In the gaming world "indie" refers to small teams who are usually bootstrapped and not owned by some publisher. They try focusing on real game innovation and don't usually have big budgets - at least not when they start out, so they will use the cheapest tools available (e.g. Blender instead of 3d max); for instance I don't know if the studio developing Minecraft still qualifies as indie because they seem to have a truckload of money, so the definition may be fuzzy.
In any case, ActiBlizzard is very very far from being indie. They don't innovate, they have loads of money from some of their cash cows and probably every member of their team is easily replaceable like a standard cog in a machine. And when you're listed on NASDAQ and your employee count is in the thousands then you're practically a corporation.
I think he did too, but it is true that innovation is very important to the indie community.
Most indies don't have teams of engineers, artists, designers, marketers, or musicians to polish their turds into blockbuster gems. Because of this, an indie had better hope that their project begins as shiny as possible, which is why innovation (especially in gameplay) is crucial.
I'd say (by far) most indie games are turds (just look at the amount of crap games on mobile app stores). Games like Fez, Braid and Super Meat Boy are few and far between.
Yes, but to the target audience of a submission with "Activision", "Blizzard", and "Kotick" in the title, indie means exactly what Tomis02 said. Context is important. I don't think anyone else would associate gambling industry with "gaming" in the context of this article.
I don't want to debate semantics or linguistics, but I believe the comment you're responding to is insinuating that "indie" refers to complete independence (no external masters) whereas "independent" means private, but serving many masters.
