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[Dragonmaw]

Without pay, I personally can't really get behind a weekly committal. This will probably be true for most of the professional writers around here, although one can never be sure.

True but As a contractor you're never really sure if or when you're actually going to get paid anyway. The money is never guaranteed until it's in your bank.

Not true. I know I will get paid because it's laid out in very clear language in my contract. If they don't pay me for my work, the contract says nothing about me being unable to take them to court for money owed.

If you get paid on time every time you are a very lucky man. If you talk to most contractors they will tell you that they have to put a lot of effort into chasing up payments. You usually get it eventually but you can often be waiting for your money a long time after it says in the contract and a long time after the supposed standard legal term of 30 days. Some companies are good payers it's true but most like to sit on the money as long as possible.

I'm lucky, I work with an extremely reputable company (Weblogs Inc) and my other contracts have all stemmed from that.

[Zenorf]

I'm lucky, I work with an extremely reputable company (Weblogs Inc) and my other contracts have all stemmed from that.

Yeah you are. That's a decent company and not a games company either.
The games industry companies are usually worse that most others for some reason. I couldn't say why though. No unions? general immaturity? Grapevine that the people in power can bad mouth you and say you are "difficult" to work with perhaps? Standard practice of payment withholding? Whole industry full of assholes? I honestly have no idea.

Also. Think we wandered off topic a bit, or maybe we are bang on topic talking about being a safe indie developer?

[AverageJoe]

Wow, The site looks very nice and stylish! Don't forget to credit the great meaball for your site design. Since he made it all. D:

[Viper]

Sorry for my delay. Laptop's HD crashed, so ive been resetting everything up on a new machine.

Lets see...

@Mark, i would really not like to compare directly to TIG because that of course makes me feel like the enemy for this thread. While TIG does indeed benefit players on the main site, i feel that it does not really connect the developers with the players. Which is something i would want IndieSafe to achieve.

From the beginning i have wanted IndieSafe to become both a portal for the games, and for devs to work and discuss among themselves, but also link the two groups together. Its in this way, that i have yet to find a community fitting that void.

@Sokfo, IndieSafe is not simply a blog im making...i thought that was clear by now.

@Dragonmaw, i can understand about the commitment, its something that I like any other have to deal too. As far as the strict editors go, i so far am giving the writers a very lose leash. As long as they have an article that fits an assigned "Niche" that they are interested in, and can write with some talent then they will not be heavily critiqued.

@Kvjoshi, i feel at this point, its hard to find a niche that isnt covered. The internet has been around to long and is to popular for the larger niches to lack an established name. If there isnt one, then the niche is likely to small to begin with. Its for this reason that i'm creating a site that while is not entirely new, will hopefully be different enough from the current established names that can intact make its own presence.

@Zenorf, saved your's for last since i felt it should be the conclusion of this post.

As ive previously stated, IndieSafe is a portal/community that is targeted at IndieGames. These games can be of any sort..2d, 3d, Online or anything else you can name. IndieSafe will attempt to be different from the other indie sites by not only being about the games, or just the development of them by merging both the player masses, and the developer's together. So that they are in real communication, and can actively occur between each other. To many great games get made and shared on Dev focused sites and due to the lack of attention from the masses, fail to get anywhere. It was for this reason in fact, that i initially felt that IndieSafe could be a solution.

Another aspect that i would like IndieSafe.com to include would be a series of features/systems/databases that can assist Indie Developers. While not fully completed, one i have been working on is called the "Design Vault". Which in a nutshell is a game design thinktank that any number of developers could be part of.  It begins with a Wiki system that permits developers to submit a basic game design, game topic, or even a sentence and seeing where the discussion goes from there. Each idea submitted is given 30 days to develop to its fullest which afterwards is closed. In this sense, the Vault is never bogged down on a single idea.

Each month a single idea is chosen at random which acts as the Vault's featured design for the month. At the end of the design's development phase it is summarized and posted on IndieSafe.com in a manner that can be read and appreciated by the sites          player-community base so they can then comment  and add input to it themselves. This summary does not include the design specifics but simply a one or two page summary. The actual game designs are saved in the Design Vault Wiki which cannot be viewed by the public.

While this is just a concept of my own at this point, i would very much like to implement systems/features to IndieSafe that make it stand out, above the average Community Portal.

I hope this pitches the site a little bit better, i didn't have to much time when i had previously made my last post. So i took some extra time to really express what i felt in this one.