Hello,
I'm working with a few guys on a project for indie game developers. The two of them quit their jobs about a year ago to focus on building a marketplace for indie games that gives developers more freedom and opportunities to collaborate. We're now almost ready for an open beta, and we need both games and people to help us test the platform.
To that end, we thought we might hold a competition to find some noteworthy open source games. The goal of the competition would be to grant recognition to open source developers who have contributed to the community in a way you feel is important. Since our platform is based on indie game development, we're looking to celebrate the work of open source indies you love, granting their developers some recognition and allowing us to feature some favorite open source games from the community in our marketplace.
What do you think of this idea? Who are some people in the community with open source projects that you think deserve recognition?
Here's the blog with guidelines for the competition: http://digitalmancompetition.wordpress.com
I'll be improving the site based on your feedback to make sure it's as awesome as possible, so feel free to drop your advice below. If you think the structure of the competition itself needs to be heavily modified I'll gladly take your suggestions. We'll be running more competitions in the future, so any input now would be great.
If you have any questions, drop them below and I'll get back to you within a day or so.
Thanks,
Samuel

What makes your service any better than Steam?
From the little advertising/whoring blurb you made here, all I see are:
You are a new digital distribution platform that is generating artificial word of mouth.
You focus on "indie games" in an era where the line is getting more and more blurred every day.
You want to build a community where game makers can talk. Fun, until you realize that it will also be full of idiots. Just take a look at ANY forum related to coding to see why this will end poorly.
You are so in-tune with the community you are trying to make that you need to ask for suggestions of who you should talk to.

Indie != open source. You use that term interchangeably and with that bring down your whole argument.
As for notable indie developers, they're already well known by the fact that they make money on important platforms such as Steam and with massive sales like the Indie Humble Bundle.

Scourge Project? Open source?

Open source games? As in games that are open to being refined and changed by the public?
...I don't think any such things exist. At the least, there's usually a platform program somewhere which is NOT open-source that can be used to produce freeware, and those are much rarer than simple copyrighted unalterable games.

Alrighty, bear with me as I attempt to address all the points you've raised here.
@Gundato:
The idea of the platform is to increase collaboration among developers to better their projects and increase their efficiency. Steam has its own toolkit for developers, Steamworks, but this is very different from the 'bubbled' environment that Worldki provides. We're currently revamping the site, so don't judge too hard, but you can find the overview of the idea there: http://worldki.com/product.html
In terms of the "indie game blur" going on, I coudn't agree more. Indies are being launched on steam every day and are being met with a new audience and acceptance, and even a perspective of heroism by some in the gaming community (a david versus goliath-esque situation). Defining 'indie' is tricky and demands a cement bunker to hide in for all the flaming it induces. The platform (ideally) will help independent developers to further blur the line by allowing them to make more awesome content more easily, and be able to monetize it.
With regard to the developer community, I certainly agree that there is room for ignoramuses and fools. However, other open projects have been met with huge success despite the initial clamor raised by those who thought it wouldn't work. The best one that comes to mind is Wikipedia.
The reason I asked for your suggestions was because I admit that I don't know everything or everyone related to this subject. I don't find it undercutting at all to freely ask for help from people who may well be more involved in the community than I am.
If you have any other questions after checking out the site, feel free to ask and I'll get to them as soon as I can.
@Andrew C
For this competition we're looking for games that are open source and developed
independently, hence my lax switching between the two.
By 'notable developers' I don't mean the guys who have already made a bundle of money off of their games, necessarily, but people who have contributed to the community in a big way and perhaps need some recognition. I'll make this clearer in my future posts.
@Captfitz
I accidentally placed a video from the Scourge Project under what was suppose to be S.C.O.U.R.G.E. SCOURGE is an open source hack and slasher. I caught my mistake yesterday and fixed it right away.
@Prator
There are a huge number of open source games, many with large communities of devs and gamers alike backing them. Here's a nice list of some options from wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games
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I hope that addresses everything. It's difficult to not sound like a spam-bot and get a benevolent response on forums, as posts like mine are often seen as intruding and, as you said, whoring. I apologize for any confusion, but if you checkout the website for both the competition and WorldKi I think you'll see that what we're trying to do is something different that will benefit developers and gamers alike.
If any of you are interested, voting began for the competition today. The url is the same as above (http://digitalmancompettion.wordpress.com).
Thanks,
samuel

