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This article stated that when Microsoft acquired Access, they became known as "Indie Built." That is not correct. When they were acquired by Microsoft, they were known as Microsoft, part of Microsoft Game Studios. I have several friends who work at this location, but they never say they work for Indie Built. They always say they work for Take Two. But looking at the company's website, I guess they're officially known as Indie Built, but that name hasn't really caught on. Anyway, they couldn't have been Indie Built until after Microsoft sold them. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:31, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
If that's what is says on their website, it's legit I guess. I still think it's suspicious, though. I even interviewed there and they were all Microsoft, I never saw one piece of literature or sign that said "Indie Built." You'd think that if they were officially known as that, they'd have some sort of indication of it. There was an enormous "Microsoft" sign over the entrance to the building too, but NO indication of Indie Built.
Why in the world would they even want to be known as that? The name implies that they were an independant game developer, which they certainly weren't (Microsoft is a publisher). I don't know why MS would want to imply one of their studios was actually indie... I just don't get it: no indication of "Indie Built" at the studio, no reasonable motivation for MS to want to imply their studio was actually independant. Actually, all my contacts said they were Microsoft: Salt Lake. The only thing I can think of is that they changed the name of the studio shortly before the sale to T2.
However, the credits for Amped say it was developed by Microsoft Game Studios, not Indie Built. So I'd leave those as is. — Frecklefoot | Talk 23:21, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I worked there for many years, let me give you the full story of the name...
When Microsoft bought Access software they became simply Microsoft Salt Lake Games Group, later Microsoft re-branded it's internal games division as Microsoft Game Studios but the group in Salt Lake had no official external name and titles were published as simply Microsoft Game Studios (unlike some other MGS groups like Bungie and FASA who kept their pre-MS names).
After a few years with MS and shortly after shipping an MGS re-org (including some well publicised layoffs) the Salt Lake group decided they wanted their own identity to brand their games. After many discussions one of the senior management chose the name "Indie Games", the indie component was intended to suggent the indie nature of snowboarding games as opposed to the game development community. The name was largely hated by the staff for many reasons but it stuck and the one good thing that came out of it was the Indie Head logo (the round faced guy with sharp teeth).
Before any games could ship with the MGS/Indie Games branding Microsoft sold the studio to Take 2, as part of the sale the group formed a subsidiary company which needed a name, somebody declined to take the opportunity to ditch the loathed name and went with "Indie Built Inc." which became a subsidiary of Take 2 and was the name that graced the labels of Amped 3, Top Spin PS2 and Top Spin 2.
During this entire time the sign outside the building said Microsoft (there was still a small Microsoft sales office in the same building), only a few weeks before the studio closed down Take 2 paid for a large "Indie Built" sign to replace the MS sign on the building. It's still there but Indie Built is not :(
There were a lot of talented people working there that were treated poorly by sucessively incompetent layers of management and beurocracy. A shame, let's hope publishers think twice in the future before buying a studio only to take it apart in less than a year. Sometimes I wish the studio had been independent as the name suggsted. - June 22nd 2006
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 13:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved. ( non-admin closure) – Ammarpad ( talk) 07:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Indie Built → Access Software – Per a discussion at Talk:WPVG, this defunct company's primary name is "Access Software"—the Indie Built moniker was used for only a few years near the end of Access's almost 25-year history, most of which was spent under the Access Software label. All of Access's most notable and widely-covered titles, including Beach Head, the Tex Murphy series and the bulk of the Links series, we developed under the company's original name. Its name changed three times during the last seven years of its existence, as ownership passed between other companies. None of these other names has a solid claim to being the company's primary name in the sources, especially in comparison to the almost two-decade run that Access's original title maintained until around 1999. JimmyBlackwing ( talk) 05:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Just wondering why Indie Games redirects here instead of Indie game. I can understand the fact that it's because the company worked under the moniker for a year, but it seems more appropriate to link to the Indie Game article than here. Maybe an Indie_Games(Company) redirect would be better. GreenSixSided ( talk) 13:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)