We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ron Jones a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ron, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

“Inspiring the untargeted, promoting the unseen, and supporting the unfunded”. This is a tagline we use and something we hold ourselves to every day. The Indie Cluster has always been a community of game developers helping other game developers. We have to be the ones to share resources and help each other. We know hard the development process can be, how lonely it can be grinding on something that’s unpolished, and how confusing and challenging the business side of things can be. Sharing and lifting up others should be a normal part of our society. The thing about it is when people, a company, a family, or any team actually practice those group economics, the culture grows and everyone thrives. A lot of my passion for serving comes from my family, my faith, and watching the impact a community can have on someone. Seeds need to be watered and put in the light so they can grow. As an artist and creative, I understand how much of an unbelievable feeling it is to manifest something that only existed in your mind. It’s an even more heartening moment watching someone experience and enjoy what you’ve created. It breeds a connection and sense of unity with people. It’s unfortunate how much time, understanding, creativity, and experience has to go into getting developers to that point. Then it takes three times the amount of resources to make the game a financial success.

If your mission is to help people, then you will always be in demand. We noticed developers around us were not getting the quality level feedback they needed to make their games better. With our experience, we were able to start offering that as a service. It’s helped us expand our network and grow our revenue. But more importantly, it’s been helping independent game developers. During our weekly shows on Twitch, we playtest games live. The following is how one team responded to our review.

“Hey thank you so much for playing through our game. So glad that our design intentions were communicated for you and that you found it an enjoyable and relaxing experience. I really appreciate you taking a moment to provide thoughtful feedback too. There is a wealth of information in seeing someone play through your game without developer prompts/assistance and talk through what they’re thinking about as they do it!”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Ron Jones The Artist is what I go by, but you can call me Ron. I’ve always been a creative and had an eye to change the world, or at least what was in front of me. I fell in love with the video game space and ended up taking that on as a college path. Games to me have been the ultimate art form, and I wanted to build great worlds and beautiful stories out of nothing. While learning and gaining experience in games, I’ve picked up skills in painting and creating comics. I’m proud to have multiple projects under my belt when, in the past, people have made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for anything. That’s a big part of why I’m intentional about community work and talking to younger people. I wouldn’t be where I am if people didn’t sacrifice for me and invest their time, money, and patience into my growth. After I graduated and noticed a lack of opportunities for creatives like myself. I set out to pull some resources together, called it a business, and waited to see how people would respond. An overwhelming “we need this”, is what I got.

The Indie Cluster is a platform providing opportunities, resources, and services centered around supporting indie game developers. We focus on quality assurance testing, discoverability, hands-on production, and curating a traveling booth for our games. As our digital future demands more interactive experiences, sustainability is crucial for these small businesses. We’ve created a modular studio for our members, allowing each developer to focus on their game while still staying connected and succeeding together!

We are most proud of our partners, patrons, and members. It takes a lot of heart to support this space consistently as long as we’ve been around. Our growth is directly tied to the potential this market can offer the world. Often times when money gets involved it can corrupt a creative process, hurt the product, and damage relationships. So we love helping those that don’t do this for the money. Our mission is that no passion project dies because of a lack of funding.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Reaching out to those that might not know how our service can help them has been a great way to build our brand. We often pick random game jams and games to provide feedback for as content for our Twitch channel. This has the triple effect of giving potential clients a taste of what we offer, and it sharpens our skills in talking about game UX. All while we get to play and promote great developers. Meeting people halfway is sometimes not enough when you’re growing. So going to where your target demographic is helps you stay humble and actually learn what it is that your customers need. Then you just spend your resources developing a long-term relationship that builds your clientele, or as we like to say, family.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I’m constantly trying to grow and refine my skills and ways of thinking. I listen to plenty of critical thinkers and business leaders on Youtube, in long-form interviews, and just by following their entrepreneurial journey. I don’t think any one person has all the answers and especially not the answers that might be best for me. However, I believe in the more data we collect on a subject, the more solid our theories and solutions can be in executing that subject. In addition to listening to people that have already done it, I really like it when I find a book on this topic that I connect with so well. Even if I feel like I know what I’m doing, it’s nice when you hear or read successful people mention the same mindset. Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie and Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson are some of my favorite titles to recommend to people. I just started reading Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek and I’m already in love. So far this book embodies everything I want to stand for and lays out examples and experiences that sum up what I want to achieve better than I can. I’m always down to find something new and learn what the world has to offer. So if you have anything in mind that can help me be great, please send it my way!

Contact Info:

• Website: IndieCluster.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/IndieClusterATL
• Facebook: Facebook.com/IndieClusterATL
• Linkedin: Linkedin.com/company/IndieClusterATL
• Twitter: Twitter.com/IndieClusterATL
• Other: Twitch.tv/IndieClusterATL