News Valve wants community-funded games

Wait... wait... investing in a corporation is ... hippy now?

what ever is the world coming to!?

 

Don't invest in L4D! you only have a year to win the money back!

Jokes aside... can't think of a way of this working. I support games by buying them, not putting 1***€ in it.

 

So they want us to pre-order based on their game idea. um, sure only if I pay 1/3 to 1/2 retail for my copy we can talk business.

 

Am I the only one that finds this an enormous cheek? You want me, your potential customer, to foot the bill for your development? I'm sorry, did I hear that correctly? You want me, the customer, to take the risk? I don't think there's another industry or commercial venture that has EVER warranted that kind of arrangement. Do you hear of cosmetic companies pandering to the same idea? "Fund our research for better products before we've made them". Does it happen in the movie industry? And the music industry? Say your favourite musician wants to record a new album, but he wants you to pay for its production before he starts. Would you think that was fair? Valve is effectively saying "We want to make a new game (which effectively gives us money), but we don't want to take any unnecessary risk with regards to funding its production. Whereas YOU, the customer, don't take ANY risk in this situation, so how about YOU pay for it? We promise it'll be good, and you can even get a copy of the game when we're done! Wow!" Was it not just in February this year, when Gabe Newell was giving his keynote at DICE when he said: "Steam is making us rich.."? Well, if your pockets are so deep, how about YOU fund the production, as is not only traditional, but reasonable? And all of you who think this is "a brilliant idea", just from where do you draw that logic? Do you really think that giving them your money as a down payment on a game will actually lead to changes in the end game's resulting state? Sales of anything, ANYTHING, come down to one concept, and that Lowest Common Denominator. If a hundred people invest in a game, just whose say counts for more? Does it depend on how much I pay?
Tell you what Valve, YOU make the games, and if *I* want to, THEN I'll pay for them. You want investment capital? How about looking into your own vastly overfilled coffers, we filled those ourselves already.

 

Most if not all devs are at the mercy of the publishers because it is the publisher who pays for the game. Then you get the unwelcome input from the publisher that stifles the creativity of the development team. The publisher gets their investment back + their profit (that'll do nicely say the shareholders) + expenses like marketing, PR and distribution.

All of which Valve is very experienced in doing themselves. Someone mentioned earlier why games cost so much. How about 3-4 year development with a team possibly 50 people (very likely much more) so thats a minimum of £5.25mill - £7mill in wages, then add accountants, lawyers, all the expenses mentioned above plus the usual utilities and rents, R&D. It soon adds up. It would be interesting to know how much Valve has in the bank but when you pay your team a decent wage to stay loyal to your company I bet Valve isn't as rich as you think.

Anyway if it happens, I'm in for £50 tops, I love a little gamble now and then and honestly I wouldn't trust any other company with this idea and my money.

 

Alright, if the dev is at the mercy of the publisher (who as far as I'm concerned can be considered one entity), then does that mean with "community funding" that they'll be at the mercy of a million+ investors? If you're an investor, you'd like to have at least *some* say in what goes into the game. So do you think that an even less exaggerated number of say, a thousand people would be able to see eye-to-eye one even one aspect of the game, or is that perhaps a little naive?

Or maybe we could take the other standpoint, and say that their creative freedom is now unhinged and unfettered by the publisher's "unwelcome" input, by not having taken anyone else's opinion into account. Do ALL publisher's have this unwelcome, stifling input? You would think that if the publisher wanted to receive a decent return on their investment that they'd attempt to provide sound guidance, not "stifle" creativity. I mean, it's their business, wouldn't you like to have a say if your company had just lumped down a seven figure investment?

If the minimum development costs are anywhere in that region (5-7 million pounds), just how many people do you expect they're going to need to be able to "community fund" this? Just how much do they expect us to pay? What if they don't get enough to cover the development costs entirely, will I be refunded? If this is like any other "investment" I've heard of, I doubt it.

I don't have to assume that Valve is rich either, good ol' Gabe said that himself already. Nice article right here on Bit-Tech if you want to go read it. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/02/20/valve-steam-is-making-us-rich/1

Plus, I would've thought that development costs for a company that's only made 2 proprietary engines, reused for nearly a decade each, wouldn't have had such a struggle to finish a game that's essentially the same thing. Left 4 Dead 2 anyone? How about finishing the first one, and I'll think about paying for the next one.

 

Pure speculation but I would assume that there will be nothing to say the community gets a final say in anything. However I would also speculate that being linked to Steam accounts, demos 'could' be available to gamer-investers only and as such forums could be busy with ideas and imagination. Valve could even have the biggest army of testers on their hands if they needed them. Who knows?

From my experiences in the past I would say that most publishers have been a pain in the arse. Adding unnecessary workloads, creating confusion about their requirements, 'stifling' the creativity, and not forgetting changing their minds on a weekly basis. But I guess from your experiences you found them a bit more helpful?

To pull the finest example of a bad publisher would be Funcom and Conan. That was a disaster because Funcom wanted to push the game out in an unfinished state.

 

I'm not out to defend the publisher, and I wouldn't go so far as to say that publishers are the answers to all of our dreams, no. But for the most part they should at least get credit for funding the projects that might never have seen the light of day in the first place. It's easy to look at the corporate partner as just that, a bloated financial entity that has no valuable input other than funding, but I think for the most part, their intention, while getting the best return, is to make a game that's not just popular, but that people will be happy with. At least I hope so.

I don't however feel as if Valve could offer me anything more than a decent game at the end of the day, demo's are of little interest to someone who's already paid for the full thing. And what do I owe Valve? I've already paid for the games they've produced, as far as I'm concerned the transaction has been made. If anything they should thank me for supporting them. I think Valve is big enough that they don't need any more support from me than I've given. If they want testers, sure, release a demo. Otherwise they could just pay for them like everyone else does. QA testers exist for a reason.

 

I am with AshT, if you don't want to invest then don't invest, let the rest of us try this out.

 

Actually it sounds like a pretty good idea to me. This could definitely work out well - the community provides the initial project funds then gets an opportunity to increase the amount invested prior to the company going cap in hand to the publishers. Less risk for the publishers but at the cost of some of the control they usually wield.

The biggest problem I can see would be getting the business model out to the people with a clear explanation of what the terms are and that they are making a long term gamble with a chance for complete loss but also the possibility of seeing some return on top of receiving a copy of the game.

 

No an investment would mean a returns on that investment, buying a game is purely a consumer activity.

 

while i think the idea itself is fantastic, if i where to invest, i would want to be kept in the loop much more with say bi-monthly progress reports, showing the state of the game e.t.c As i generally like to know what my money is doing.

Really would need to see how all the legalities of it plan out before i could say how much of a good idea it is, but on principle, yeah, good idea.

(as for the investment in ep3, don't forget investment in that would be sky high, so everyone gets a free copy of the game, so less sales ergo less overall profit )

 

Oops double post, please ignore this