Mastertronic (that lovely bunch of budgety wubble bunnies founded in the early 80’s) have unveiled a new initiative & product line called Great Indie Games.
Aiming to do for the independent developer types what Good Old Games did for the abandonware movement (with a similarly catchy acronym) – get them into places where nobody ever thought possible – in this case, retail!
Read more for details & nitpicking!
Of course, this is the internet and there are valid questions that need to be raised, such as the futility of the whole outfit.
Firstly, in a climate where indie developers are coping better through digital downloads, why bother giving them a retail presence when a) they’ll be lost in amongst the Rock Bands & the Calls of Duty and b) a portion of the cut will likely go to the big (?) M.
Secondly, will the service be offered to start-up outfits or just those that perform well enough digitally too afford it? If the latter, surely the majority of their customers will have already bought it?
Finally, I bought (for example) World of Goo for £7 off Steam (and others such as Trials 2 & Defense Grid for even less) – How can M hope to cope without adding value for what amount to throwaway games (i.e. bundle us a disc-based pre-printed WoG soundtrack, a putty Goo ball and some of Kyle Gabler & Ron Carmels hair in a hermetically sealed display case), thereby raising the cost?
So, is the mascot’s unimpressed raised eyebrow an appropriate look or just a silly design decision? The fabled World of Goo (my #2 game of 2008) is too be the first entry in the series (finally getting an EU retail presence) for £15/€20 – grab it at retail some time in July.
