We Hate It Until We Love It

If you've played any indie games in the past couple of years, you've probably noticed that a lot of the people who make them really like Japanese games from the mid-to-late '80s. In particular, Capcom's Mega-Man franchise has launched a thousand indie games. Which is to say, lots of indie devs have shamelessly copied it.

I don't have a problem with that, per se. Copying, even shamelessly, can have great results. I didn't think so back when I was in eighth grade reading and rereading The Catcher In the Rye, and buying into Holden Caulfield's message that everyone who isn't aggressively living for him- or herself every moment of every day is a phony, but it was (maybe ironically) going to college and being an art major that changed my mind. I learned that copying is a part of artistic growth. Very few people can find their own style without first imitating the styles of their heroes.

But you don't even always have to find your own style. Look at Kurt Heasley, whose band, Lilys, have made a career out of reconstructing genres, from shoegaze to garage rock. Heasley said of the band's first album, In the Presence of Nothing, that he wrote it because he wanted to see if he could have made My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything. Turns out he could have, and on subsequent albums he proved that he could have made a lot of other famous records, as well. Lilys have never done anything I would consider remotely original, but they operate within established conventions so perfectly that you'd have to be a real ass not to at least appreciate their skill.

Now Capcom, after years of getting ripped off by small indie developers, has shamelessly ripped off Twisted Pixel's 'Splosion Man with their new iOS game MaXplosion. And indie fanboys are outraged. How dare Capcom copy a poor, defenseless indie developer! Why aren't they being more original? What they should be asking, though, is why they didn't mind when 'Splosion Man stole jokes from Portal and The Family Guy, or why calling the upcoming sequel Ms. 'Splosion Man is so much more brilliant now than when Namco did it with Ms. Pac-Man in the '80s.

Now I'm not a Twisted Pixel fan, but it's not because they're unoriginal--it's because they don't do anything interesting with what they steal. Like Chris Farley's desperate celebrity interviews on Saturday Night Live, they're just repeating anecdotes about more interesting games, TV shows, etc. and saying "Remember when that happened? That was awesome!"



Of course when the shoe is on the other foot, and a major publisher is doing to Twisted Pixel what they've done to other major publishers, the fanboys are out for blood. This ridiculous double standard is the major reason I can't maintain interest in indie games. In practice, indie fanboys realize that there are no wholly original ideas, as evidenced by their championing things like Ms. 'Splosion Man and Braid's call-backs to Super Mario Bros. But they loudly and obnoxiously chastise "mainstream" games for not being more original, as if anyone with a budget is incapable of the ironic references they so cherish in low budget games.

This is the same double standard on which all of hipster culture is built, and it's why I find that culture so depressing. Rather than just appreciating what they appreciate, every new fad has to be "jumped in," as it were, being loathed until it suddenly turns some arbitrary corner and becomes beloved. Look at the "three wolf moon" t-shirt phenomenon, in which an ugly t-shirt for sale on Amazon went from being an object of universal derision to being TOTALLY AWESOME almost overnight. It's the same with the current rash of indie mascot platformers, from 'Splosion Man to Super Meat Boy. Games like Kid Chameleon and Awesome Possum were hated for so long that they've turned the corner and become beloved again, and we've forgotten all the good reasons they were hated in the first place.

These shifts tend to happen more quickly today, though. It will probably only be a week before MaXplosion is a beloved "cult classic," and having it on your iPad will score you serious indie cred.

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Addendum: Just after posting this, I looked at Joystiq, where I saw that an indie studio I love, Zombie Cow, decided to cancel its upcoming game Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, saying:

Writing Revenge of the Balloon-Headed Mexican, it felt like we were going over old, worn ground. Again and again. We've done all this. We've seen it all before. There’s nothing fresh or new and exciting about it...

If only more indies were so honest with themselves, we'd all be better off.