We all know how hard it is to make and sell video games solo, designs, art work, music, audio, coding even marketing. It's also hard for people to work in teams on a project over the internet especially programming. So I thought, what if I offered a service to help and what if this service was community driven? I've been working on a modular game engine that should serve as a perfect frame work and I already had been working on a site but never could figure out what I wanted it to be for. So here is the idea, users submit game designs then users vote for the ideas they like, these ideas go higher on a list based on how many people like them and then more people will see them. Users can submit things like concept art, 3d models, 2d sprites, music, story scripts, whatever is needed for that project, then users vote for the things they like, users can revise pre-existing art work then submit it for review by the community. Users who submit things which get a certain percentage of the over all votes are then able to download and test the beta which is automatically configured by the website without any need for a lead programmer to compile it. After all slots for resources that are required for the game are filled the game can be voted by the community to be ready for distribution, at this point the game is posted on the online store profits are divided based on how many votes a user's contribution gets, 10% goes to the website and what ever percentage paypal takes out. Development still continues but only the people who contributed to the project can download the beta. I don't really think many people are in as good of a position for this project as myself though it's possible that someone may try to steal my idea but I'm doubtful they will succeed and I really need some feedback so please tell me some of your opinions? Also here is a link to my site though it's not done yet but you can create an account to see where it goes.

Polishing and delivering a game is difficult enough even when everyone on the team is fully committed to the project. It's also difficult enough to produce a coherent result.

Putting a bunch of random people together will give you a horrific hodgepodge of mismatched code, half-cooked artwork, and general inconsistency all over the place - and that's if you're lucky enough to find people who will contribute more than 30 seconds of their time.

Everyone has their own pet projects, and nobody has enough time to do them all. Why should someone invest their time - which is a very valuable commodity - into a nebulous project with a bunch of strangers? Why not just build the game they want to work on instead?


It's a nice sentiment, but frankly I don't really see it working out. Of course, I am a cynical, cranky bastard, and I have no faith in humanity - so get an opinion from an optimist for balance [grin]

Quote: Original post by ApochPiQ
Polishing and delivering a game is difficult enough even when everyone on the team is fully committed to the project. It's also difficult enough to produce a coherent result.

Putting a bunch of random people together will give you a horrific hodgepodge of mismatched code, half-cooked artwork, and general inconsistency all over the place - and that's if you're lucky enough to find people who will contribute more than 30 seconds of their time.

Everyone has their own pet projects, and nobody has enough time to do them all. Why should someone invest their time - which is a very valuable commodity - into a nebulous project with a bunch of strangers? Why not just build the game they want to work on instead?


It's a nice sentiment, but frankly I don't really see it working out. Of course, I am a cynical, cranky bastard, and I have no faith in humanity - so get an opinion from an optimist for balance [grin]

There will be plugins and simple script for objects and UI but I don't plan to directly support any type of coding so that should not be a problem plus I would think money could help drive some people to spend their time on a project but yes I do agreed most people won't spend much time but if you look at the moding community for some games I do believe if the design for a game is enticing enough people will spend enough time to get things done. Art work will bring more hype and hype will bring more art work.

Isn't this somewhat similar to the scratchware manifesto?

Heck this even sounds like the old model Sierra used, where they had one team that only worked on the engine and a separate team that worked on content / scripting. It worked quite well up to a point, when the genre the engine worked with went away and the demand for both content and graphics rose dramatically.

I see several problems with your design though.
1. A good game has a unified direction. A community cannot really provide it as well as a benevolent dictator.

2. Most people just want to come up with ideas, they don't want to actually put the work of making them come true. This is especially true in the later stages of the game, where polishing it is needed.

3. If you make it impossible to download the beta unless you contribute, how the heck are you going to recruit someone mid production? How are they going to even know what to contribute?

4. Disruptive users. How do you deal with someone that contributes many pictures of goats? Or a lead who accepts a sock puppet's large, but meaningless contribution to gain an extra shares. Or someone who purposely adds bugs and contributes by fixing them on a sock puppet. Or even just a n00b that everyone hates.

5. How are you going to guard against stolen assets? There's been at least two examples in recent memory where a budget ware company hired out a contractor to make art, only to find out that the contractor just stole it from other games. I can think of many ways to game the system. Submit old game music, assets from other projects on your site or models from a commercial graphic repository as their own.

6. How does shares work during the beta? The community can no longer vote to see how well a script works, since they can no longer download and test the script. What motivation does someone have to work on the beta, to iron out bugs and etc.

7. How well do you think a amateurs can judge things? Do you think certain assets have a bigger chance of grabbing votes, like concept art, even if that concept was never used in the game?

