A Moogle  🏳️‍🌈 💻 🎮 🎶 🇸🇪

So to that end, I have to wonder: At what point are a person or persons no longer "indie" developers? Is @ConcernedApe somehow not entitled to that moniker due to the wild success of Stardew Valley, and the ensuing expansion of personnel?

It occurs to me that over the past decade or so, there's been a gradual refinement of what people perceive as "indie", to the extent that people might accuse a successful, but small, group of developers as not being indie "enough", as if it's some modern form of "street cred".

I think one of the pile of meaning associated with indie is "small-scale". Where a small number of people work on one game (because they can't do more) and have multiple hats (because, again, no choice) which, when it works (which is not often) gives very tight, focused games

"Small-scale" in relation to what, exactly? I can't get into the exact specifics of what we're doing where I work - heavens, I wish I could - but from my perspective, we're pulling off a title far beyond what the general gaming public would expect from our studio head-count.

From what I understand, your studio has reached a size where people can concentrate on what they do well, because there's other people to do the rest. Small-scale is under that, I think

In that case, all I can say without breaking NDA is that your understanding is incorrect. As far as programmers, artists, and designers go, there has been an enormous amount of jumping between specialties.

One of our graphics coders also wrote our input system and our localization system. One of our original UI coders now works on a feature team. One of our engine coders has pulled double-duty on gameplay mechanics. I started out as a gameplay programmer and moved into UI.

Sure, but you all switch between things you're good at. Small-scale means people also have to do the things they're bad at (that including marketing more often than not)