I saw something similar on a late night drama. The idea of this programme was that each week, viewers would vote through SMS what decisions the characters should make - and the next week, the characters made those decisions and the plot continued.

So, the idea goes something like this.

The game is an open world RPG; in each episode, the players can roam the entire world, but they will have an objective to find something, go somewhere, etc. These decisions have a knock on effect on the entire world. The game is released at no cost, and can be downloaded through torrents or HTTP download, and comes with one pilot episode. The pilot establishes the main characters and the overriding goal of the group. While people are playing the pilot, people begin voting on what should happen next. Votes are controlled through paypal and this is the only way in which the model gets monetised. People can vote for a small amount of money but can vote as many times as they like, by sending that multiple of the voting amount.

When the voting is complete, the game designers being working on the next chapter. Once that chapter is complete, it is made available for free through the usual download systems.

What do you guys make of this insane idea? I suspect that not enough people would bother to vote as opposed to simply waiting to see what happens. However, the issue of piracy completely disappears. There is no need for any kind of DRM or copy protection because everything is free of charge. The model is totally agnostic of any piracy concerns.

Not a terrible idea, because at most you would only lose the time and effort of a few episodes if the interest isn't there.

You should do it - I'll help.

People would just FRAPS what happens inside the game and put it on youtube.

[color=#1C2837][size=2]When the voting is complete, the game designers being working on the next chapter.

Would be better to have a pre-defined set of options so you can start planning/working ahead of time.

That could probably work out pretty well, although you'd have to be a pretty good writer to actually keep people interested as gameplay wouldn't help driving "sales" as much.

People would just FRAPS what happens inside the game and put it on youtube.

But they'd still vote on what should come up next, so who cares?

Not a terrible idea, because at most you would only lose the time and effort of a few episodes if the interest isn't there.

You should do it - I'll help.

I'm not planning on implementing it any time soon - it wont pay the bills. Its more of an experimental thing.

To get it working we would have to create an open world RPG (a complex thing to do) which supports episodic content. A proof of concept would be interesting to implement. I suspect however that it would require a custom engine, or at least heavy modification of an existing engine, to support the episodic content.

I would love however to implement a proof of concept game for episodic content - something simple, perhaps a basic top down shooter where each level is an episode? I'm not sure how well current off the shelf engine solutions support episodic content, right now.

[color=#1C2837][size=2]People would just FRAPS what happens inside the game and put it on youtube.
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Why would they need to? Read up - the game itself is free of charge, its only voting for the next chapter which costs anything.

Would be better to have a pre-defined set of options so you can start planning/working ahead of time.
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[color=#1C2837][size=2]I had already thought of that - although it would likely suck if people realise that they don't need to bother voting because their option will come up again in a later vote, so that the designers could use the assets they had created.

Its a somewhat interesting idea, not that far off from micro-transactions or lead generation. I think the problem you'll find, though, is that developing even a a few hours of content (say, 4-6) is at least a 2-3 month endeavor with very solid tools, very solid people, and without lowering standards -- you can forget doing a 3D game, unless the entire explorable game world is pre-existing (basically, you can't hope to introduce new textures and environments overnight, not in 3D), but you might be able to pull it off in 2D.

This time investment basically means that you will only allow people to choose the direction on big plot points, not small ones, and the choices offered will have to be pretty broad, not nuanced.

But here's where things start to fly in the face of what a game is -- all games are basically a series of choices, even when they're as simple as "do I go left, or right?" or "use my grenade here, or save it for later." What makes games fun is that we get to make our own choices and are accountable only to ourselves. Having a community-vote over how the path progresses removes some of those choices from some of those people. Some poeple like to play the good guy, while others like to play things with a little looser morality, for instance. If a choice sends the plot down one of those paths, potentially half your player base will no longer have an experience they enjoy and loose interest.

Its not that it couldn't be done, but it really has to be done at a very course level of granularity, and still allow for players to make interesting individual choices that still effect the outcome of their experience.

Some things that might work:
Setting the background of the world (eg, which background faction wins a large battle -- changing the geopolitical landscape of the world).
Implementation details (eg, well, the plot calls for a mini-appocolypse, shall it be a plague, asteroid, or an unknown horde invading unprovoked?)
Feel-good/feel-bad events (eg, Gears of War's Carmine vote).

Some things that don't work:
Shall we save the princess, or no?
Who do we align ourselves with?
Which mutually-exclusive quest do we undertake?

Its a somewhat interesting idea, not that far off from micro-transactions or lead generation. I think the problem you'll find, though, is that developing even a a few hours of content (say, 4-6) is at least a 2-3 month endeavor with very solid tools, very solid people, and without lowering standards -- you can forget doing a 3D game, unless the entire explorable game world is pre-existing (basically, you can't hope to introduce new textures and environments overnight, not in 3D), but you might be able to pull it off in 2D.

This time investment basically means that you will only allow people to choose the direction on big plot points, not small ones, and the choices offered will have to be pretty broad, not nuanced.

But here's where things start to fly in the face of what a game is -- all games are basically a series of choices, even when they're as simple as "do I go left, or right?" or "use my grenade here, or save it for later." What makes games fun is that we get to make our own choices and are accountable only to ourselves. Having a community-vote over how the path progresses removes some of those choices from some of those people. Some poeple like to play the good guy, while others like to play things with a little looser morality, for instance. If a choice sends the plot down one of those paths, potentially half your player base will no longer have an experience they enjoy and loose interest.

Its not that it couldn't be done, but it really has to be done at a very course level of granularity, and still allow for players to make interesting individual choices that still effect the outcome of their experience.

Some things that might work:
Setting the background of the world (eg, which background faction wins a large battle -- changing the geopolitical landscape of the world).
Implementation details (eg, well, the plot calls for a mini-appocolypse, shall it be a plague, asteroid, or an unknown horde invading unprovoked?)
Feel-good/feel-bad events (eg, Gears of War's Carmine vote).

Some things that don't work:
Shall we save the princess, or no?
Who do we align ourselves with?
Which mutually-exclusive quest do we undertake?

You make some good points - certainly one must take into account the issue of users becoming frustrated if they make long term plans and then the plot diverges.
What I would avoid doing is killing major characters, and you make a good point about avoiding decisions based on mutually exclusive quests.