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Indie games are video games that are created independently of the financial backing of a large publishing company. These games generally have a small or non-existent budget and are often primarily available online or through friend-to-friend sharing, although in some cases budgets can run in the millions, and indie games have appeared on consoles and in game stores.

The term is a video game industry analog to "independent film".

Typically when indie games are being created, there is an individual or a small team of up to 10 people, depending on the type of game in question and its complexity. For larger, more complex video games this usually includes 2D and 3D artists, programmers, musician, etc, while other forms, such as RPGs, roguelikes or Flash games, may require only an individual effort. These games may take years to be constructed from the ground up or can be completed in a matter of days or even hours depending on complexity, participants and design goal. Indie games are often being developed in spare time and spare space (homes, garages, basements, parties, etc).

Before the mid-1990s, commercial game distribution was controlled by big publishers and retailers, and developers of indie games were forced to either build their own publishing company, find one willing to distribute their game or distribute it in some form of shareware (eg. through BBSs). With the rise of online shopping, it has become possible to sell indie games to a worldwide market with little or no initial investment, by using services such as eBay and PayPal.

By the mid 2000s many indie (computer) game developers have also taken the opportunity of making their game open source, thus rendering the group of possible participants much larger depending on the interest a project generates. This approach enables, if enough interest is generated, much more complex game - and software - projects to succeed where a closed source version would be necessarily restricted or extended over a much longer period of time (up to becoming obsolete before release) due to the limited resources available.

The origins of indie video games may be traced back to the seventies, when there was virtually no established computer gaming industry. As video game companies developed they drew talent from this pool of programmers, though at no point actually eradicating it. The two have continued to co-exist. During the 90's, indie games were most commonly distributed as shareware or shared from friend to friend and therefore known as "shareware games"; nowadays, this term has a more derogatory connotation^{[citation needed]} as indie games are competing with their big-budget corporate brethren.

Indie video games are strongly linked to casual games, shareware, freeware and open source software. Indie developers are generally motivated by strong personal interest in the title they are working on, often a niche game that would not be produced by the mainstream^{[citation needed]}. They tend to belong to some sort of community (usually Internet-based) which recognizes developers^{[citation needed]}.

• Indie role-playing game (Independent pen and paper role-playing game)
• Doujin soft
• List of indie game developers
• List of indie games
• Independent Games Festival

• Madmonkey.net The oldest independent game showcase site
• GameTrove Indie Game Portal
• Beginner's Guide to Indie Gaming Games nominated by the independent game development community.
• Independent Gaming A group blog listing independent games, with news and reviews, updated daily, with an emphasis on freeware.
• The Independent Gaming Source - A similar group blog, with forums with an emphasis on the creative aspects of independent game development.
• Indiegamer.com Forums - Forums for independent game developers, with an emphasis on the business aspects of independent game development.
• Game Tunnel Independent game reviews, with an emphasis on shareware.
• GarageGames Forums centered around the Torque Game Builder engine.
• Independent Games Festival A large international contest for independent games.