Standing on the shoulders of the giant.

[Kinshuk Sunil]

Pls do not TLDR.
This post is about the InGDIn journey. And the road ahead. This post is also very long. And ranting. And its personal.
Also called "The rant that was a long time coming".
But its about InGDIn, and so its here.

***
I started writing this email 4 months ago, a few hours after the successful end of the NASSCOM BYOG 2011 in Pune. A few minutes after i had returned from a random meetup with friends and fellow indie developers. I was sad. And I was thinking of how InGDIn came to be and what it has become. I started writing it in my head, of course; was too afraid of putting pen to paper, unsure of what may come out. But then it had to be written.

InGDIn started as a solution to a personal itch. Yadu and I were working on some game projects, and we were building international teams on Sourceforge, and we were having trouble finding local people (from India, ie) like us, who wanted to make games too. I had recently started participating in the FOSS-verse, and was engaged in community engagement at my desk job. Mailing lists looked like the perfect tools for rapid communications between a group of people and thus was started InGDIn. Just liek that. Without any forethought of what it should be, what it could be. Without any planning. Only a little research to see if something similar pre-existed, to which we can contribute, instead of reinventing the wheel. We could not find anything.

Officially, that happened on Nov 28, 2008. Yadu and I fashioned ourselves as the founders of this community, and the champions of indie developers in India. We believed that this mailing list will in turn grow into a platform for people like us, so that we can find each other and work with each other. so that we belong. We said that the community will help the indies in india by becoming a platform for discovery and showcase. We are still to deliver. We always believed: we are standing on the shoulders of the giant, building on top of the work done by the generations before us and leaving a new set of challenges for the generations to follow. That is what this whole idea was about.

[Trivia: InGDIn was originally supposed to be called DInInGCamps - Developers of Indian Indie Games Camp - along the lines with Barcamp, OSScamp, and so on. And it was supposed to be an unconference about game development. But then, common sense happened!]

This mailing list always stuttered and stumbled. Jumping into spurts of conversations occassionaly otherwise lying dormant over great stretches of time. In time, Facebook became a grand medium for communities and conversations. But there was a huge problem with groups on Facebook - they were ugly. I mean ugly ugly. And so Yadu and I figured that perhaps the interactions are best served as a facebook page (we keep hearing that that's one of the most discouraging thing we did for the community, but we still stick to it, esp when we look at other groups). And so on July 9, 2009 the facebook page came into being. Since then it totally dwarfed the mailing list. The mailing list got stygmied to 150 members and hardly any interaction, while the facebook page grew to 800+ members, with some two-way conversations.

Then one fine day, we realised that we should have a list of all indie developers from india and all the indie games ever made. So we put along a website at indiegamedev.in in drupal. It was too shabby a job, (yadu dont hate me for saying this) too ugly for my preference. But at least it was functional. Later we got fancy and got ourselves ingd.in and then we got our own fancy url shortener too.

In between we fancied setting up game development cells (student bodies) in different colleges: I worked on a pilot with a couple of students from IITD. The cell was shortlived, it died as the senior batch students graduated. The idea is still dear to my heart, I am still working on it.

Over time, we started doing gamedev meetups - primarily in Delhi (I live here) and in Bangalore (Yadu lives there), but failed to pull off any meetup in other places. It hurt. It hurt for two reasons: 1. There were still very few indie developers, more so in a specific given location; 2. why would no other indie stand up and pull it off in a city they live in. After about 5 meetups in Delhi, even I lost the heart for them. It was far more infuriating than comforting, any meetup. Yet I look forward to a day, where i would be frolicking amidst fellow developers in a meetup. Be it an InGDIn meetup or some other hardly matters.

That is something not many people understand. InGDIn did not start as Kinshuk, Yadu and a few other people's race to fame in the indie community. Nope. Never. It started to fill a void. It doesnt matter to us who fills the void, till the time the void is getting filled. We will jump into it with all our heart and do our best. We expect the same from others too, mostly to be disappointed. But then we are all people.

Then in July 2010, in one of my emo sessions, i had the vision of a BYOG! A sprint where you can make your own game. Sounded too good to be true, wasnt really in the first few sprints as well. The first 2 sprints just happened. The third one was the real inspiration, a sprint that actually happened. Then happened the nasscom conference and the byog therein and it was at a different level altogether. And since then there have been ideas in my head for what the sprint should be now. Ideas, i will some day work on.

