Hi everyone, I know many of the posters here are active in a diverse range of game and software related newsgroups and forums. At present I am only active in the GDNet forums. However due to the population of GDNet it appears mainly focused on hobbyists or people wanting to break into the mainstream industry (with a few veterans who have already made it). I am currently interested in learning more about the business side of games, with a particular focus on starting an independent game business. As part of my learning I would like to find a good forum with a sizable amount of indie related business content, where I can lurk for a while to get a feel of the sort of problems indies face and then post relevant business questions when the time arises. At the moment I am skimming through the forums at the IGDA. I am also considering buying membership of the Association of Shareware Professionals, although I am unsure about what their member-only benefits are like. Are there any forums that you participate in or have knowledge of that you could recommend to someone aiming to enter the indie market? Thanks in advance!

Here is one I visit often http://forums.indiegamer.com/.

The IGDA forums are pretty good. They suffer the same symptoms as gd.net that you mentioned, but there are still many gems in there.

Some of their mailing lists, such as the casual games mailing list, could be valuable to you. There is still a mix ranging from pre-teen wannaba to experienced professionals, but it tends to be more on the professional side.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have a look at the Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards as well as IGDA.