Game development incubators exist, but last I looked, they're all filled and accepting no new applicants. This would be for obvious reasons - everyone wants to be incubated, but few individuals have the resources to incubate.<p>So what the hell are the rest of us supposed to do?<p>I'll tell you what I think the rest of us might do.<p>Instead of hoping for some established individual to come along and provide a sanctuary for our game development dream, let's see if we can pool our resources and make our own incubator. It can't be impossible, can it?<p>For example, me, personally, I don't have much in the way of money, but I have a house in my family that is available for use as an incubation facility. So that covers rent for everyone once everyone busses in there to live. Maybe someone else out there has a bit of savings that could cover our food. And maybe someone else out there has a car we can do collective transportation with.<p>You see where I'm going? Maybe this is less of an incubator than a commune, but I mean shit, if we don't do this ourselves, who's going to do it?<p>I know the idea sounds crazy, but it's so incredibly frustrating to me that game development requires so few resources (a place to crash and some food) that there's gotta be a solution when we pool our resources.<p>Am I crazy? Or is this something that should be tried? Otherwise, I don't see how we won't all eventually get sucked back into a 9-5, our dreams out of our reach.
I know a few folks from <a href="http://houseogames.com" rel="nofollow">http://houseogames.com</a><p>From what I recall, it didn't really pan out, but people grew wiser and better at what they do, so that's good.<p>Personally, I got some investment money and almost all the developers included in my current projects live/lived/will live in a big place with me now. I think it works because of clear hierachy, discipline and common concrete goals.<p>In a commune-like system, you'll get a bunch of extremely individualist personalities and not much of a team, unless planets lined up.<p>Which reminds me, I need to start distributing morning coffee to their pillows and round 'em up right now.
What area do you live? Maybe start it off small and work up if it works out. Do you know what's it like to have roommates? It's a challenge to live with a diverse background of people. It sounds great if you lived in the Silicon Valley area, if not it maybe hard for others to just go to a random city with no benefit from the city.