Interview: TOVG crew outlines IndieLand 2023 & teases bright future ahead

The indie game showcase IndieLand will be running for its seventh year in a row in 2023. We spoke to Jirard Khalil and Michael Barrye of TOVG about the shift for this year’s event, as well as what the team has planned for the future.

The annual indie celebration run by the team at That One Video Gamer has come quite a long way since its origins in 2018. With 2023’s event still to come, the team is setting up a more refined and technical showcase this year, instead of looking to go overboard with what could end up as a messier show.

One of the donation incentives for IndieLand 2019 was to host the event live. Though with the global crisis in 2020, this live iteration was pushed back to 2022. IndieLand was held in Los Angeles that year and proved to be a huge success.

This year, however, TOVG announced that IndieLand 2023 would be an online-only event once again, with viewers able to ‘attend’ via streaming platforms like Twitch or YouTube. When asked about the reason behind this decision, Barrye spoke about wanting a “tighter, stellar show”, as opposed to breaking their limits.

IndieLand in 2023 to be a “tighter” show overall

“Jiard pulled me into his office and was like, hey Mikey, ‘I wanna talk about IndieLand. We’re doing too much, we have taken on so many projects this year…’ We’re not normally the type of people, for better or for worse, who recognize our limits,” Barrye said.

“This was a time when Jirard was like, ‘we need to recognize our limits.’ Yes, we absolutely could have done the event again in person, however, all the things that we had talked about would not have necessarily manifested the way that we wanted them to.”

“Based on everything that we currently have going on looking at the calendar, it will serve us better overall to put on a stellar, tighter show that is digital than a more bombastic and half-developed show.”

Looking to the future of IndieLand

Whilst IndieLand 2023 has been somewhat locked in, the TOVG team is already eyeing what’s to come, more than hopeful for the future of the event.

“We would love to be comparable and in some ways, we kind of are like being The Game Awards and being able to break exclusives. Last year we presented the trailer for Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince. PlayTonic Friends provided us with the game trailer, so that was very, very exciting.”

Alongside the opportunity to unveil indie games, the team is hoping to continue the trend of showcasing exclusive game builds specifically made for IndieLand as well.

Twitter: Completionist

Jirard was featured in the indie game Sea of Stars for IndieLand 2022.

The team has “kicked around” several ideas, however much of them require large productions like game jams and conventions, which require bigger sums of money.

“The reality is, is that we are self-funding and a lot of the self-funding that we do is dependent on how I do as the owner of a business,” Jirard explained.

So, you know, if The Completionist has a good year, then sure, IndieLand will have a good year. If The Completionist doesn’t have a good year, then it’s digital.”

Looking toward the future, however, Jirard would love for IndieLand to be the indie game reveal stream with world premieres aplenty, giving indie developers their time in the spotlight more than ever.

Even if some changes do come in the future of IndieLand, the TOVG team would love to remain true to sharing visceral conversations with developers.

“It’s the people who make these games, in this kind of Hot Ones exposure-esque format. They’re not really doing the hot sauce stuff, but the aspect of them just being so raw and real with themselves and us in the moment. To show us their heart and what they’ve been working on is a herculean task that only some can do.

“The fact that we tell developers, ‘hey, you’re gonna come on and talk to The Completionist…’ one of two things happen. They go, ‘oh, holy crap, Jirard, The Completionist. That’s insane. I don’t wanna do that.’

“Or option two is, ‘I like that guy. I know who he is. Yeah, I’ll talk to Jirard, it sounds awesome.’”

The largest hope for Jirard, however, is to make an impact that will hopefully inspire others to follow in his steps and honor the legacy of all they’ve done.

“My motto in the company is that I am here in this space to make an impact and to make it so that when I am long gone from this industry, we will have made such a large impact that everyone who comes after us will honor what we’ve done with our legacy and continue to carry that torch that we’ve kind of established.”

We interviewed the TOVG crew over a three-part series. You can catch up on Part 1 & Part 2 here.

IndieLand will return on October 20 – 22 2023 and can be viewed on The Completionist Twitch channel.