Warning: Hot Topic Ahead

Before you read any further, please note my definition of "indie".  Indie is not a team of 6+ people working out of an office, with salaries.  Indie is not building capital by contracting your team to a major studio, publishing house or hardware vendor and claiming to be independent just because your next game built off of said capital didn't require a publisher.  Indie is not many things, but I'll stop now before I start on a rant. 

I'll say two last things before I start my post.  One, a company can be an independently sustained business and still not be "indie"; as this defines more than simple financial independence.  Two, if you think this post or something I've said (or about to say) on here is about you, get over yourself.  I don't care to hear your defense of how your 50 person, multi-million dollar studio is keeping with "the spirit of indie". =) Enjoy!

Plenty of Fish, but it's a Big Ocean

As an indie developer, I think that one of the hardest things to do is find the right team.  Let's face it, it's hard enough to find good people that you pay; imagine searching for someone on the promise of a profitable future alone.  There are plenty of services that help developers and publishers meet but there seems to be nothing (that I've found) to help professionals meet for indie ventures. 

Old-skool

There once was an idea of mod teams, but these have all but died off.  The rising development efforts required to make the simplest of modifications in modern engines is getting out of hand.  The lack of usability seems to have caused a shift in the mindset of developers around the world; programmers and artists alike.  Everyone has scattered back into their caves. 

Artists are spending much of their free time doodling random ideas rather than focusing on a mod or some other unified vision.  Their only escape from the chaos are annual events like Dominance Wars, but these are often art-specific and lack any true game focus or collaboration of a joint project. 

Programmers are more drawn to tech demos and simple test applications that show off the next best thing in lighting or shadowing techniques or trying to get A* onto their GPU.  The chore of coding some unique game experience seems diluted when you're forced to imagine some space marine as your wizard fighting the dragon (who happens to be a spider with scale = 200) because these were the only available assets.

Often the truly unique experiences come from the joint efforts of art and programming.  This is impossible to happen if they never come together.

The Hoard

There was a time when we could search through databases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 1-3 models.  Though the open source community doesn’t seem to have been as shaken by the decline in mod efforts, the art community hit a massive iron wall.

The fall of the mod has changed people.  They are now afraid of losing their content.  The preaching’s of protecting our property has burrowed into the very core of our psyche.  It has raised an entire generation of people who would rather watch it burn than give it away. 

The only thing that has changed since the old days of the mod is the amount of time spent on a single asset.  Instead of churning out 10 models, the effort has become 10x for a single model.  The sense of ownership is stronger with something if it took this much longer to create.  It is the only other thing I could possibly see as a reason behind the lack of art interest.

Exploitation of Interest

At times it feels like a "match making" service for indie developers is something that hasn't been done because someone hasn't thought of a way to monetize it.  Money is, after all, the primary motivation for these types of organizations right?  These "meet & greet" companies charge a pretty penny for what amounts to a brief interlude between a developer and a publisher who may dismiss your game in the first 5 minutes.  It's why we pay thousands of dollars to attend a conference where we can't possibly be everywhere at once, then are asked for more money to purchase the material online to the places that we couldn't be in person when we paid for it the first time.

Unity through Community

So where are these organizations for indie developers?  There are always programmers complaining that they have no art and artists complaining that they can't code.  Personally I feel that it may have to be a community-driven group, like it once was with the mod community.  The lack of financial gain from teaming up a bunch of penniless garage developers doesn't exactly sound like a dream company.  It would have to be a voluntary activity.  I know what you're thinking, "duh! forums man!".

It's easy to jump on any game forum and find 101 eager individuals with boundless motivation and zero skills.  I was able to simplify my dilemma into a triangle of Talent, Motivation, and Available Time.  The idea is that you can only pick a single point, anywhere on the surface or edges of the triangle.  This has been my most common problem when searching for talent to partner with.  It's not the lack of websites and forums with people of common interest; it's the mismanagement of all that information.  There just doesn't seem to be a place for indie developers to say, "here I am, let's make a game." and receive responses from people who are actually capable and willing to contribute. 

The Hoard hasn’t helped this situation either.

It's a Shame

In the end, I feel that most indie games that are finished are spawned from sheer motivation and blissful ignorance of someone who didn't know when to give up.  Also the dumb luck of a programmer having a close friend who happened to be a highly motivated and kick ass artist with nothing but time on his hands.  These don't look like promising odds for the growth of the indie scene.