The Gathering of Developers has signed on to co-present the GDC Independent Games Festival, held alongside the Game Developers Conference, on March 15-19 in San Jose, California. Event organizers will pick up to 30 games developed by independent parties to highlight at the show.

　　Gathering CEO Mike Wilson said, " has been talking about setting up a festival like Sundance in order to countermeasure the effects of consolidation in this industry. The games industry is 'big business' now with developers being represented by talent agents, and many developers are facing difficulty in funding new projects. With rising production and marketing costs, publishers are hesitant to take on a project from unproven talent, and it's hard for small shops to break through."

　　"We talked to the GDC people about the idea and found that they were already working on something in the same spirit, and so it seemed a perfect way to get it started," Wilson said. "Events such as this encourage these Indie players and gives the guy banging out code in a garage somewhere a chance to show off their games and hopefully inject something innovative into the industry. It also gives publishers the opportunity to take a chance on something new. Ultimately this benefits the consumer."

　　Alex Dunne, chairman of the Indie Games Festival, said "g.o.d. is an organization that was formed with the purpose of nourishing independent game developers, so it's entirely fitting that they are the festival's main sponsor."

　　AMD and Microsoft have also signed on as event sponsors.

　　The Indie festival is taking entries in PC, Macintosh, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo, or online platforms (all entries must be unpublished). US$10,000 will be awarded to the title chosen as "the best independent game of the year"; the winning entry will also be submitted to the g.o.d. review board for publishing consideration.

　　The deadline for round one written submission is January 15.