this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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I mean, by that definition he's not wrong.
It's just that the way that works is indie devs become big enough to either become whatever the hell triple A means or get bought by whatever the hell triple A is.
Magicka was an indie game, I really struggle to fit Helldivers 2, a Sony-published sequel to a Sony-published game, into that same bucket. Ditto for Larian. Divinity OS? Sure. Hasbro-backed multi-studio Baldur's Gate 3 with its hundreds of millions of budget? Myeaaaaah, I don't know.
I think the real question is how you keep the principles that make indie games interesting in play when the big money comes in. I'm all for an indie-driven industry, but I'm a touch more queasy about a world in which major publishers use tiny devs as a million monkeys with typewriters taking on all the risk and step in at the very end (sometimes post-release) to scoop up the few moneymakers.
John Romero hasn't been relevant since Quake and arguably hasn't been any good since Hexen/Heretic. I'm not sure why we are subjected to his "hot takes" on an annual basis.
edit: oh, I think he's an asshole. I've met him, he was not fun.
Well, in this case I'd guess because his indie dev studio just got royally hosed by Microsoft, so he definitely has good reason to hot take the hell out of the relationship between major publishers and indie studios at the moment.