no, thank you for keeping it classy here
and that scourge game intrigues me

So what makes you better than Steam? You really never answered that, you just linked to a bunch of bull.
I am not looking for a detailed comparison. I just want the raison d'etre, as it were. If your reason is just "We don't like Steamworks", then what makes you better than Stardock (with Impulse Reactor)?
It will further blur the line by making a massive distinction between indie/"open source" games and commercial games?
Take a look at the news updates on any given day from Steam. Outside of the big named games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and the like, it is REALLY hard to tell which games are indie games and which games aren't. That is blurring the line.
Having to go to a special service to buy a game is not blurring the line. It is running it through a crap ton of filters and the like to make it sharper.
Okay, how does that apply here? Are there going to be thousands of people constantly refining an article to explain just WHY Spike is so awesome? Or, in this case, constantly refining an article to explain why Counterstrike is right (only to lead to an edit war with the people who argue that Counterstrike's approach to weapon balance is incorrect)? The thing that made Wiki (sort of) work was VERY strict rules regarding editing (seriously, the moment something becomes problematic it gets locked) and because anyone can communicate. And, at the end of the day, it is pretty easy to define what is fact and what isn't.
All you would have here would be a few people who think they know what they are talking about getting into arguments over who is right and who is wrong (take a look at Valve and Epic. They are both pretty much the top of the heap for FPS devs, but they have very different approaches to level design and gameplay).
And again, what does an encyclopedia have to do with game development? You might as well start citing twitter and facebook.
Which is good, except that all you have done is make yourself look like a PR person who has no idea what he is talking about.
It is like getting skateboard-purchasing tips from a guy in a suit who just keeps saying "kickflip". Admittedly, I once had a job where I was that guy in the suit :p

Honestly? I fail to see how this is much different than IndieDB + Desura. Considering the former is based on the well established ModDB... yeah. I think you've got your work cut out.

I would have mentioned that, but I think we all see that as failing and being hated by gamers (from what I have read, they want to sell mods (which is actually not illegal, if done correctly and with the right games)). :p
It is like saying "Well of course Steam isn't going to do amazingly. Stardock has Impulse". In other words, it makes people laugh :p
Nah, the only way I see an indie-games/"open source" games service to work is if it is founded by people like the guys at Wolfire. People who have clout and actually understand the community. And the thing is, they won't do it. Because they want to blur that line, and making an unnecessary distinction isn't in their best interest.

@Captfitz
I've actually taken to Soulfu. It's rather strange and the graphics make me absurdly happy. Also, nice Dinosaur Comic reference.
"I CALL SHENANIGANS."
@Gundato
"So what makes you better than Steam? You really never answered that, you just linked to a bunch of bull.
I am not looking for a detailed comparison. I just want the raison d'etre, as it were. If your reason is just "We don't like Steamworks", then what makes you better than Stardock (with Impulse Reactor)?"
WorldKi is distinct from steam or stardock in that it offers distribution of both middleware and videogames. Developers can buy the tools they need to make games and sell parts of their games to make money (like physics engines). Also, WorldKi provides true cross platform capability, meaning you build a game or tool once and it is available everywhere WorldKi is.
Perhaps Wikipedia was a poor choice of metaphor. WorldKi's marketplace provides an environment where developers can exchange software components or tools.
If you have any other questions or feedback let me know.
Thanks,
samuel

Steam was launched before Impulse. Stardock Central, Impulse's predecessor, was already around, but it didn't have anything as popular as CounterStrike or Half Life 2. A distribution platform being well established counts for a lot.
Plus, Day of Defeat and CounterStrike, both mods, were both sold through Steam in it's early days. A lot of mods are still sold through Steam.
Because of it's massive clout and popularity with enterprising modders, Steam has been universally hated by gamers and is not the leading digital distribution service at all. Seriously.

Uhm... Even Stardock admits that Steam is the leading digital distribution platform. And a lot of people like Steam. Hell, the only real complaints I have ever seen are:
Oh mah gawds, it uses up too much system resources! (but Winamp doesn't :p)
I don't like "renting" games (these people tend to hate all digital distribution platforms :p)
Steam hates people who aren't American (pretty much true)
Like it or not, Steam is on top.
So is this marketed towards consumers (gamers) or devs? If the former, what does any of that matter? If the latter, why are you advertising here? There are better outlets.
As for libraries/engines: Moddb already has a sister site that does this, so what makes you different than Desura (eww, I feel dirty just pretending that Desura isn't going to flop :p)
As for "true cross platform capability": does that mean that your service will magically make a library that uses DirectX work in Linux and Mac? Or are you just saying that your client/website works on Mac and Linux. If the former, kudos. If the latter, you probably should go look at Steam :p
So it is just Gamedev.net? Or Unity's forums?

Link please. I'm actually in the beta, and there is no way mods can be sold for money (yet, but I understand the policy is to not sell mods for money, ever. Of course, if you're turning your UT3 mod into a UDK game, that's different, but you'll go to Epic for that, not Desura). And anyway, the main purpose of it at this point in time is to download and install mods easily.

Ah. I will be the first to admit I haven't been following Desura too much. Everything I have heard is pretty much based on second-hand knowledge. So if that bit was wrong, apologies.
That being said: It is only the beta right now, so they are probably working on the mechanics. There is still room to add in moneys :p
That being said, the entire thing still reeks of another Impulse. Especially since even Stardock is getting in on the publisher-controlled cloud of content thing (from what I have read, Elemental is taking a very Spore-esque approach to mods :p).