[IGDA_indies] next steps

[Brian Hook]

> I think Member of IGDA Indie SIG is a bit obtuse to some people
> other than other developers.  

Developers are whom I'd like to target with that though.

> I'd say developing some sort of
> official like "Indie Game Developer" logo might be better.  It
> should be a consumer branded idea to be the most effective.  

Appealing to consumers right now would be largely ineffective, since 
by and large consumers don't care.  The "seal" would not be a sign of 
quality assurance testing or anything else concrete for the them.  

With the nascent state of the industry we should be targeting 
developers so that they can all assist and help each other -- that is 
the real value of the Indie SIG, and I think letting developers know 
about Indie SIG will reap far more tangible rewards in the near term 
than a consumer branded logo.

> While I agree some open source models are useful my point in
> highlighting farm cooperatives and artisan cooperatives is that
> they tend to band together more to improve their distribution, cost
> of goods, marketing, and customer sales.

I agree with the analogy, however I don't believe that COGs and 
distribution are really the problem right now for most indies that are 
selling downloadable software.  Marketing is an issue because a 
handful of gateways control 95% of the eyeballs out there but I'm not 
sure what a bunch of indies can really do to address that.

Brian