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Home of Nerds has just released an Indiegogo campaign for their new project Home of Indies. The latter aims to be a free, comprehensive resource center for the growing community of indie game developers, and the fundraising campaign has been setup to that end.

This platform, if successfully funded, will offer professional step-by-step guidance for indie devs who currently find themselves undersupported in the global video game business jungle. They want "to give [indie devs] a professional website, free hosting while providing access to loads of resources for you to market, update, and sell your game direct on your website".

And rather than competing with other hosting services, they " are creating something to bring professionalism and polish to the indie dev community while streamlining where you have to go for it. All resources and needs, all in one place, eliminating the need to code a website or pay others to make your project stand out."

Home of Indies plans to maintain complete transparency about its use of these funds, using a combination of weekly emails and updates from online sources.

Here's the full press release:

The online network and parent company Home of Nerds launched an IndieGoGo fundraising campaign today to create a free, comprehensive resource center for the world’s growing community of indie game developers. This central platform, Home of Indies, will offer step-by-step professional guidance for independent devs who currently find themselves undersupported in the surging global video game business. The creators of Home of Indies want to encourage emerging game developers to break into the industry, by lowering the bar to entry and supporting young developers in all aspects of their journeys.

This innovation arrives at a moment when the gaming business is witnessing explosive growth. According to VentureBeat, the U.S. market alone is on track to swell 3.6% between 2015 and 2020. To better serve independent developers struggling to find their footing within this movement, Home of Indies will offer expert support for every stage of the game development process. Users will be able to access easy-to-follow guides to every detail of indie development and marketing. And the all-in-one hub will allow developers to craft free, high-quality websites that make it easier to create, market, and distribute their games with our marketplace feature.

“Other indie marketplaces are making the entry for developers more challenging by increasing fees and competition for start-ups,” explains founder James Harris, “Indies, now more than ever, need options.”

This platform features a suite of powerful tools designed to make the development process a better experience for up-and-coming indie game developers. For instance, devs will be able to use the Home of Indies platform to launch “micro-funding” campaigns, to crowdsource development funds. This “Housekeeping” feature is a simple widget that creators can embed on their websites, to solicit donations from family, friends, and fans through all key stages of development instead of one lump, as on larger campaign crowdfunding platforms, where it’s often difficult for the smaller indies to gain traction.

Home of Indies will also host a job board so that users can advertise and apply for work on projects amongst themselves. And while they will still have complete freedom regarding where to sell their finished product, Home of Indies will offer game devs the new option of a front-end resource to attract potential customers themselves.

Home of Indies has already united a lively community of 1,600+ developers on its Discord server. There, indie devs from all over the world come together to talk shop, trade ideas or just chat. The friendly and inclusive community is growing at a rapid pace.

To transition to the next step and create this ultimate resource for developers, Home of Indies is planning to raise £15,000 in donations via IndieGoGo. Home of Indies plans to maintain complete transparency about its use of these funds, using a combination of weekly emails and updates from online sources. “The amazing indie developers out there deserve a supportive community,” says Harris. “Together, we can pull together to provide something all Indies desperately need: a home.”

Now I know that there are several developers among Tempers here itself and I've witnessed some pretty awesome indie projects myself (see my signature for the numerous projects featured in Temp'n). As such, upon getting wind of this news, I thought this campaign might interest you.

UPDATE:

The project's founder, James Harris, is on GBAtemp as user @James003999 and has already been clearing out your questions in the comments section! Feel free to contact him if you need more details about Home of Indies.

Indiegogo campaign
SOURCE: GBAtemp inbox

 

[hobbledehoy899]

How about a fund to improve the games situation for Linux instead? Or would that be too much of a deceleration of independence because most of the renowned "indie" developers are actually now owned by a certain windowed corporation?

 

[Taleweaver]

I'm...skeptical at this point.

On one side, I can certainly get behind the idea that indies deserve a push in the back, more time in the spotlight, better quality, and so on. It's not hard, either, as nobody is against any of that.

On the other side, there's no denying that this all is rather vague. There may be concrete plans, but nonetheless I feel like the answer to the criticism that there are already plenty of alternatives out there wasn't replied to in a proper matter. What will these "in depth tutorials" be about? Will these be about how to design, build, test or any other aspect of the creation process, or mostly about the distribution to eager customers?

And then there's the TANSTAAFL-side of things: it sounds like you'll do everything for game creators for the price of free, which sounds kind of ridiculous. Especially since I think that the most important problem indies face nowadays boils down to the fact that there are so many OTHER indies out there (quality, gameplay, atmosphere has to be top notch for a low price, and even then there's no certainty it'll get noticed).

 

[Izual Urashima]

By sitting amongst a ton of developers each day you can pretty much pin point in what is going wrong with the scene, and if like you say, our project is of low entry and void, then why are the problems still there no one has created a solution yet, so until there is a real solution it wont ever be void.

@Pluupy already answered to me. Let me quote the words of wisdom.

IndieDB already has a fine collection of indie games and an established community. Each indie game gets their own page listing which includes news, where to buy them, updates, etc. All visitors need. What they offer is already superior than anything you can promise. IndieDB is a sister site of GameFront, a news site which has been around for a long time.

