Indie-fund
Latest
Indie Fund now accepting applications
If you need money to bring your indie game concept to life, and you don't want to enter Activision's design contest, you now have another alternative: The Indie Fund, created by a team of established indie devs, is soliciting applications. To apply, you need a playable prototype, a video and, you know, a cool game. The fund, "established as a serious alternative to the traditional publisher funding model," invests in games by small teams, in order to allow those teams to remain independent of publishers. "World of Goo cost $120K to develop," the application page notes. "Braid cost $180K. That's about the right size project for Indie Fund right now, and it necessitates doing things on the cheap." So, if your game concept is a realistic first-person shooter with MMO elements, get right out of there.
2D Boy's Ron Carmel explains Indie Fund
Speaking at GDC 2010, 2D Boy's Ron Carmel discussed the game industry's typical publishing model, why it doesn't work for independent developers, and how the newly established Indie Fund will fix it. According to Carmel, publishers offer too much money to indie developers and take too much in return, relegating developers to the role of "tenant farmers," forced into a constant shift between seeking funding and development "until something goes wrong and you can't find funding and you go out of business." Still, Carmel recognizes that publishers are taking the financial risk on projects, so it makes sense that they would see most of the profits. However, even with the advent of digital distribution, which removes a great deal of risk for publishers, developers still see traditional publishing deals -- along with the minimal royalties that come with them. Asked Carmel, "How do we do for funding what Valve did for distribution?" The answer, according to Carmel, is Indie Fund, which will essentially turn the traditional publishing deal on its head. The Indie Fund aims to differ from traditional publishing deals in a few significant ways. The Indie Fund will offer a transparent submission process, make its standard contract details publicly available and provide a flexible development schedule. Perhaps the biggest bullet point of all, however, is that Indie Fund doesn't seek to own developer IPs or exert any editorial control over the IPs it funds. It's also worth noting that Indie Fund won't actually publish or market the projects it funds. Those tasks are left up to developers, though Carmel noted that the members of Indie Fund would be happy to share their experience in securing distribution deals with services like Steam. Indie Fund's contract details aren't yet available, though the stated goal is for developers to see a much bigger return on projects than they would through normal publishing channels. According to Carmel, the Indie Fund seeks only to recoup investment costs and receive a slice of profits "much, much, much smaller" than traditional publishing deals.
Indie Fund created to help fund indies
A group of well-known independent studio vets has formed a new fund for other independent developers. Members of 2D Boy, Number None, thatgamecompany, Capy, Flashbang Studios and AppAbove Games have banded together to create the appropriately named Indie Fund, which they hope will become "a serious alternative to the traditional publisher funding model." The fund will ideally help independent studios "get financially independent and stay financially independent." The Indie Fund is already backing some unnamed projects, and the group plans to reveal more details about the fund at GDC next week. Specifically, 2D Boy's Ron Carmel will host a panel at the conference entitled "Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked." The panel will focus on the "adversarial" and "unhealthy" nature of the relationship between developers and publisher and, naturally, what could be done to improve it. Expect the panel to be included in Joystiq's GDC 2010 coverage, which begins next week. [Via GamePolitics]
