Legal Niches

New Fund from Indie Developers Backs Indie Developers

By pete_gallagher

Backed by a group of proven independent game developers, a new organization has launched with an aim to buck the traditional game publisher funding model by providing financing to up and coming game creators.

Indie Fund is comprised of Ron Carmel (pictured) and Kyle Gabler from 2D Boy (World of Goo), Jonathan Blow of Number One (Braid), Kelle Santiago from thatgamecompany (fl0wer), Nathan Vella of Capy (Critter Crunch), Matthew Wegner from Flashbang Studios (Off-Road Velociraptor Safari) and Aaron Isaksen of AppAbove Games (Armadillo Gold Rush).

The company's goal is to, 'is to support the growth of games as a medium by helping indie developers get financially independent and stay financially independent.'

Gamasutra has a Q&A on its site with Carmel, who offered some additional insight into the new venture. He indicated that funding discussions are already underway with several indie developers and that Indie Fund is equipped to back 'a few games a year for two to three years.'

Carmel added:

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.

Carmel will disclose more information on the project in a lecture at next week's Game Developers Conference.

|Image from Flickr|

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on March 03, 2010 (boomark / email).