Personal i think the criteria for no longer being an indie dev is if the company is funded by a publisher or the company itself has been or has the capacity to be a publisher themselves
Most other “indie” games are not indie under that definition, too.
The indie renaissance that occurred in the late 00’s/early 10’s was mostly indie developers obtaining good publisher deals. Some indie developers still self-publish, but the majority don’t. There are even publishers that specialize in indie game publishing.
Personal i think the criteria for no longer being an indie dev is if the company is funded by a publisher or the company itself has been or has the capacity to be a publisher themselves
So is Animal Well not an indie game? Since they were funded and published by Bigmode.
Most other “indie” games are not indie under that definition, too.
The indie renaissance that occurred in the late 00’s/early 10’s was mostly indie developers obtaining good publisher deals. Some indie developers still self-publish, but the majority don’t. There are even publishers that specialize in indie game publishing.
If you want to get technical yeah I guess it wouldn’t be independent because it wasn’t independently funded.