The problem is, no one here has the credibility to draw a community of game developers worth the effort - so any attempt is bound to wind up as just another failed HN clone unless it's an actual startup with millions of dollars and the SV hype machine behind it. For all its faults, Reddit is still the best option.
/r/truegamedev is supposed to be a better version of /r/gamedev, that might be one option. I keep a list of programming and gamedev subreddits in RES. There's a lot of noise but that seems to be where the conversation is.
Also Twitter. Just about every game developer, from AAA to indie, in every discipline has a Twitter account, and a surprising amount of technical discussion goes on there.
