Notch Talks About Being 'Indie'

Speaking to PC Gamer, Mojang co-founder and Minecraft developer Markus "Notch" Persson said that his company no longer feels like an "indie studio."

"I don't think [Mojang] are indie in the sense of how I used to work anymore, because we have a payroll to worry about and we need to do stuff to ensure the company lasts," said Persson. "But as a company, I don't think we are indie in the sense that I used to mean it. But in the other sense of indie - as in we make games we want to play without having any external dependencies - then yeah, we're indie."

Persson went on to say that the definition of what an indie development studio is has changed. In the old days people used to think of an indie developer as a person or group of people getting together in a living room or a garage to create games and software.

"These days it's become hip to pay for indie games," Persson added. "That's partly down to people charging for it, like with the Humble Indie Bundle, and partly because of Steam doing awesome stuff. [Being indie is] much easier these days, but there's still no guarantee you'll make a profit. If you're doing it out of passion and just want to get some money back, it's definitely doable."

While 4,741,333 people have bought Minecraft and over 20 million have registered to play, one might make the argument that you can be an indie and make millions. Companies like Stardock and Valve could be considered indie simply because they aren't owned by multi-million dollar corporate task masters. Even if that argument doesn't fly for most, no one can argue that Mojang still has that maverick indie spirit that turned the company into a hit maker..

Source: Eurogamer. Image Credit: Word of Notch