By embedding himself in just such a hub, the author was able to explore the experiences and interactions of ten indie game companies, four mentors, various funders, and two interns over a one-year period. The narrative is structured around six critical events: the introduction of newcomers, change in organizational rules, departure of a dominant social actor, self-inflicted crisis, introduction of a powerful manager, and external crisis. A process view shows how these events can hinder or accelerate creative production. Going beyond success stories or failure statistics, this book analyses the organizational and entrepreneurial strength of this approach, which combines aspects of the incubator and accelerator models for start-up development. At its heart though, this book attempts to give a fleshed out and analytical picture of what it is really like to work in the indie video game industry and offers practical lessons for indie-game developers.
Devon Gidley is a software developer who earned his PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, studying the video game industry. Previously, he has worked as a project manager and business analyst in the creative industries and new product development. He is an enthusiastic gamer and believer in the positive impact of a robust indie video game community.