Quote: profits are divided based on how many votes a user's contribution gets

/vote for the guy who drew the sexy nightevles

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1. A good game has a unified direction. A community cannot really provide it as well as a benevolent dictator.

The idea is the first person who submits a design just submits a basic overview of the idea, then another user will refine the idea and add details, then yet another user may refine or make a completely different refinement of the original design. The best idea wins and yet the original design is still maintained, seems to me like this would have a better out come then a single person making these decisions.

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2. Most people just want to come up with ideas, they don't want to actually put the work of making them come true. This is especially true in the later stages of the game, where polishing it is needed.

The development/voting still continues after the game is release, most AAA titles are not very polished when they are released and once again moding communities are physical evidence that when a game is liked by enough people even if it's not polished things will get done.

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3. If you make it impossible to download the beta unless you contribute, how the heck are you going to recruit someone mid production? How are they going to even know what to contribute?

There will be a list of things that are needed for the game, the people who refine the design will add slots, for instance if they add a new character to the story they will also add a slot to the design for that character but only if their story is liked.

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4. Disruptive users. How do you deal with someone that contributes many pictures of goats? Or a lead who accepts a sock puppet's large, but meaningless contribution to gain an extra shares. Or someone who purposely adds bugs and contributes by fixing them on a sock puppet. Or even just a n00b that everyone hates.

If there is nothing else in the slot then the picture of the goat will probably just make people confused then another user will submit something that will be voted for and will replace it.

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5. How are you going to guard against stolen assets? There's been at least two examples in recent memory where a budget ware company hired out a contractor to make art, only to find out that the contractor just stole it from other games. I can think of many ways to game the system. Submit old game music, assets from other projects on your site or models from a commercial graphic repository as their own.

Users can flag the assets, if enough users flag it then it will be removed( like youtube does) or owner can file complaint, the user who submitted it will be warned and if they continue to submit copyright material they will be suspended then banned.

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6. How does shares work during the beta? The community can no longer vote to see how well a script works, since they can no longer download and test the script. What motivation does someone have to work on the beta, to iron out bugs and etc.

Users can still vote after the game is in the store, you have to contribute assets that get at least 1% of ratings in order to download the beta, when the game is in the store most people who would probably be working on it would own a copy and if they don't then they will need to start contributing assets in order to download it for free.

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7. How well do you think a amateurs can judge things? Do you think certain assets have a bigger chance of grabbing votes, like concept art, even if that concept was never used in the game?

Yes thats why the slot concept is necessary, you will only be able to contribute one image of concept art per slot, if a user refines another users work then they must post it as a refinement which means they get less profit. If they copy another users work and post it as an original they will be flagged by the community the asset will then be set as a refinement to the original.

Quote: Original post by Konfusius

Quote: profits are divided based on how many votes a user's contribution gets

/vote for the guy who drew the sexy nightevles

Sex sells, if their are sexy nightevles then the game will probably sell all the better for it meaning he will have rightfully earned his percentage of the profits. [smile]

Democratic game design amongst a large team which includes non-game-designers sounds good in theory... After all, everyone gets a fair say in how the game is made, and everyone can help out wherever they want. I've been there, and have had that enthusiasm.

In practice, it's a much different story. People develop pet ideas, and try to force their pet idea through the process, and if it's rejected, they can grow resentful and sabotage the project. If it's successful, someone else can grow resentful because their alternative wasn't, or that "that guy always gets his ideas in". In no case are people actually thinking about the overall vision, because by making everything liquid enough to be voted on, the vision is essentially fluid in itself.

This kind of process can work well in a technical environment, because there are hard facts people can point to on why this or that idea doesn't work, or does work. In game design, it's different because not only are you worried about whether things work, but also intangible things like how fun it is.

Of course, that's not to say that a project with unified direction granted a leader or two isn't doomed to fail either, it's less prone to design-by-committee failure.

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3. If you make it impossible to download the beta unless you contribute, how the heck are you going to recruit someone mid production? How are they going to even know what to contribute?

There will be a list of things that are needed for the game, the people who refine the design will add slots, for instance if they add a new character to the story they will also add a slot to the design for that character but only if their story is liked.

That's all good, but games are not a series of independent pieces. Models have to be scaled to match one another. Scripts have to be tested within the game.

How can one contribute anything meaningful without looking at the game?

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4. Disruptive users. How do you deal with someone that contributes many pictures of goats? Or a lead who accepts a sock puppet's large, but meaningless contribution to gain an extra shares. Or someone who purposely adds bugs and contributes by fixing them on a sock puppet. Or even just a n00b that everyone hates.

If there is nothing else in the slot then the picture of the goat will probably just make people confused then another user will submit something that will be voted for and will replace it.

Do you think people will stick around if every week or so, they end up having some asset replaced by goats or some other shock image?

