Indie Fund(s)

As potential new, indie developers, it's natural that funding and our relationship with publishers would be repeating issue. Funding games can be difficult, especially for devs new to the industry. Here is where indie funds come in:
Indie Fund
Extra Credits Indie Fund

What I love about these is they're set up by developers in the industry that understand how difficult things can be. Most Indie Fund's backers are actual indie developers whose games have sold well and made them popular and (I assume) well off. If you haven't heard of Extra Credits, it's a weekly show on Penny Arcade TV made by three people in the industry that covers game development topics. Their artist had a shoulder injury so they asked for donations from the fans; they had enough money left over to start an the indie fund. These two funds (and there may be more I don't know of) were started to help people very much like us because their backers understand the difficulty of dealing with publishers and funding unique games

I don't know about you, but one of the reasons I haven't put as much effort into my game as I should is because I never seem to have the time or energy. I have work every morning, then class, then homework. These indie funds certainly look tempting sometimes. Maybe my team and I could quit work, reduce class loads, and focus more on game development if we did receive funding from sources like this. Usually I snap back to my senses pretty fast; school is too important.

These funds are interesting though. Certainly something to keep our eyes on as each of us nears graduation. Maybe something more can come out of this club, and maybe an indie fund can help that.

Two things:

1) That was longer and more rambly than I meant. I mostly meant, "Hey, cool indie fund!"

2) Another ramble:
Let me reiterate, this club is not about gathering a team, throwing off the shackles of school, and focusing on making money from game development. This club is about learning to make games. Whether you're only thinking about game development for the first time or you're a grad student with some industry experience, you can always use some more learnin' and we invite you to learn with us. That said, the best way to learn to make games is to make games. And with the the openness and accessibility of digital distribution, it's not crazy to think that you might be able stick your learning exercise on Steam, Android market, or iOS and make a little cash from it.

tl;dr You're here to learn, but that doesn't mean you won't accidentally make money.

Check this out

The national endowment for the arts opened up for video game grants It's an agency that helps NPR and public television, but it's opening itself up more.

http://www.ifc.com/fix/2011/05/nea-now-offering-grants-for-vi

http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/AIM-presentation.html