The Game Awards made me think, do small indies even stand a chance anymore?

The nominees for The Game Awards 2025 are now out. Most feel fitting, especially with the fantastic Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leading the charge with a record number of nominations, but having it in the Best Independent categories betrays the point of the show.

People are questioning the validity of seeing genuine small indie titles going up against juggernauts like Silksong, Hades 2, and the aforementioned monster large enough to overshadow even those two. To get to the bottom of this, we should perhaps land on a definition for Indie Game.

What is an indie game?

The “indie” moniker describes a game by a developer that’s either associated with a small publisher or one that does self-publishing. So, by definition, a huge team owned by a billionaire who decides to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the development of his pet project without the backing of extra forces would still count as an independent production.

You can probably see why that would defeat the purpose of an award such as “Best Indie”. This award exists to shine a light on games whose exposure would otherwise be much smaller. Hades 2, the sequel to a massive hit, doesn’t need that. Hollow Knight: Silksong, a game that had millions of people constantly speculating over many years regarding its mysterious development, doesn’t need that. Expedition 33, which instantly became one of the biggest cultural phenomena in the history of the medium, definitely doesn’t need that.

And one could argue that “Best Indie Game” category is now fair game for bigger titles, as the category for truly small indie titles now is the “Best Debut Indie Game”, but, well, you can also witness Expedition 33 severing the feet of every other game there at the same time.

Expedition 33 provides something transcendent that most AAA games simply don’t, and at a fraction of the cost. It’s also made by a smaller team than what you’d expect, but it still contains over thirty people and cost a lot to make. Expedition 33 got that name because it was famously made by a team of 32 people and a dog (hence, 33!), but it’s also known that the team outsourced efforts for an unknown number of tasks.

Expedition 33 will likely win in most categories, possibly even do a clean sweep, and not because the year lacked any competition. It’s that good, but its inevitable GOTY victory more than ensures it didn’t need to be crushing much smaller games in the indie and debut indie categories, as well.

So, because their exposure is sure to get unfairly diminished this year, don’t forget to check out Blue Prince, Megabonk, despelote, Dispatch, Absolum, and Ball X Pit.