ABSTRACT
Indie developers and publishers have cultivated an identity defined by outsider authenticity in order to differentiate themselves aesthetically and discursively from the comparatively slick and corporate-dominant game industry. Another way indie publishers differentiate themselves is geographically by promoting indie games at ancillary events and adjacent spaces to the industry’s largest gatherings. The clever portmanteau “IndiE3” is a series of indie game events that coincide with the annual E3 in Los Angeles. The IndiE3 of recent years purposefully juxtaposes itself against the frantic schedule and crowds of the LA Convention Center, positioned across the street, by providing a space of reprieve, indie game counter-programing, and a more relaxed atmosphere. Drawing from site-visits, marketing materials, social media discourse, and press articles, this chapter deploys a cultural industry and cultural geography framework to examine the circuits of strategic spatial promotion of indie games in the Los Angeles area during E3 week in June. It suggests that boutique indie publishers and indie intermediaries associated with IndiE3 use proximity to the dominant industry event in order to perform a deliberate outsider authenticity by establishing their anti-E3 exhibition spaces in eyesight of the event they disavow, allowing for the continued construction of a discourse of rebellion while also being strategically timed and placed to benefit from E3.
