Every year, various games are nominated and awarded at the Game Awards. One of these games was Dave the Diver in 2023. This title had the chance to take home the best Indie Game award, but the game’s creator believes the team has nothing to do with indie.
What kind of game is Dave the Diver? In Dave the Diver, you play as diver Dave. He runs a sushi restaurant with his friends, but to provide fresh ingredients for his dishes, you need to go diving. So you venture into a mysterious Blue Hole and collect various fish for your specialties.
The game managed to sell over 1 million copies just a week after its release in 2023, and even our MeinMMO editor couldn’t resist the allure of diving. Due to its sudden success, Dave the Diver was also nominated for the best Indie Game of the year at the Game Awards 2023. However, the creator of the game insists: His game is not an Indie Game.
Nomination Doesn’t Fit the Game
What did the creator of Dave the Diver reveal? In an interview with the gaming site “4Gamer” (source: 4gamer.net), the creator of Dave the Diver, Jaeho Hwang, was asked about the controversy, as he claims his game is not an Indie Game.
He himself stated: “I wonder if people think of us as an indie studio just because we develop games in a small team, or because our graphic style and gameplay systems are unique.”
He further elaborated: “For some reason, we were also nominated for the best Indie Game award, which led some people to ask: ‘Hey, isn’t this a Nexon game?’, but it’s not like we applied for the award ourselves (laughs).”
The studio behind Dave the Diver, Mintrocket, is a subsidiary of the large company Nexon, which generates up to 2.1 billion euros annually – so it’s not a studio that had little resources for development. But why is the game still considered indie?
What is indie and what is not? When a game qualifies as an Indie Game cannot be precisely determined, as everyone has a different definition of it. Even the host of the Game Awards, Geoff Keighley, commented on the definition.
He stated that he ultimately decided to leave it up to the jury’s decision, as “independent is a broad term” and “can mean different things to different people.”
Whether it’s the art style, the budget, the team size, or the gameplay mechanics – everyone has a different interpretation. But if you were to go by team size, then Baldur’s Gate 3 would also be considered an Indie Game. You wouldn’t have thought so, right? Despite its gigantic scope and richness, the gem from Larian Studios is also an Indie Game.
There’s much room for interpretation. Another Indie Game on Steam is also very popular and is now getting even better thanks to an update. You can find more about it here: An indie hit from Germany has 90% positive reviews on Steam and is now even better thanks to a major update
