Loads of people just don't realize a very big canyon of a difference between two completely different realms. That is the realm of commercial game development and indie game development. We're all in the indie game development aspect as of now, but people just keep comparing both to each other as if they're the same thing, but let me state a bit of a truth here. They're nothing alike. The only thing they have in common is the game development aspect, and the way things are made, the people involved and pretty much anything else beyond the basics between these two "realms" are completely different.

Just how large is this canyon of a difference? Let me enlighten those who are in the dark.

Firstly, let's discuss commercial game development. Commerical game developers are professional people who have studied game design and programming among other things, and that's their job, their career, their life basically. Professional games consist of a TEAM of people, where clusters of 5 or so are divided into different aspects of a game (graphics, design, music, testing, etc.) Budgets run from a few hundred dollars to millions, and these games take an extensive amount of time to create. There's a professional market for these games, where they're released into the real world to compete against each other.

Then let's discuss indie game development. This type involves unprofessionals, people who do this in their spare time. Mostly, we work with a team of a whopping one person, where we must do all aspects of a game ourselves. There is NO budget (99% of the time) for these projects and there is NO market in the real world (again, 99% of the time) for these developers.

So now we see a difference. A big one. This stuff is not rocket science, trust me. But since this is so obvious, why do SO MANY people desire to compare the two as if they have but little differences? I've seen scores of people saying "I wouldn't play a game for the graphics from GM, just like I wouldn't buy one". That's a WRONG way of thinking. If a game from GM has good graphics, there's a HUGE chance that the game itself would be good. Why do I think so? Because of one word: polish.

Polish was defined the best by FredFredrickson, where he said that it wasn't just that the game LOOKED good, but was actually finished and then some. More often than not, people consider good graphics and such a cherry on top of the sundae, and since you never put the cherry on the bowl first, you never start a game with the great graphics and effects. Once people finish the game, THEN they work on making the game actually look nice and pleasing to the eye. What does this mean for the player? That if the creator had time to make the game pleasing to the eye, he obviously had time to make the game itself good. This isn't just some cooked up theory, this is the actual truth about how the majority of the people with GM worked. Trust me, I've asked. I know.

All of the above is absolute bullcrap when you're talking about commerical games. The above NEVER applies for the sole reason that there's separate people around the subject of game graphics and eyecandy. You don't NEED a great game for great graphics, because there's specialists for each of the two aspects in commercial games. There aren't any "stages" of development where they start the game, finish the game and then touch it up like we do in indie game development. They make each their separate parts at the same time and put it together, so it's all completely different.

So NOW do we see that the two can't be compared? This is exactly like comparing apples to oranges, as opposed to what some of you may say. The way each of these two types are made are COMPLETELY different, and the example above illustrates just how much the difference can affect the actual game.

Bottom line, DON'T COMPARE. Don't even THINK about comparing. The two are completely within their own realm, and when you start comparing them, problems and crap like the one above begin to rise. When looking at indie games, just leave your commerical-game thinking on the door. That will help you out like you would never believe.