I disagree, to be honest.
I don't remember a game being released on console ever being considered an indicator of quality, to be honest. I don't know what era you're referencing when you talk about when you were younger, but even back in the 90s there was plenty of shovelware and bad quality content that got panned by gaming media and gamers.
Yeah, indie games have a lot of "noise" but it's not all bad. I appreciate that more people and small studios are making games, it means that there's sometimes more variety and truly unique stuff. I don't resent the success of indie devs/studios, it's often well-deserved and I'm glad they can get some recognition.
There's a lot of noise but that's not new, and there are some real gems that I appreciate.
I should clarify what I meant. Admittedly, my choice of words was questionable, so I apologize for that.
I do not mean that games were never criticized or considered bad if they were released on a major console, but that there was a mark of significance to that fact that independently published games didn't have at the time due to the near insurmountable barrier to entry. Consider, for example, the difference between television and YouTube. Obviously, bad shows existed and will continue to exist for as long as people will continue to enjoy watching filmed entertainment. But there was a prestige to mainstream media--even if that prestige came in the form of scorn in some cases--that indie, shot-on-video films could never have hoped to achieve. Or as another example, the fact that despite (or perhaps aided by) the rise of digital eBooks and the ease of publishing, traditionally published books still hold a considerably higher sway over the literary landscape than indie books. But now, YouTubers have eclipsed "real world" celebrities in terms of social influence, with a number of people making full time careers out of videos that just over a decade ago would have been (at best) extremely niche. And now, the fact that I can go to discount stores and buy comics that previously would have been relegated solely to DeviantArt or niche online communities speaks volumes to how indie books have changed how we regard the relationship between consumer and publisher.
Indie games still existed beforehand, obviously, but they were typically things you ordered in magazines (if that particular issue didn't come with a disk of its own) or in bulk from a local retailer, or from internet bulletin boards if you were a real early adopter. There were the unlicensed NES games, such as those made by companies like Wisdom Tree, but to my recollection, those weren't widely distributed in the same manner. Despite the number of independently made games that were genuine hits, indie games were seen as inherently inferior, so even the good ones were oft regarded as "good, for the standards of indie."
And while every console has shovelware to some extent (arguably that being a contributive factor in the video game crash of 1983), cheap, lower effort titles absolutely thrived mostly in the PC space in the 80's and 90's due to it being a considerably easier, cheaper, and less controlled platform to publish on. The only major console that really had a similar lack of quality control would probably be the Wii, which (despite being a financial success) was derided as a joke that pawn shops struggled to sell at a discount after the initial wave of popularity ended.
But because of the reasons I've mentioned above, the relationship between "indie" and "mainstream" titles has become more blurred, which ten years ago I might have said "Wow, this is wonderful!" and for the person or small group that genuinely just love making games, then it is! I'm nothing but happy for them in that regard. But the bulk of that is still going into Google, Apple, Valve, Nintendo, or whoever else. And for every runaway indie success story, there are innumerable more people, inspired by the success of those that make it big, that just don't make it for whatever reason, which may be fine if those devs/dev teams have realistic expectations and are only aiming to release the best product they can make. But many people do stake much of their hopes, emotional health, and financial livelihood on the development of indie games. And there's no shortage of developers who have taken advantage of the smaller barrier to entry to make their own little empire of absolute filth.
Adding onto this is the fact that many of these indie games have shown to harbor just as much employee abuse as their AAA counterparts. See for example,
Night in the Woods and
Florence, both fine games that show how creative and inspired the indie scene can be, but are marred by various allegations of abuse that aren't too dissimilar to those that the mainstream video game industry has had to contend with in recent years, just on a much smaller scale.
I also don't really agree that the rising popularity of indie games has led to a pool of more unique and diverse games. There are certainly standouts, but currently, there's an overflow of "cozy" games inspired by Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley within the market, many of which would be easy to confuse for one another. Before that (and arguably still now), every indie developer was flocking to make their own Metroidvania or 2D platformer, inspired by the success of Shovel Knight. And concurrently with that was the boom of indie first person shooters. I'm not saying any of these games are bad; many of them are fine games in their own right. It's just that trends come and go, and the indie scene is not immune to this.
Overall, my point isn't that indie games are any better or worse or that I don't appreciate them at all anymore. As I've stated, Undertale, Stardew Valley, and VA-11 Hall-A are some of my favorite games. And I've spent more hours than I care to admit on Minecraft before it was ever purchased by Microsoft. But I've become jaded to the idea of indie games in the current ecosystem having any intrinsic benefits over the AAA landscape. At the end of the day, indie products are products all the same, and they can be good, bad, or anywhere in between. In fact, the concept of being "indie" has effectually become just as much of a tool for marketing as any other aspect of the game. And with the mode of distribution resting firmly in the hands of a few companies, it's not exactly changing the status quo one way or the other. In other words, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
