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[HyperNexus]

For those that haven't heard of Cooperatives:

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit.

They are essentially democratically run and owned businesses. You can read more about them on Wikipedia.

Given the nature of independent development, are there many indies that have set themselves up as cooperatives? To me the idea of cooperatives blends in nicely with independent development. What are your thoughts?

[Radix]

Yeah but it's not like we're catching fish or whatever, I don't think what we do is a compatible industry. It'd be more like the talented developers subsidising the useless ones really.

Pooling office space if you live in a dev-dense area kinda makes sense though.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah what radix said: experience and talent vary so widely that it'd be weird to have, say, a 10 year old using game maker who spent a few hours on his game getting a share of profits from super meat boy or braid. it also seems to contradict the word 'independent' -- if you're profiting from games you didn't make and others are profiting from games you made, that's not really independent at all.

[HyperNexus]

I don't understand how having such a strong variation between skills of employees would occur. The company would still hire employees based upon the level of skill that they required. A 10 year old wouldn't share in the profits of other indie games unless he worked in the company that made those games.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah but there's still the other issue: if you don't own the IP of the games you make you're not really independent. if you're an "employee" of any kind (even if the company is owned collectively by developers) you're not really independent. so it may be a "good idea" but it has nothing to do with independent game development, and it'd be a misnomer to call it that.

[Radix]

yeah what radix said

That's not actually what I said.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

"even joint-owned by a cooperative" isn't owning IP. owning IP is owning the rights to your own work, not having to seek the permission of a cooperative if you want to make a sequel to your own game.

i'm not sure what single developer has to do with anything? i never mentioned only single developers; all of my games are with teams, and we each keep the IP over the parts of the game that we made (for instance, the musician has the rights to the music and soundtrack).

[HyperNexus]

"even joint-owned by a cooperative" isn't owning IP. owning IP is owning the rights to your own work, not having to seek the permission of a cooperative if you want to make a sequel to your own game.

It is possible to run a cooperative in which you have an auteur who owns the rights of the game. It is just up to the people in that company to acknowledge that.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yes i do believe that if a developer does not own the rights to their game -- if they are an employee of a company that owns the rights to their game -- they are not an indie game developer. of course that development model isn't the only one, the other model is the dominant industry model, where the publishers own the rights to the games the developers make and employ them and publish their games.

so my point was that this cooperative you are proposing is basically what mainstream game development does anyway (publisher-employee relation), and has little to do with indie game development (self-publishing). it might be an interesting to try and might be superior to corporations like EA and activision but it'd be much more similar to them than it'd be to indie game development companies, and still have most (but not all) of the problems they have.

and yes, you could set one up where the developers keep the rights to their games, but even in that case they'd be employees of a company (even if it's a company they collectively own), and they'd be paid wages (based on how well all the games of that company sell rather than their own games), yes? i just don't really see the advantage of this model over working as an indie game developer, unless you aren't confident in your own games and want to benefit from the sales of the games of others in case yours doesn't do so well. it'd be advantageous to those whose games don't sell well and disadvantageous for those whose games do sell well.

as an example, let's say this collective was composed of notch (with minecraft) and any other nineteen indie game developers. minecraft sells 1 million copies and earns twenty million dollars for the coop. the other 19 indie game developers' games don't even reach $10,000 in sales each. you then have 20 people sharing 20.19 million dollars, and get about 1 million dollars each. this is great for those 19 developers, but is it fair to notch?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

of course i believe indie and company can be mixed, that has nothing to do with anything: the difference is that indie game companies self-publish and keep the rights to their games, and each individual retains the rights for the parts of the game they made.

as i said before, i run an indie game company with a fairly large team (our latest game is a team of 6 or 7) but each keeps the rights to what they make and each gets a royalty on sales for the game. so i'm not sure why you keep bringing that up.

so again, it's not that i think 'indie' and 'company' are mutually exclusive, it's that i think 'indie' and 'not owning the rights to your own game' are mutually exclusive.

[Fallsburg]

What about something like Image comics?  The creators own their works and only make proceeds based on their works, but they group together for increased marketing/publishing/distribution capabilities.

[tergem]

What about something like Image comics?  The creators own their works and only make proceeds based on their works, but they group together for increased marketing/publishing/distribution capabilities.

I was thinking of doing the cooperative approach for this reason.

[Fallsburg]

I think it's the only system that makes sense, particularly concerning Paul's Minecraft example. 

[Booger]

Basically we want a more advanced affiliate system so that, let's say people go to Minecraft's page, and there on the sidebar are 19 other games made by 'friends of Notch' or whatever.

It's the reason why anyone releasing a new RPGMaker game ends up selling on the very same sites that the first ones were sold.  Veterans who have registered a business need to keep pumping output to pay their taxes, so they need a large library.  Newbies just releasing their first big endeavor need a sizeable focused audience which the veterans have already gathered through their mailing lists.

That's why every Humble Indie bundle style release should have a well-known heavy hitter to draw in the crowds, then essentially provides free advertising to the lesser known.

[Wyzfen]

Basically we want a more advanced affiliate system so that, let's say people go to Minecraft's page, and there on the sidebar are 19 other games made by 'friends of Notch' or whatever.

A little like 'showmethegames.com' ?
(Although i guess that's the exact opposite of linking from one games site to another; they're all pointing their marketing to the joint site rather than their own)

[nicolasgb]

My understanding of a cooperative is that it is a group of individuals or companies sharing "something", ; it does not have to be profits that they are sharing.

For instance a group of farmers might share a mechanical harvester.

So a group of indie developers might pool some resources that they don't need full-time (people or hardware), or office space, marketing capabilities as someone said, etc.

Doesn't it already happens in a non-structured sort of way? e.g. when you borrow extra devkits to someone else for a few months during full production, or share a hotel room at GDC ?

[superflat]

the difference is that indie game companies self-publish and keep the rights to their games

That's not necessarily true - all the lone indie devs such as cactus, Messhof and Matt Thorson doing Adult Swim Flash projects are selling their IP, as well as people like thatgamecompany who's rights are owned by Sony I believe.

[tsameti]

The Humble Indie bundle had smackings of a Co-Op style venture. As I understand it, that was a very successful idea, and though they weren't sharing development resources they survived better as a group than by their lonesomes.