July 21, 2009 at 15:37Funding game development by players themselves
Based on a recent interview by Gabe Newwell called Let fans fund development, I would like to share my thoughts on this issue with the habrasociety.
In this interview, Gabe proposed a model according to which gamers will finance the development of games at the initial stage. According to him, to create a quality game requires 10 - 30 million dollars, and it would not be bad if the fans of the games themselves financed their favorite projects. After the release, those who funded receive a game disc, and possibly even a part of their money.
It seems to me that the model is quite interesting, and worthy of study and discussion.
Take, for example, the rather expected StarCraft 2 game, I’m sure that such a game has a decent army of fans, let it be mythical 100,000 loyal fans, of which 50% have been closely watching the game since the press release stage, i.e. we have 50,000 people closely watching the game. We will give them the opportunity to invest in development, if on average $ 20 will be invested by one player, then we will already receive $ 1,000,000.
The game comes out, these 50 thousand people get their disks, if the sale of the game is quite successful and it brings developers an additional mythical 10 million dollars, then part of this money is distributed between the same 50k fans, depending on the money invested by each of them and the developers themselves.
In the end, what happens:
for developers:
+ 1. There is money for development.
+ 2. Money comes in depending on the number of fans (the requirements for product quality increase)
+ 3. Dear development teams will finance well only for the name, which gives great room for maneuver.
- 4. If the fans pay, then probably they will have the right to present requirements for the game being developed.
- 5. If you keep the game a secret, there will be little funding, if there is much coverage, there is the possibility of a leak of ideas or a reduction in funding due to the revolution of the game.
for fans:
+ 1. You can sponsor the output of your favorite game.
+ 2. The ability to make a small profit, and possibly even a big one if you deal with it seriously.
+ 3. Be the first to get distributions with the game.
- 4. There is a possibility of being deceived.
- 5. Perhaps the developers will pay more attention to advertising the game to increase funding than the development itself.
In this interview, Gabe proposed a model according to which gamers will finance the development of games at the initial stage. According to him, to create a quality game requires 10 - 30 million dollars, and it would not be bad if the fans of the games themselves financed their favorite projects. After the release, those who funded receive a game disc, and possibly even a part of their money.
It seems to me that the model is quite interesting, and worthy of study and discussion.
Take, for example, the rather expected StarCraft 2 game, I’m sure that such a game has a decent army of fans, let it be mythical 100,000 loyal fans, of which 50% have been closely watching the game since the press release stage, i.e. we have 50,000 people closely watching the game. We will give them the opportunity to invest in development, if on average $ 20 will be invested by one player, then we will already receive $ 1,000,000.
The game comes out, these 50 thousand people get their disks, if the sale of the game is quite successful and it brings developers an additional mythical 10 million dollars, then part of this money is distributed between the same 50k fans, depending on the money invested by each of them and the developers themselves.
In the end, what happens:
for developers:
+ 1. There is money for development.
+ 2. Money comes in depending on the number of fans (the requirements for product quality increase)
+ 3. Dear development teams will finance well only for the name, which gives great room for maneuver.
- 4. If the fans pay, then probably they will have the right to present requirements for the game being developed.
- 5. If you keep the game a secret, there will be little funding, if there is much coverage, there is the possibility of a leak of ideas or a reduction in funding due to the revolution of the game.
for fans:
+ 1. You can sponsor the output of your favorite game.
+ 2. The ability to make a small profit, and possibly even a big one if you deal with it seriously.
+ 3. Be the first to get distributions with the game.
- 4. There is a possibility of being deceived.
- 5. Perhaps the developers will pay more attention to advertising the game to increase funding than the development itself.