[IGDA_indies] Indie Roundtable, eZine

[Brian Hook]

> I've just been thinking of some ideas that I think would help in
> getting the Indie SIG more organized and get more people interested
> in contributing and/or joining the SIG.

The problem you'll find are the same problems that I ran into trying 
to get it more organized (although, granted, I simply got swamped with 
other stuff, but there were other issues as well).

The biggest problem is finding people that give a damn.  Most people 
don't understand the value add of IGDA or of having indies be 
organized, and on top of that most successful indies REALLY don't see 
the value and already have their communication systems setup (mailing 
lists, forums, etc.).

So the people with the most to contribute often have the least 
incentive, and with membership so sporadic IGDA is not the first place 
people turn to for advice or questions, they instead hit the 
GarageGames forums or GameDev or flipcode or whatever.

Until you achieve a critical mass of developers that want to 
contribute (which requires giving them an incentive), none of the 
actual vectors for contribution will be utilized.  Look at how dormant 
this list has been as an example.

Having a solid Web site is nice, but finding people to write articles 
for it was very difficult (because, again, the onese

I'm not trying to be a negative nancy, just stating what the obstacles 
are going to be if you want to see critical mass.

> 2) should we have live roundtables? If so where? I personally
> nominate Austin, TX. For this section of discussion, I would like
> to see when and where people think it might be a good time to meet.
> Yearly (if not more frequently) Roundtables in the major cities and
> capitols I feel would be a good thing as it would get more people
> together. Of course a convention/conference/expo would be even
> better ;)

GDC birds-of-a-feather meeting is a much better idea.

Brian