the fabled gamers underground

this has little to do with the technical side of games programming

I'd be interested in hearing advice on this, all the same

I'd be interested in hearing advice on this, all the same

i agree!!

maybe wrong place but definitely right question...

Doing a google search for "indie games" comes up with lots of stuff, namely http://db.tigsource.com/ and http://indiegames.com/.

Edit: I don't know if that's what you're looking for exactly. "by the players, for the players" doesn't really make any sense to me. Players don't make games; game developers make games. =P

But the best of developers are the players themselves! If a developer develops for the sake of developing their game will be a business grind. If they develop for the sake of creating a game they would love to play, they in most cases will push that extra effort into it to make it fun!

But the best of developers are the players themselves!

I'd have to say I disagree on that particular point; players sometimes have good game ideas, but I don't think they necessarily make particularly good developers. The ideas that a player comes up with often come in the form of something like "a game just like MyFavouriteGame, but with ThisParticularWeapon added to it", where they player has noticed something they would personally like to try out, but may not have considered how it will affect the balance or direction of the game as a whole -- sure, it might be fun to add rockets in to the shooter you've been playing, but unless it occurs to you to re-design several of the maps to compensate you might suddenly have a broken game where rockets allow the players to take out a wall and skip to the end.

Of course, this doesn't apply to all players, just as your statement about developers pursuing a business grind doesn't apply to all developers. In my opinion we get the best and most interesting games when a skilled developer creates a game that they truly love and when they take the potential behaviour of other players in to account and design appropriately.

I'd consider that a naive developer.
In terms of a developers state of mind I would expect;
Not gamer. Naive Developer. wouldn't have much of a push to make games.
Not gamer. Good Developer. Original ideas, with not much influence from gaming. This may or may not lead to visiting elements gamers would not like.
Gamer. Naive Developer. Ideas will be strung to other games, general result will be sloppy messes of game elements.
Gamer. Good Developer. Ideas may or may not be based around other games, but there is room enough for new thought. At least some bad ideas are going to be avoided.

I don't think a good developer must necessarily be a gamer. There are plenty of people that aren't "users" of what they create, but are experts at creating it none the less.

Edit: just to add a bit more, to be "great" at any kind of creative design (game design or any other kind) the critical thing is to be able to think abstractley about what you are trying to achieve, and what will help and hinder that. A solid gaming background could help provide that level of thinking, but it can just as easily hinder it. In any case, ideally a design team would involve people with no experience in games, but with experience in other fields such as cinematography and storytelling. They would bring invaluable insight that gamers might miss.

And just a little anecdote I read: A student pilot of some experience is sent out to do the pre-flight check on the plane he is about to fly. He goes out to the plane, walks around it for a few minutes going through the pre-flight checklist, and returns to the instructor, confidently pronouncing that it is ready to fly. The instructor is incredulous, because the airplane that the student checked is missing a propeller. The student focused on minute details and completely failed to see the obvious. A non-pilot would have likely spotted the missing prop instantly.

This is well off topic for Game Programming. Bouncing to the Lounge.