In the meanwhile, at two different occassions we thought of doing an indie expo, where devs can come demo and launch their games. But we realised we are getting way too hopeful and rushing into the light. State of Indie happened sometime too. And we started thinking of building a core team that will push the initiatives, curate the channels, generate content for consumption and stuff. And we have this internal argument om how the core team should be. The general consensus is that it should be a free-for-all, but that in many ways turns into an every-man-for-himself situation. The other solution is a formal body that takes decisions and executes them. The trouble with a formal body is powermongering and vested interests, and so we have been avoiding it till now.

Also along the line 'Spread the Word' happened. The media outreach program is still pending to be formally launched but is very functional. It is where members in the community, can reach out to the media. The media can rely on InGDIn to help create outreach opportunities for the developers and they wouldnt have to run around finding news and devs. In between we thought we should start publishing an annual report of sorts, but couldnt figure out the rationale on why one of us should do it.

Oh and we are thinking of some more initiatives now. But we also want to pause and fix all the stuff we have been trying to achieve already. One thing is very clear to us, the three of us cant do everything. Not only because its not humanly possible, also because we want to create a community and not a one-way developer facilitation service. If only we could find some vested interests that would help us be BDFLs in this community.

What new stuff you ask? Well random things like a Studio dierctory (we can rip off linked in there), a better games directory (uh oh, indiedb), maybe a store in future (indievania), focussed media outreach programs, functional gamedev cells in colleges, more strucured and rewarding byogs, a job board, a classifieds for gamedev, funding avenues for developers, gaming expo, a magazine (ohai indiegamemag), a video podcast (we lamost tried once), indie awards and many more. its not hard to come up with such ideas, the hard part is to implement and to deliver. Oh and the chunks of text in brackets is the reason why we havent done them yet.

But for any of this to happen, we need to be more functional. more active. more hungry.

Oh and then sometime in between (June 2011 to be specific), nandeep, me and yadu went on to found Hashstash (we still have to release a game but that doesnt mean we arent developers). that complicated things further with a company-community relationship conflict happening in our minds. we want to keep the two seperate and steer clear of each other.

Now there are a couple of ideas in our head of how the community should shape up. Primarily, because we have failed to inspire other devs to pick up the mantle and push things through in this community. Because for some reason the onus of initiative still rests upon us (Me, yadu, Nandeep). We keep thinking of what it should be and how it should work. It has to be participative. It has to be meritocratic. It also needs to be structured. Perhaps, there should be some chairs to fill in. And there should be some accountability to these chairs. Perhaps we are extinct dinosaurs and should give up the pretense. We dont know, we keep thinking. All our calls for extra hands on board went unanswered. Almost to a point where we felt if ingdin was irrelevant. Other similar initiatives happened, and we felt betrayed since people pursued vested interests and ended up reinveting the wheel instead of pooling their efforts. We have also explored options where ingdin turns into a corporate community offering, or into a society, or a loosely shapped community with corporate promoters, and nothing, i repeat, nothing looks positive, helpful and the right step forward. But as we start stepping forward with our ideas, ingdin will be required to have legal and financial prowess too. that needs figuring out too.

But the question that keeps bouncing back at me is do I own this community in spirit or in material. Is it a community initiative by Kinshuk, Nandeep and Yadu for others to consume or is it a community initiative where Kinshuk, Nandeep and Yadu are just a set of other members (trust me, this is what we think). And how can we reach there.

***
So how do we move forward. What is the existence of this community. Who are we as ingdin. What does it mean to be a part of ingdin. is it relevant? whats the next step forward.How do we make this more participative?

(and no i wasnt drowsy or intoxicated when writng this all. If you feel its incoherent and unstructured, its only because it has bee written over a huge period of time in seperate chunks).
Oh and before you start thinking who I am and why I am so smug about this community, boasting so much and singing my own praises - I am the "so called" founder of this 'community' - the dude who thought of it all and with my friends, did it.

