“AAA Indie” Game Development

Notice that an independent game development studio, Zero Point, is working with the community fairly closely to produce a space shooter called Interstellar Marines.  They are funded largely by pre-sales of the game, and to maintain credibility, they release video and game demo material so the community can see their progress.  Their “Bullseye” training area demo is playable on Mac and PC on the web because they are developing the game using the Unity engine, which is cross-platform and runs in a browser.  They don’t currently have, and don’t plan to have, a “publisher” in the traditional sense, which is kind of exciting; the people working to make the game are the ones who will distribute and profit from it.  There’s something pure about the simplicity of it.  And, true to Zero Point’s claims of Interstellar Marines being an “AAA” title, it actually looks pretty good!