7 Conclusions: Independent Evermore

Independent games have many origins, but they are also a logical consequence of the fact that video games are now played by more than 50 percent of the population in many rich countries.
1
It used to be that playing video games was a differentiator, but now a new differentiator is needed, and (the idea of) independent games serve that need. In her book Realism, Linda Nochlin argues that in art, "the creation of the avantgarde was the mirror image, the precise response to the emergence of the mass Philistine audience."
2
Some independent and art games can be seen as a similar response to the broadening of the video game audience, a way for self-identified game connoisseurs to demonstrate a particularly refined taste, now that most people play video games. It is a central contradiction in independent games, that they can both democratize video games by enabling more diverse and DIY development and rarify game consumption by catering to the tastes of a selected few.