[shirish शिरीष]

at bottom :-

On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 02:23, Kinshuk Sunil <kinshu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Pls do not TLDR.
> This post is about the InGDIn journey. And the road ahead. This post is also
> very long. And ranting. And its personal.
> Also called "The rant that was a long time coming".
> But its about InGDIn, and so its here.
>
> ***
> I started writing this email 4 months ago, a few hours after the successful
> end of the NASSCOM BYOG 2011 in Pune. A few minutes after i had returned
> from a random meetup with friends and fellow indie developers. I was sad.
> And I was thinking of how InGDIn came to be and what it has become. I
> started writing it in my head, of course; was too afraid of putting pen to
> paper, unsure of what may come out. But then it had to be written.

Hi Kinshuk,
First of all nice read and damn wish I had known this was
happening at that time. I was in Pune but still wasn't able to be
there.

For people new to the scene, I'm just a gamer. I'm into FOSS
professionally and do some design and testing for FOSS games in my
hobby/free time. The latest game I have been enjoying is an RPG called
'Hale' http://sourceforge.net/projects/hale/ and no, we are not
thinking of world domination. Its just a game for us. (the personal
itch thing :) ).

The lead dev. is a guy called Jared Stephen and he's located in UK somewhere.

Please take my comments with big bucketfulls of salt please.

Ok, the first thing I have felt/seen is the mailing list was/is a bit
generic. Somewhere it feels there was no thought to whom are you
targeting. Are/were you targeting indie developers,gamers whom and
most of the stuff there looks/ed like /dev/random (as in not focussed
messages) .

Also a part of it I feel is the mailing list culture still needs to be
rubbed off on people. From what little I have seen of Engineering
colleges, most of mailing lists are on the basis of 'I need help for
xyz' and no mail etiquette or following conventions (perhaps I am
turning conservative :) ).

For what little I have seen and used Facebook while its great for
gossip and getting momentum for events I don't really feel/use it for
getting into things. To pull it more simply, it feels more commercial/
outward facing.

> Then one fine day, we realised that we should have a list of all indie
> developers from india and all the indie games ever made. So we put along a
> website at indiegamedev.in in drupal. It was too shabby a job, (yadu dont
> hate me for saying this) too ugly for my preference. But at least it was
> functional. Later we got fancy and got ourselves ingd.in and then we got our
> own fancy url shortener too.

As far as the site is concerned, it looks good but comes far short as
far as content goes. There needs to be a way to get good content
writers who can review games, write about them with screenshots and
get remunerated too. Also it does not matter if the game is
commercial or not, but you need good content to drive people to the
site and stay there and then do all kinds of things.

> --
> --
> Indie GameDev India Community
> http://indiegamedev.in

I think a major part of the things are/were because the three of you
are trying to drive everything and that is simply nuts (as in people
do and can get easily burnt out).

I didn't want to bring up but I had a hard time getting some info.
even after the BYOG event happened as to how many people there, what
sort of crowd was there (or wasn't), how was the overall atmosphere,
something say on the lines of say :-

https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/debian-utsav-coep-04-02-2012

OR

https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-mozilla-community-meetup/

The above is for taking as an e.g. only and please do not miscontrue
it to be any sort of advertising.

The idea should be to basically tell, give idea/s to people as to what
happened during an event. If there is some after-event report that was
published then apologies and please point me to that URL.

As far as vested interests are concerned, well, they are everywhere.

Just my 2 paise.
--
          Regards,
          Shirish Agarwal  शिरीष अग्रवाल
  My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com
065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3  8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17

[Kinshuk Sunil]

Ensuring that it all gets shared on the list too. Accidentally the list thread got converted into an individual thread and i didnt notice.

On Mar 5, 2012 12:28 AM, "rachit jain" <fab...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,

That would be really good i guess..also I was hoping we could find someway for other people and developers
who are not in and around Delhi n Banglore to chip-in, may be through blogs or something, as people from 

small cities, just like me, really want a way to explore the gaming industry and meet other fellow developers.
I have some friends of mine, who say they are passionate about gaming, but I feel they say so,

cuz they don't really know most of the ties that making games and playing them are different things..hehe
But nws, I just wish there could be a more engaging way to reach out to such developers.
I know, as you said earlier, its one thing to say something, and other to really implement it, but I just want
you to think on these linnes too if possible.
Thanks for the reply..:)

Rachit,

8970581011

p.s. here is my number in case you wish to let me in on something. I'd be happy to help..:)

