Seems like a lot of people like your approach, so I'll clarify. I am focused on releasing my game because I want to continue working for myself and having the opportunity to choose/direct my creativity every single day.
The journey is important, you'll probably have a hard time making it in this industry and/or burn out if you aren't deriving joy from the day to day work.
For me, not releasing my game ASAP is not an option. I'm living off of my savings. That's why I prefer other full time devs because survival mode is very different than safe mode. (I feel 10 times more alive. Not sure how others feel).
Anyways, Im mostly responding to encourage you to create your own group because there seems to be a lot of people who are in the same boat as you. I have to say, meeting up with people every week who share the same drive/passion as I do is a great experience.
> For me, not releasing my game ASAP is not an option. I'm living off of my savings. That's why I prefer other full time devs because survival mode is very different than safe mode.
I think you have the right mindset here, so you will probably be successful in actually shipping. Kudos to you. Looking for another person with that mindset for your group, I think, is the right one.
I'm not a game developer by the way, but I am doing the solo indie dev thing, as of a few months ago. I think a lot of people who are dabbling in game dev or indie dev, like the idea of one day doing something with it, but what they really enjoy is the craftsmanship of building an engine, setting up their tooling, creating a process, etc. In my opinion, that's fun, but it doesn't really get you closer to shipping code and seeing what the market likes or dislikes. No disrespect to anyone who likes that aspect, but I think it's way different from actually needing to ship a product.
So yeah, if you ended up including tinkerers in your group, I can see how that would change the nature of the conversations.
The journey is important, you'll probably have a hard time making it in this industry and/or burn out if you aren't deriving joy from the day to day work.
For me, not releasing my game ASAP is not an option. I'm living off of my savings. That's why I prefer other full time devs because survival mode is very different than safe mode. (I feel 10 times more alive. Not sure how others feel).
Anyways, Im mostly responding to encourage you to create your own group because there seems to be a lot of people who are in the same boat as you. I have to say, meeting up with people every week who share the same drive/passion as I do is a great experience.