Flexible funding? Nobody should donate to this shit. This person just wants free handouts. By turning on flexible funding, you're basically saying "yeah i'll pocket any money you can give me whether I actually deliver or not".

Also,

p.s @Izual Urashima I'm not trying to argue, it's just I'm very passionate about the project, and I see the deep rooted stress and struggle of the day to day indie developer, and this project has been put togeather by a huge list of things that indie developers do want, and has been discussed over and over again, i understand it's not for everyone! so I wish you the best

I'm not trying to argue either. I just pinpoint the issues with the program and why it is about to fail. I can understand it is a struggle to be a developer (not only indie ones, mind you), but your idea isn't the solution, no matter how passionate you are nor how many echoes you have. I can understand too that your passion is carrying you through the project like it's the saviour that'll save indie gaming, but... Nope. That won't work. That has already been tried, there are already several superior competitors in the market who have the advantage of being carried by big money-making companies, there are already failed attempts that ended up financially hurt for life despite beginning on humble money requests, and all you're gonna do is crash and burn at best.

I hope it won't happen to you since you seem to be really invested into it and it'd probably be a pain for you to suffer through, but that's also why I am alerting you. Going through a project that is about to become a disaster will hurt you much more than you thought, and I've seen it enough to hope it won't happen again.

And a quick footnote - Make more for Linux. There's still a market there.

 

[James003999]

I quite agree. It just gives off that odor of "scam" to me. even if they get fully funded its not close to enough to achieve what they're proposing. Plus everything they promise is vague as hell

But maybe I'm wrong. You never can tell with these fundraising things. Personally i'm erring on the side of caution and never using them.

If I'm honest, being the project owner I actually agree with that statement and i've seen many projects on these crowd funding sites, not being legit

but as we are an actual outlet and are a trusted source for many developers, we are among the legit, however, I have seen some very bad press via kickstarter and such in the past

Even if we do not hit the required amount (be it we are only under a day into it) we will still go ahead and at least archive what we can of our promises, given.

Someone needs to crowdfund a service that collects all these various services into a central hub... a 'digital cancer central' if you will.

Bold statement there my friend!

- James

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@Pluupy already answered to me. Let me quote the words of wisdom.

Also,

I'm not trying to argue either. I just pinpoint the issues with the program and why it is about to fail. I can understand it is a struggle to be a developer (not only indie ones, mind you), but your idea isn't the solution, no matter how passionate you are nor how many echoes you have. I can understand too that your passion is carrying you through the project like it's the saviour that'll save indie gaming, but... Nope. That won't work. That has already been tried, there are already several superior competitors in the market who have the advantage of being carried by big money-making companies, there are already failed attempts that ended up financially hurt for life despite beginning on humble money requests, and all you're gonna do is crash and burn at best.

I hope it won't happen to you since you seem to be really invested into it and it'd probably be a pain for you to suffer through, but that's also why I am alerting you. Going through a project that is about to become a disaster will hurt you much more than you thought, and I've seen it enough to hope it won't happen again.

And a quick footnote - Make more for Linux. There's still a market there.

@Izual Urashima You do make a very fair point, and i for one welcome that, your right in saying that these big companies do have the backing, and the sources they provide do work, even though many are now outdated, in practice and style, but never the less they work for what they was intended,

I don't quite think i have got the entire point across naturally in the indiegogo for what we are actually trying to archive, a lot of the statements here are the wrong perspective, thinking that we are running a new steam or such which just isn't the case, so in fact you have opened my eyes to what I should be adding in terms of the framework, our current mocks and such, to the indiegogo which I'll add later on tonight,

I don't feel that it will fail as a project, I'm hoping that we will at least get half funded at least and that's a great step we are only early a day in, but i would love to see the platform flurish, and i'm willing to put in them hours, to change what I can with the bad parts I see day to do in the industry

I suppose looking at it from your point of view its very hard to see what's inside someone else's mind when you are not around them / know the details down to a T, so I can't argue with you there, never the less thanks for clearing that up! however i don't intend to let this "crash and burn" time will tell! and i'm going to give it a bloody good go!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

How about a fund to improve the games situation for Linux instead? Or would that be too much of a deceleration of independence because most of the renowned "indie" developers are actually now owned by a certain windowed corporation?

i however very much agree with both of you on the linux front!, and the mac front since I'm a avid mac user (my fault i know), I get to play 1999 spin offs haha

 

[flame1234]

I don't agree with the mission. Do indie devs really need guidance? There are more indie games now than ever!

 

[Satoshi121]

I want to be an indie dev but i'm struggling to be a dev on google, sucks to live in a country where you can wire money internationally

 

[YugamiSekai]

Free alternative to Steam? Sign me up.

 

[KingAsix]

I wonder how many people on this thread are actual game developers...or rather how many people here actually know how to develop anything.

 

[Veho]

I wonder how many people on this thread are actual game developers...or rather how many people here actually know how to develop anything.

I know how to develop black and white film, does that count?