Indie Fund Created

I like keeping my eye on indie games because I believe they can often attempt and experiment with ideas that AAA budgeted games would find too risky. While sales are still an important factor, and piracy still an ever-present problem around with reactions and responses vary, the budgets are smaller, and the people to whom one answers less existent. It is games like the Choice of games, in fact, that make me wonder just how much more easily one could include same-sex romances in games as such, were the developers inclined toward it.

Now those indie developers with an eye toward their pocketbooks also have an extra resource, the Indie Fund. Set up by successful indie developers, the fund seeks to aid the next wave of indie games by keeping them financially independent. The model?

* Flexible budget, no milestones - Upon signing the funding agreement we start delivering monthly payments to cover your ongoing costs. You give us monthly builds so that we can see how the game is progressing, but there are no pre-set milestones to meet. You are free to experiment and evolve your design as you go, so long as you don't run too far over budget. Our pockets aren't infinitely deep, unfortunately.

* Proportional repayment - Once the game is released, you first pay back the investment and then share a small percentage of the revenue. The exact percentage is proportional to the amount of funding you needed to complete your game. If you needed 20% less funding than you originally thought, you'd end up paying 20% less revenue share to Indie Fund.

* No long term obligations - If the game did not generate enough revenue to repay the investment within 3 years of release, the agreement expires and you no longer owe Indie Fund anything. Whatever revenue your game generates from that point on is yours to keep. If the game does generate enough revenue to repay the investment the agreement could expire even sooner leaving 100% of the revenue to you.

That is not to say every game that applies for funding will receive such, however. Think 5-6 games in the next 2-3 years, or so the comments on their blog seem to indicate. A few guidelines that could help? Have a game that introduces something new, that has a playable prototype, being a small team that can live cheaply, and having an eye toward how to sell the game (i.e. not using ads for a revenue model, but being able to digitally distribute it). For a more detailed run-down of what they need, read about how to apply.

Who exactly is bringing this all together? Some names that you've likely seen before (and whose faces you see above): Jonathan Blow, Ron Carmel & Kyle Gabler (World of Goo), Aaron Isaksen, Kellee Santiago, Nathan Vella, and Matthew Wegner.