EA releases its own 'indie' bundle

It's not a move one would expect from a monolithic publisher, but Electronic Arts has released its own "indie bundle" featuring six games from developers under its EA Partners label. The move incited mixed reactions, with some questioning if anything from EA can be considered "indie."

The bundle, available for around $21 on Steam, features Deathspank (seen above) and Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue (Hothead Games), Gatling Gears (Vanguard Games), Shank and Shank 2 (Klei Entertainment) and Warp (Trapdoor Inc.). The sale goes until May 9.

While the release is a bit unprecedented, the buzz that followed had some bashing and others defending the move. Among the bashers, Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson accused EA of "attempting to ruin everything," following up saying that "indies are trying to save gaming ..."

However, among the defenders, Halfbrick Studios' Ryan Langley said he didn't have a problem with it: "EA's got a bunch of things to be grumpy about, but this isn't really one of them."

Dev Mike Bithell effectively summed up the "controversy" with his own tweet: "so... did twitter decide who's indie and who's not in the end? Is there a list somewhere I can get hold of?"