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 12:17 AM, Kinshuk Sunil <kinshu...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 11:18 PM, rachit jain <fab...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Kinshuk,

I am Rachit, and I feel honored to come across this email of yours, and I am humbled by the sincerity 
and efforts you guys have put in.
I attended one meetup of IGDA,that happened at Zynga, and came to know yadu, joel and felt really
happy to be among the people there, and to meet fellow indies. I scheduled to return back to bangalore
that day specifically to attend that meet-up, and please don't think that I came, just cuz it was happening
at zynga, I came there because I really wanted to meet some developers.
I came to Bangalore, to study game programming, but reality is, that I came there in banglore to meet 
some more people who have passion for games, and in that one year of my course I managed to find
only one. And then when I came to know abt IGDA, I jumped right into it, and felt like being a part
of a community. It felt really awesome to meet all those wonderful people. And I wished to associate myself
with it, and help it in the future events, I even asked Joel and Yadu to lemme know if they have 
even the tiniest of work for me to do, but as you said it ws wrong on my part, to let them work on what to do
for the community, rather than contributing myself.
I have immense respect for the people I met that day, and now for you, and why i say so,

cuz I appreciate the way you talk about bringing indies in India together, and how you have tried and striven
to go about it. Well let me tell you something, there are game devs, who have been benefited by the community.
I graduated from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, and I gt started into 
gaming in the 2nd year of my college, where we were making games with the Carnegie Mellon Univ. on their
project MILLEE, after some time, I along with my friends thought of opening a game developers club back
in college, though we dint really drafted the club proposal, I found myself being looked upon by all the
game developing enthusiasts, and I felt a need of making serious contribution. I started reading more and more
about games in general, and gaming in India, and thats when I first came across the word Indie, and me along with
my other fellow friends started learning and making games, we used to have meetups in every 2 mnths, but
since we used to be in same hostel we used to talk abt games, and new technologies all the time.
Later, my friends joined the high-paying companies, and I found myself all alone. And the day I attended the
meetup, it felt like m back with the same gang, felt full of zeal and enthusiasm.
Since then, I have moved to manipal, and joined 99games, and have been really busy n occupied with the
work n upcoming game release, but the idea n dream you talk about, is still dear to me, as it was once
mine too, but you have done soo much more to realize it.
Today only I received a call from my junior, seeking advice on how to go about, to become a game developer,
and the first thing I asked him is to be a part of IGDA at linked in, and to introduce himself. I asked him, and stressed
to try and attend the upcoming meetup in banglore. 
I wish to contribute sincerely for the community too.
I am thinking of spreading the word in Manipal University, and hoping to gather some developers.
Please let me know if you have any ideas on this.

I really don't know, if I conveyed anything good or important, but hey, its just like
you wanted, community to be more vocal and sharing.

Thanks,

Rachit Jain

P.S. respect 

2012/3/1 shirish शिरीष <shiri...@gmail.com>

Rachit

Thank you for your email. Mucho Appreciato.

I was wondering if we should do a community skype/hangout sometime very soon and figure out the road ahead.

--

Kinshuk Sunil
+919910024895

[Vaibhav]

Hi guys,

Overview:

One of the main reason(apart from obvious financial motive) to work in UK was to learn the quality process over quantity.

Initiative:

Workshop in Bangalore and Delhi

Background and Profile(just to let you decide if you would be interested):

I believe I have had some success with recent projects (don't want to make this a bragging mail so will leave the details out).

I am working as global iOS Lead for Perform Group Media Services taking care of AAA budget equivalent (non gaming projects) from technical and production standpoint.

I have worked in India an entry level,

Middle level and senior game programmer followed by working as lead and Sr programmer for US defense simulation. My education is PG in game programming after my Masters.

I was lucky enough to be mentored by really great game engine programmers(in my personal opinion) during my career start.

For more details you are welcome to see my outdated website (www.vaibhavpanchal.com).

Proposal:

I would be happy to give a few hours workshop about my quality production learning and how it differ in majority from my experience in India.

In case if people would like to get insight of how multi million pound quality driven projects are handled for iOS and it helps anyone anyhow, I would be happy to share my technical and production learnings and experience.

Dates:

I will be in Bangalore from 17th March - 30th March and in Delhi from 31st March - 15th April. I can spare one day during the weekend in Bangalore (preferably Saturday) and one weekday in Delhi (Tremendous work pressure

and busy schedule).

