Its rather the other way around: Make a good game knowing that it will hardly be played, and I (and some others who sympathize with the concept - the networking effect of the idea works at least to some extend already) will play it. You won't make big numbers with it, but at least you'll get some people who play your game and give you some feedback instead of a bulk of people who - if they even download your game - likely never start it.
I think there's lots of distribution channels for that stuff. People still download homebrews and rom hacks. The big barrier I think we face as underground game devs is audience. Perhaps its a lamentation of the fragmenting of the Internet, but now all that's left (it feels like) is Newgrounds holding down the fort, and that is mostly creators supporting creators.
I yearn for an AddictingGames.com or something like that to just capture the "Youtube for games" audience like we had back in Flash. Where you could put out any product (either ad supported or completely free) and there was never an expectation of the player paying money to access the games.
It seems that the phone stores (walled gardens) have completely centralized how most people interact with casual games. Those devices are highly supportive of predatory monetization, so most people have probably learned by now not to play games on them. No website focusing on free-only games for phone+pc has emerged to replace them. It's an odd place to be.
In any case, I'm a numbers hunter. That's always been the appeal to making things for free for me. I'd love to make money on my games, but if I can reach large numbers of people for free, I'd rather do that. Back in flash you could do both. I hope we get back to something like that some day.
You know of existing channels were devs are actually exchanging feedback? If so, mind to link them? ;)
From what I observe every (cultural) market is in a state of consolidation, be it music, books, or video games, and the "good old times" (whatever you think them to be - I was never too fond of flashgames, but liked mid 2000s non-commercial game scene) are likely gone for good. Where easy accessible spots for "game creation" appear they are - by design - controlled by the industry. The Underground Gaming project is directed to escape this walled garden.
Romhacking.net is going strong, rom hacks are by definition non-commercial and underground.
Newgrounds of course as mentioned.
(edit: I want to include Pico-8 too though I wish it was updated more and was even bigger than it is!)
I very much support your initiative; I think you're just vocalizing something many people can feel which is that the entire industry has raced to the bottom and the players have come to expect a bait-and-switch from every product that they see. People want art and innovation, but they can't be expected to dig through the crates in the back of the record store to find it. We should be the DJs who bring those records out of the crate and play them publicly somewhere.
I think a platform dedicated to completely unmonetized games could be a reasonable starting point for that. But how do you pay for a platform dedicated to free stuff? the age old question :) Might need some wikipedia-level community contributions to make something like that work.
(Edit: and to touch on your original point of "Underground" vs "Indie" I think part of the issue is that the non-Indie industry is using the "indie" label for games made with teams of 20 people lol)
Ty. I agree that RomHacking is inherently underground (same is true at least for parts of the modding community). Yet they (again: Like the Modding community) are a bit stewing in their own juice. Until now this works for them - but modern gaming industry is showing both groups the teeth, and most contemporary games are harder to mod or hack, making the hobby less attractive for younger players.
Maybe I'll have to take a closer look on Newgrounds, regarded them mostly as some flash-game hub until now ;). Lately I'm fishing a bit into the web revival scene - a lot of creativity is bundled there right now.
The idea of creating platform occurred to me as well, but I think that Itch is doing a fine job for hosting projects - what we rather need is - imho - more communication between ambitious developers and more (external) curation.
Yes, the "commercialization" of indie gaming is definitely a part of the problem - on the other hand, there never was much resistance against it, so I think that this was bound to happen, and that only a distinction from commercial gaming can create a staying and interesting scene.
Guess you made more than the project linked to your account? If you want, mail me some links to your games and I'll gladly look into them.
contact [at] thunderperfectwitchcraft.org