Making high-quality video games ain't cheap. If you aren't some massive corporation putting millions of dollars behind a project, chances are you're scraping together anything you can to get a game finished and out the door. Such is life for the indie developer. The costs of making an engine from scratch or licensing one out--plus other expenses like getting a development team together, asset licensing, and marketing--can become a major financial burden. So when it comes to game engines, indies can't always afford the best of the best. At least, that was the case. CryEngine and Unreal Engine 4 have unveiled low-cost subscription models and indies finally have access to the high-end development tools for a reasonable fee, which can open up the creative and technical possibilities for low-budget games.
And the engines themselves can also benefit: With so many more hands tinkering with Unreal Engine 4 and CryEngine, that's just that many more developers putting the tools through their paces. Errors could be found quicker than before, feedback will get to the developers faster, and the engine's performance can improve rapidly--giving indies and AAA developers alike an even better engine to work with. It's a total win-win situation.
Indie games will be on more of a level playing field with the blockbuster games out there. Think of a game with the graphical prowess of something like, I dunno, Ryse: Son of Rome, but with the experimental and innovative gameplay you see in outside-the-box indie games like The Stanley Parable. Maybe one day you won't be able to, at a glance, distinguish between a multi-million dollar title from a major developer and a game made by a single person.
