10 Lessons The Gaming Industry Must Learn From 2014

4. Indie Is A Very Real, Very Valuable Market

We came to know and love dozens of gaming starlets last year, but few harnessed the sheer intrigue and grandeur that No Man's Sky brought to its many trailers and events. What's most interesting here is the fact that No Man's Sky comes from such a small studio - Hello Games, no more than a few devs dozen strong - but has taken the mainstream gaming scene by storm, especially over at PlayStation. After all, Sony executives are positively drooling over the title and fought hard to win timed exclusivity of it. Just a few years ago, it would never have been possible for an independent developer to overshadow triple-A projects and their gargantuan marketing budgets. But thanks to such hits as Terraria, Transistor, Shovel Knight, Don't Starve, and perhaps most notably, Minecraft, even the smallest of teams can get their great idea on the biggest stage. Games that were once considered padding for library size and fodder for giveaways are now getting the front-page attention they deserve. Just look at the time Sony dedicated toward a raft of indies during their E3 showing, or how heavily Microsoft doted on Ori and the Blind Forest. What's more, we're beginning to see small-time projects come from large studios. Ubisoft's Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a standout, but developers far and wide are starting to like the idea of working small. Independent development isn't about four people eating and working out of a garage; it's about creative freedom, independence, and not being tied down by expectations and precedents. And that is exactly what an industry content with iteration needs.