Expectations:

Before we take it any further, I would like to put the right expectations. I sincerely and strongly believe in more work and less talks. If we go ahead with this plan, please be well prepared to sit down and actually study, learn, push yourself if you are at a beginner level.

I will take the liberty to learn from my previous similar initiatives and would have full intention to keep this workshop as low profile, direct and away from any media publicity. The idea is to invest more time in work than marketing or showing off.

Reason for initiative:

a) I had someone to guide and help me when I was a beginner so it's a thanks back to the community.

b) I admire what Yadu and Kinshuk has done.

What you need:

a) A pen drive where I can give some of the books.

b) A machine (preferable MacBook).

c) Get ready to be slaughtered.

d) Most important - Respect for others and their views and time invested.

e) Software tools - Will generate a list if I see enough interest.

What I would need:

a) Assistance from Yadu in Bangalore and Kinshuk in Delhi for a place to organize. Any volunteers are welcome. Ideally it would be helpful to have high speed internet, LAN and a projector.

b) Uninterrupted Electricity / Power source.

Entry Fees:

Entry fees is mandatory. It will either be spent on you , arrangements or on Wikipedia Donation. I don't want a single penny.

Why Entry Fees? This factor will filter out people who talk more than they work and come with a mindset of chilling out and ranting what's wrong everywhere.

Exception to entry fees:

If someone is genuinely in trouble but have extreme passion, exceptions can be considered "but" it would need to be earned. I will go in more details on this if someone comes forward with a private mail. Special discounts can be given to individuals who recently participated in "Introduction To AI : Advance track" by Stanford and were able to complete it to the end. Scores doesn't matter. The idea is to see the commitment.

Workshop Content (Subject to change):

- Introduction to programming and tools.

- Personal Observations: Difference between Indian and Western development methodologies.

- Agile Development: How to create stories, sprints and work on it.

- Production nightmares.

- Eye for detail Design: Perhaps the highlight of my learning.

- Team work.

I think it should suffice for now.

Just as a heads up, please think realistically before saying yes.

This is not game programming workshop. It's about quality driven projects from technical perspective.

I would be more than happy not to do this at all than to invest my time, my money in half hearted audience. I hope you understand.

Cheers!

-Vaibhav

P.S. : If no one is interested

@Yadu: Let's meet and catch up. Drinks on me! :D

[Yadu Rajiv]

It was a strange morning, it was colder than usual; as if the weather had taken a turn for the better.. slightly.. and so far its holding.. I was sure something was up, then I see this email. :)

Its awesome that you want to give back to the community what you have learned over the years :) and I personally know how it is not to have anyone telling me anything about how stuff works or how to go about doing things.. In some ways that was good, but I did waste a lot of time trying to find resources and by learning the wrong stuff.

Let me try to find a venue and see how that entry fee can be worked out.. (how to convert it into something we can actually give the people who are coming)

I think we can start a thread around the workshop and discuss it there rather than on this?

Kinshuk will jump in soon too I guess.. mm..

*excited* :D

--

Yadu Rajiv

    

[Vaibhav]

Cheers Yadu!

Maybe it's a good idea to have a head count before we book venue?

Will wait for different thread and any other proposal in content anyone would have.

The more questions we have now, the better I would be able to structure the workshop.

-Vaibhav

[Kinshuk Sunil]

I still have to reply to Vaibhav's thread. Will do it more detail soon, but Vaibhav we are working on something really awesome. Should come out soon :D
And its a sad thing: when You are in Banglore, I am in Delhi. When you com to Delhi, I am in Banglore :(

Besides, those of us who love IRC, we started hanging at #ingdin at irc.freenode.org. Pls2join and share some love.
Those who arent used to IRC or are new, here's the why-and-how: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Started-with-IRC-%28Internet-Relay-Chat%29

[Vaibhav]

Awesome. Look forward to see it.

Oh well, no worries bout date swap. Some other time then!

-Vaibhav

--

[Vaibhav]

Guys,

Unity3D is free for ios and android till 8th April.

Take it and go. :)

-Vaibhav

On Mar 12, 2012, at 15:53, Kinshuk Sunil <kinshu...@gmail.com> wrote:

--