Indie Game Development - Resources, Forums, Positions ?

Acumen

So lately, I've been following this crazy indie games happening (Unity and whatnot) and I'm starting to like the idea of working close with a bunch of people on the development of an actual game.
So I thought, while I'm not the bestest arist in the world, it could become a great adventure to dive in the development of a motivated team and realize a nifty game idea together.
That's fairydreamland so far.

Since Polycount is the only gameartforum i browse regularly I wanted to know - since many of you guys have experienced the indie game thing - what are places I should check out to get to know people that work on indie games ?
Forums, Websites, Communities ?

Where could I search for job request threads, where people (best coders :poly136:) search for 2-3 artists to realize a game project ?
(I'm not talking about paid positions, just to make sure.)

Am I imaginating the indie game universe too romantically ?
Is it brutal and harsh money making ?

So basically I would love to get to know some guy with a cool idea, who can code the game but needs some 3d art

Well, any information on this subject would be helpful and deeply appreciated ! Tell me, if I haven't been clear enough - I often get that as a first reply

Eric Chadwick

I would advise checking out the Unity forum, our Requests forum, and especially any local user groups in your area that are organized around the various indie-popular software like Unity, Blender, Flash, etc. Even user groups for the larger commercial packages will be good places to make contacts, since some pros like to do indie projects on the side.

Sean VanGorder

Check out http://www.moddb.com and http://www.indiedb.com, basically the same site, but they're the best communities for mods and indie games.

renderhjs

Don't see it as replacement for a real job at least not in the beginning. Most people I know that started or do indy game development have a proper job that servers for the main income. Their indy game project is a things they do in their extra time with the hope of being as successful as the meatboy guys, goo or minecraft - but thats not a common thing to be successful.
Even on the iPhone there are more and more competitors coming up every day, and now even the big ones like EA, id and epic start releasing stuff on those platforms.

One of my coworkers creates games every now and then on his own, he is not the best artist but a good making things done guy (coding, art, business,...). So he naturally hires people from poor countries to do the graphics, like China, India or Romania and puts everything together himself. They are cheaper, very fast and listen to any request or change so for him thats a good deal.
For other artists its a sad thing as they don't even get a chance - and I am sure that my co worker is not the only one doing it like that. Lots of big companies hire cheap and small teams from poor countries with low payments to have them do their game for the markets that are used by indy developers.

Acumen

Oh, it's not about getting myself a job or even paid for it. Just finally working on something that actually gets played by people and/or finished, in the end.
A light 3d game of any kind, so to speak.

I'll be sure to check out the sources you mentioned. Maybe someone else has something to add on top. General advice of any kind - what traps to avoid and so on
I'm still doing this stuff as a hobby and after quite some time in the tf2world I kinda thought it might be cool to try something else - and whether there's a place to get started in this whole thing. Since my gf is off to work, I might start some proper research ^^

edit:
K, the Unity forums are basically like a lot of mod forums. Gotta pick where you wanna join and fail
So many large scale projects. Gotta dig a little bit deeper.

Ben Apuna

Strange no one mentioned the forum at TIGSource it's the first place that comes to my mind when it comes to indie games. They've got both paid and unpaid job areas.

The Help Wanted section at the Gamedev.net forum might be another place to find a programmer in need as they tend to hang out there as well.