Kongregate has become the leading indie games site featuring over 8,000 games set within an addictive social environment, announced the launch of Kongregate Labs, a dedicated community within the Kongregate site devoted to fostering the creative talents of aspiring new indie game developers.

With Kongregate Labs, enthusiasts will gain free, hands-on access to valuable step-by-step tutorials (dubbed “shootorials”), specialized chat and forums for interacting with their peers, as well as the tools and assets they need to create their own original games for uploading to the Kongregate site. Since launching in March 2007, Kongregate has been focused on evangelizing the indie developer, sharing a percentage of its ad revenue directly with participating developers.

“Kongregate Labs will open up new possibilities for game creation to an even wider range of aspiring developers,” noted Jim Greer, CEO and co-founder of Kongregate. “Our goal is to demystify game development for first-time creators, offering them everything they need to know to express themselves, and to develop great games to share with our community, as well as profit from them.”

With the launch of Kongregate Labs, the company also announced a major sponsorship with Scion, the hip auto brand delivering personalizable cars to Generation Y. As part of the eight-week promotion, Scion will be the sole sponsor of Kongregate Labs, as well as the Driving Creativity Contest that will recognize and award prizes to winning participants for the best new indie games created. Winners will be determined by rankings from Kongregate players. The site currently attracts over 4.5 million unique visitors each month.

“Our tightly-knit community of players – predominantly males age 18-24 – provides an ideal vehicle for brands like Scion who want to engage directly with their target audience in an innovative, but tangible and effective way,” added Lee Uniacke, Kongregate’s chief revenue officer.

Kongregate will initially roll out several different “shootorials” each week – eight in total during the Scion promotion, including a Scion-branded tool set, complete with game art and sound effects as well as a music mixer. A dedicated forum and chat channel will provide peer assistance, and allow participants to share their progress within a highly interactive community of fellow developers and players.

“The Scion brand speaks to a certain demographic — the young, creative individualist who thrives on self-expression,” stated Emily Yamamoto, Scion Interactive Marketing. “This project allows Scion to foster the true indie spirit of developers and engage them through the highly interactive Kongregate community. We’re providing the community with entertaining concepts that stand out from the crowd.”