IGDA Indie SIG To Aid Independent Developer

zratchet writes "The IGDA Independent Game Development Special Interest Group is just getting started - this group is for game developers interested in pursuing game development and distribution outside the standard channels as presented by the mainstream industry today. For purposes of this SIG, the definition of 'indie' is: 'Not having any formal relationship with a publisher.' The purpose of this SIG is to provide information and resources to help build the community of indie developers and support their efforts, and we're currently identifying 3 types of Indie Game Developers: Commercial (small self-publishing companies and those using small publishers - for example Sunspire Studios of Tux Racer fame) and GarageGames), Open Source, Shareware, Freeware, and Public Domain (including OSI and Creative Commons licensed games) such as those listed at Sourceforge, and 'mods', such as those hosted at PlanetQuake."

isnt there something deeply ironic

[IshanCaspian]

about an organization of independent game developers?

Re:isnt there something deeply ironic

[Max_Abernethy]

No, there really isn't. This isn't even a case of RTFA, just RTFDescription - indie just means self-published. The product is games that aren't swayed by the same influences as commercial ones, which allows them to be experimental and to address niches that mainstream games ignore (see: Uplink [uplink.co.uk]). The purpose of this organization is to provide indie developers with resources that will help them create quality games - it doesn't strip them of their creative independence.

Oh! Oh! That's me!

[Xistic]

I guess as a mod author I never really thought of myself on the same level as an indie developer. And really I'm not. I work on my project for several hours a day but I have no artists or mappers or modelers helping me and I have no asperations of going commercial with it.

Even mod developers can be broken down into specific groups as well. I think when they lump mod authors in with indie developers they are specificly including professional level mods like Urban Terror and Natural Selection.

Re:Oh! Oh! That's me!

[zratchet]

A lot of indie developers do things on their own (including myself) Ratchet

this is a big step forward

[incubusnb]

my biggest beef with the Indusry has been that its getting too big-business oriented to the point where Electronic Arts, SCEA, Microsoft Games, Nintendo, Sega and Atari own everything and if you wanna make a big game you have to almost go through them.

the SIG will help the small guy get his products noticed, i have a feeling we'll start to see more and more small companies budding in the next year or 2 because of this

hopefully my company too :P (in all its "stacks of Whitepapers" glory :D )

Re:this is a big step forward

[IndigoDarkwolf]

Don't forget Vivendi Universal. Where would the industry be without them owning Blizzard and half of Europe?