It doesn't phase me anymore, but I'd still be pissed if I had to spend my time removing goats assets rather than working on a project.

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5. How are you going to guard against stolen assets? There's been at least two examples in recent memory where a budget ware company hired out a contractor to make art, only to find out that the contractor just stole it from other games. I can think of many ways to game the system. Submit old game music, assets from other projects on your site or models from a commercial graphic repository as their own.

Users can flag the assets, if enough users flag it then it will be removed( like youtube does) or owner can file complaint, the user who submitted it will be warned and if they continue to submit copyright material they will be suspended then banned.

You assume.

1. That people won't approve of stolen assets.
2. That the community will / can identify them.
3. Youtube isn't selling anything.

For #1, well, that would depend on the community. A lot of people want XXX except better, so having a Master Chef clone in their FPS would probably be highly approved of. Or they may approve of a fan game that is no way legal.

For #2, even experts can be mistaken.

For example, Nick Simmons "allegedly" copied highly popular fan art, some of the most popular comics in the world and possibly even a highly popular Pen and Paper game and his publisher, experts in the comic world, missed it.

#3. Youtube is also not selling their videos, but you are selling games. You are also working on a volunteer project, so what are you going to do if someone asks to remove an asset and you have no viable replacement(no one steps up and creates the replacement, or the replacement will take longer than your agreement will allow)? What happens if someone bought the game because of the asset you are replacing and are now unhappy it has been removed?

What happens if a group of people start a clone and the lawyers get to them before they even make any money? It's going to be you who are stuck with the lawyer's fees, how are you going to divide that up?

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6. How does shares work during the beta? The community can no longer vote to see how well a script works, since they can no longer download and test the script. What motivation does someone have to work on the beta, to iron out bugs and etc.

Users can still vote after the game is in the store, you have to contribute assets that get at least 1% of ratings in order to download the beta, when the game is in the store most people who would probably be working on it would own a copy and if they don't then they will need to start contributing assets in order to download it for free.

Users can still vote assets, but they can no longer see them? That seems like the bind leading the blind.

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Quote: 7. How well do you think a amateurs can judge things? Do you think certain assets have a bigger chance of grabbing votes, like concept art, even if that concept was never used in the game?

Yes thats why the slot concept is necessary, you will only be able to contribute one image of concept art per slot, if a user refines another users

Only one image of concept art per slot? What happens if there are several ways to go about the same thing and the artist wants to show them.

Quote: If they copy another users work and post it as an original they will be flagged by the community the asset will then be set as a refinement to the original.

Again, you assume that the community catches it.

So here's another thing, what about a revert war? How would you handle that?

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How can one contribute anything meaningful without looking at the game?

I'm thinking about making online tools that will help you match assets to the game, as for scripts or plugins they will be pretty loosely supported and work pretty much the same between games.

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Do you think people will stick around if every week or so, they end up having some asset replaced by goats or some other shock image?

It doesn't phase me anymore, but I'd still be pissed if I had to spend my time removing goats assets rather than working on a project.

I'm honestly doubtful this will really be a problem, the only thing that could really happen is if the community thinks something is funny and it becomes viral much like some internet memes but again I'm doubtful...

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You assume.

1. That people won't approve of stolen assets.
2. That the community will / can identify them.
3. Youtube isn't selling anything.

For #1, well, that would depend on the community. A lot of people want XXX except better, so having a Master Chef clone in their FPS would probably be highly approved of. Or they may approve of a fan game that is no way legal.

For #2, even experts can be mistaken.

For example, Nick Simmons "allegedly" copied highly popular fan art, some of the most popular comics in the world and possibly even a highly popular Pen and Paper game and his publisher, experts in the comic world, missed it.

#3. Youtube is also not selling their videos, but you are selling games. You are also working on a volunteer project, so what are you going to do if someone asks to remove an asset and you have no viable replacement(no one steps up and creates the replacement, or the replacement will take longer than your agreement will allow)? What happens if someone bought the game because of the asset you are replacing and are now unhappy it has been removed?

What happens if a group of people start a clone and the lawyers get to them before they even make any money? It's going to be you who are stuck with the lawyer's fees, how are you going to divide that up?

If I am unable to prevent this which I doubt then my company will suffer and fail but how will I know until I try?

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Users can still vote assets, but they can no longer see them? That seems like the bind leading the blind.

Everyone is making this out to be more of a problem then it really is, not many games in development allow the people who are working on parts to actually play the full game, thats where beta testing normally comes in.

Quote: Again, you assume that the community catches it.

So here's another thing, what about a revert war? How would you handle that?

This is a possible problem that can not be directly assessed at this time but where are problems there are almost always solutions.