complexity of development, and money can often tank development (hello Blizzard).
I believe you're attacking the wrong part of the problem. The problem isn't the money and whose funding it, or that Mixtape or E33 aren't indie, it's that the industry is stacked with progressive, anti-human, death-cult Marxists who genuinely believe they're morally responsible to spread their disease--to be activists in their space, even if they don't consciously acknowledge that.
You lack reading comprehension and your comment is retarded. Read the article again or ask AI to summarize it for you.
Expedition 33 isn't subverting anything and Mixtape is a movie-game by theatre kids posing as game devs.
Sam's argument here is that BOTH of these games are not "indie", undermined by nefarious billionaires to make Tik-Tok slop.
Mixtape is garbage, no doubt, but it's 100% in line with what the studio has made before and it has an audience. E33 is a well-received, objectively good game with a good storyline that is not slop, nor is it pushing "THE MESSAGE".
Sam is missing the mark, and you're insufferable.
You know if you're lazy, you can at least read the conclusion.
I even said E33 was good or even great. Mcdonald's is good or even great (love their McGriddles) but it'd be foolish not acknowledge the food isn't nutritionally beneficial.
You could literally make that same comment about 99% of the games industry and it's output. Selecting these 2, then grinding on them because you perceive them to be faux indie trojan horses is 10,000 words about nothing. The whole industry isn't nutritionally beneficial. At least E33 explores serious themes of grief, which is more likely to invoke serious thought for people than most.
It's funny how you keep on saying I'm "grinding" on a game I've said is "good or even great" two times now. You're the textbook definition of "leave the million-dollar corporation alone!"
https://youtu.be/sEyIbbxmbW8?si=B2XWqLtRZF9FqgBJ
One doesn't "play" this "game" ... so much as watch the wierd feminist propaganda.
The thing is, normies won’t play walking sims, Or anything without a huge “madden”, “gacha” (gambling), or braindead “FPS” logo slapped onto it. A story based walking sim has 0 chance with that demo. (There are a few other “normie friendly” genres like friendslop but the point stands)
As for storybook choose your own adventure type games. Telltale is still the gold standard for that. The average gamer takes one look at this piece of trash and turns up their nose.
This game had no audience and nobody to market to. Doesn’t matter how slick or totalizing the propaganda is. The player count on steam barely topped 1k. Lmao.