Enter ProjectMQ.

This is much more than a social platform dedicated to indie games. It’s a thriving community of indie fans and indie developers that seeks to educate as well as elevate.

According to the ProjectMQ website:

I had the pleasure of speaking with Malcolm and Marcus Howard – twins and creators of ProjectMQ –  about how they plan to connect, support, and grow the global indie gaming community. 

Malcolm and Marcus Howard, creators of ProjectMQ.

GS: How did the idea for ProjectMQ come about?

GS: What is your vision for ProjectMQ? How will it work?

The games we select are polished and unique. Our goal is to grow ProjectMQ to support a larger number of indie developers, but we have to keep that number small now due to limited resources.

Malcolm: It’s not that we don’t want to support all indie devs – that’s why we have the Twitter marketing aspect – it’s that we’re focused on the middle tier of the indie scene. You have a group of mid-tier devs who are spending years making a game and investing money in the games they make. It’s important that this group of people can continue to make their games.

GS: How are indie development studios responding to ProjectMQ?

Malcolm: “A rising tide floats all boats.”

GS: I know you’ve been presenting at investment incubators, what other successes have you had thus far?

GS: What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered?

In April of this year, we won Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Savannah’s Bootcamp Demo Day – a SharkTank-style pitch competition. We received a cash prize from the Savannah Economic Development Authority. We also participated and were selected as a winner in the Neighborhood Start Fund Pitch Competition in Chicago. In May, we completed the Valley Venture Mentors (VVM) Accelerator Program and placed as a finalist in the Accelerator Awards for cash prizes.

Marcus: 30,000 followers in two years. We’re excited for the growth, but thousands of people have access to us at any given time. My phone dies a lot. We want the brand to be approachable and human. It takes a lot of effort to provide that experience.

GS: Project MQ has its own Slack Channel. How does this work into the larger social media platform?

GS: How can people get involved with or support ProjectMQ?

GS: If you could go back to the beginning and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Marcus: If anyone else wants to support what we’re doing, support indie games. A lot of people don’t realize that making games takes an incredible amount of work. Even if you don’t’ have money to spend, telling someone you like their work goes a long way. Share something if you think it’s cool. Every little bit helps.

GameSkinny would like to thank Marcus and Malcolm for taking the time to speak with us and for all their efforts to support the indie dev community. ProjectMQ is live and in pre-alpha. To see what ProjectMQ is up to, check out their website, their Twitter page or dev blog.