Gabe Newell - Interview

well worth a thread i think. he made a good point about the community investment; a thing like that would be huge.

I don't think it'd work well for mods - maybe small indie studios, yeah. I remember when Black Mesa won the Alienware desktop and we kept talking about what to do with it... how would a mod team go about splitting the funding? Plus, fans are stupid. Just pump out a few screenshots and model renders and you'll get money flowing in. What happens when a mod (or small indie effort) crumbles, as they often do? Do the fans get their money back?

It's a cool idea, but I don't see it working very well

if you create a structure for it, then you could easily have something like a money back guarrentee if the mod/game doesn't finish. plus, chances are developers will get more motivated at the sign of money. for what it's worth, gabe saying it means that somehow a business owner and CEO thinks it is feasible. who're we to tell him no?

"if you create a structure for it, then you could easily have something like a money back guarantee if the mod/game doesn't finish."

but mods and games and movies (everything really) is in a state of "wont finish" until the second it hits.

when do you know something wont finish or has passed that invisible barrier ... just look at that they hunger lost souls thread ... did they cross that invisible line ... would people be entitled to a refund now ... if not now than when ?!

but also at that point there shouldn't be any money to be refunded because the money should have been consumed by the production.

if its supposed to just go to some bank account that nobody can touch than you might as well not do it at all because what good is virtual money that you cant spend in your production ...

this can only work if these conditions are meat:

a) investors/fans accept the possibility that their money might vanish. ( which will lead to many scammers/con-mans starting pretend game developments of course )

b) you as a studio or indie developer have a track record of excellence and finishing ability. (in which case you should have already made enough money on your first title that you self funded somehow to be able to keep making games ... )

actually now that i read the stuff in my brackets even if those conditions are meat its not gonna happen ...

NO FUCKING WAY !

mmmh meat...

you could circumvent scammers by adding validity checks. granted, there's never a 0% chance of risk, but then again games like these would become more succesful as fans will be motivated to distribute the games by the profits. as i look at it ,it's either make a game where you gap yourself from potential fans and have large budgets, pr and marketing working for you - at an x percentage risk of commercial failure; or, make a game with fans and people that will be hyped from the beginning and will most likely result in a commercial success - at an x percentage risk of being scammed. it's deciding cost-effective strategies at its best.

Quote from FrieChamp

mmmh meat...

Was thinking the same thing Gotta love Warby's spelling~

But yeah, I think this is very much wishful thinking, and although somebody like Valve probably could get away with it, then devs with a smaller, less loyal fanbase, would probably struggle a great deal to make something like this work.

Quote from Mazy

Was thinking the same thing Gotta love Warby's spelling~

But yeah, I think this is very much wishful thinking, and although somebody like Valve probably could get away with it, then devs with a smaller, less loyal fanbase, would probably struggle a great deal to make something like this work.

why should it differ whether a company has a loyal fanbase or not? it could just as well be "loyal" because it's going to be released on steam. the point here is that a good idea shouldn't different between studios, fame etc. we should definitely go by that statement in this age where new great (albeit small) games are coming out at a few months interval.

Quote from Sentura

Was thinking the same thing Gotta love Warby's spelling~

But yeah, I think this is very much wishful thinking, and although somebody like Valve probably could get away with it, then devs with a smaller, less loyal fanbase, would probably struggle a great deal to make something like this work.

why should it differ whether a company has a loyal fanbase or not? it could just as well be "loyal" because it's going to be released on steam. the point here is that a good idea shouldn't different between studios, fame etc. we should definitely go by that statement in this age where new great (albeit small) games are coming out at a few months interval.

Well, a loyal fanbase would be needed in my point of view because if you want to be serious about this kind of thing, you need a certain degree of security that you'll actually be able to fund your games, and obviously if noone goes for the bait, then you'll have to go back to the conventional ways of getting funding. If somebody completely unknown so far started up a really exciting project now and outlined what it would be about, you would need some kind of proof that this would actually get done, and get done in a good way. I'm thinking about how a lot of MOD's generally go, where they start off with an exciting premise, but end up dying because they can't commit and put those finishing touches on it.

Then again I suppose I'm maybe taking this entire thing a bit too literally, if you did use it as a way of getting a fully featured product out and have it add those last bit of funding you might not have, I guess it could work.

Whatever, I'm just skeptic

It's definitely an intersting theory. Sort of a public-television type of model, which could yield some great creativity.

But I'd say that the main draw to anything of this sort is to circumvent publishers, censorship and so on, which is already happening with mods and sponsors (ATI, USAF, Alienware etc.)

If underground games got to the same level as independent/short film, the industry as a whole would probably be a lot better.

Quote from Mazy

I think this is very much wishful thinking, and although somebody like Valve probably could get away with it, then devs with a smaller, less loyal fanbase, would probably struggle a great deal to make something like this work.

Like most of the things Valve trumpet.

Quote from Taylor

Like most of the things Valve trumpet.

naysayers...

This was kinda already done, with Mount and Blade. During development, they were constantly selling the game at a reduced price in exchange for alpha/beta access. The input and bug reports from these early adopters shaped the game throughout development until the final release this year, and that money is what kept the developers (two people living together somewhere in Europe afaik ) for the extent of the development time.

Minecraft is also following this same idea, right now it's in alpha and you can buy it for ~$15, I think, to support the development and get early access to features. It's already sold a few hundred copies too, and it's still in early alpha and the only customer exclusive feature from the free version is being able to import a custom skin for your character to look unique in MP. People are buying it just to support an awesome game idea they want to see finished.

Edit: I suppose Dwarf Fortress counts too, that's still called an alpha by Toady One, who lives entirely off the donations given by DF fans. I think most people just expect what's already there to be all they get though, and future patches and updates are more like Team Fortress 2 character packs than progress towards a finished game.

Quote from Sentura

naysayers...

Everything Valve comes out with in presentations and interviews is great. But they are in a unique position where they have oodles of cash, dedicated followers, and reign over themselves. It's all very well suggesting that people do brain scans during focus tests (or whatever), but it's not practical for most. I guess less-so here, though..

But I'm still with Mazy and Warby in that while this can work it depends heavily on your circumstances. I think indie developers in particular would have limited success trying to get funding pre-production, and would be better releasing something then having interested people donate for the next/updated/full version to be released (ala 10,000 true fans).

I think it could work, not literally a AAA title being funded just by the community but even if it made up 25% it would sure help. I would back games that I know should be great! many times in the past I wish games just had a little more money to test/tweak before releasing.