Usually small independently run dev teams with small publishers or self pub

Indie games (short for independent) are games that aren't backed by a publishers financing. Leading to more control over the product by the developers, more experimental games or non formulastic gameplay is to be expected.

Some indie games like bg3 are big budget AAA productions. Other ones like schedule 1 are single developer passion projects. It really spans the gamut of what you can expect.

AFAIK, plenty of details are self-explanatory once you figured-out, or learned, that the word "indie" was spun off of the word "independent" in this context.

I'm guessing most of the older major studios of today started it this way, as they invented IPs they would continue to use years later. Nonetheless, it comes to show that it doesn't take a billion in USD or the latest in computer technology to innovate gameplay, mostly just a lot of thought and passionate work.

It's mostly the absence of large financial investors with their own financial goals and instead often privately or crowd funded. Think about the creative freedom without a focus on sales numbers.

Originally posted by Overseer:

It's mostly the absence of large financial investors with their own financial goals and instead often privately or crowd funded. Think about the creative freedom without a focus on sales numbers.

*Game studio sells to a publisher, promising that it would push the game to new heights, but publisher takes helm, not knowing what they are doing, and lays off developers to mitigate the losses that ensue from having no more than an unfinished flop.*

I don't think game publishers were this sort of problematic (as often) back then...