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My approach has been to put it out there as soon as I had something playable, with an obvious disclaimer that you play at your own risk and may lose everything. I don't know if that counts as shipping but at least I get to see people experience it.

You're right though that I may not count as a real indie game developer since I do it purely for fun.

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Yeah, take a look at Nuclear Throne [2] vs Wasteland Kings[1].

Nuclear Throne is something I'd consider "shipped". It's polished, the design is solid and it's currently sustaining Vlambeer commercially. Compare that to their prototype(wasteland) and you'd get an idea on the difference(also ~2 years dev time if I recall correctly).

[edit]

I can also highly recommend watching anything from Rami Ismail of Vlambeer. He's brutally honest about the realities of being an indie developer and the mindset you need to be successful.

[1] https://vlambeer.itch.io/wasteland-kings

[2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680/Nuclear_Throne/

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