Author: random515
Title: Developers Establish Indie Fund
Posted: Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Creator of Braid, Jonathan Blow, Flower developer Kellee Santiago and Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy, the studio behind World of Goo, in addition to several other developers, have founded a new funding source for independent developers.
“Indie Fund is a brand new funding source for independent developers, created by a group of successful indies looking to encourage the next wave of game developers,” reads the Indie Fund website. “It was established as a serious alternative to the traditional publisher funding model. Our aim is to support the growth of games as a medium by helping indie developers get financially independent and stay financially independent.”
Other backers of the fund include Critter Crunch designer Nathan Vella, Matthew Wegner of Flashbang Studios, and AppAbove Games’ Aaron Isaksen.
“Most developers today fund their games by bootstrapping or by signing a publishing deal. In many cases, those indies that sign a publishing deal don't really need a publisher; they just need funding and can easily handle everything else themselves,” explained Ron Carmel to Gamasutra. “Indie Fund provides the funding, but without the overhead or the loss of freedom associated with a publishing deal.”
He continued, “Developers have full control over their design, IP, publishing rights, etc. We collectively have a lot of experience in making high quality profitable indie games, so we will give our (hopefully) valuable feedback and advice on both design and business. But in the end, it's up to the developer to make the final call on everything.”
“Once the investment amount is repaid into the fund, the developer shares revenue with Indie Fund for a limited time,” Carmel explained.
According to the website, Indie Fund is already backing several new projects, which are soon to be announced.
This certainly seems like a viable alternative for developer funding, and one that could potentially result in much more original new IPs than the tradition publisher model. Although it seems unlikely to work for big AAA titles with development budgets in the tens of millions, it could certainly result in a lot of great indie games, which is never a bad thing.
- By Ira Herbold
Sounds like a great idea. I sure hope it works, because nobody can conjure money fron thin air (were it that I could). But you know what? I can't help but notice the name "Jonathan Blow". That would not be a fun name to have. Just sayin.
By: random515 on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 9:43 pm |
Yeah, I had to resist making a joke about it. Though not as much as I had to resist joking about a guys name in an article a little while ago. I can't remember exactly what the name was, but it had something to do with bodily functions...