Valve: Let the Community Finance Games

[Guest]

Hey Gabe, how about you get your collective Valve asses back to work on Half-Life 2 Episode THREE?! You wasted all that damn time on that Left 4 Dead garbage as well as all those damn class updates for Team Fortress 2! Multi-player games are such repetitively shallow activities populated mostly by all those dimwitted clantards who excel solely at bitching and whining anyway. Finish the damn HL2 story, dummy! As is any single player game, it's a far more interesting investment of time.

 

[brendano257]

.....why does Valve need any funding...it's not like they've used a different game engine for...ohhh say the last decade. So...if I put in 20$....only 50,000 other people need to...and they ALL have to like how the games looks. I don't see it really happening.

 

[Guest]

sure...i would help out Id software...or maybe DUKE NUKEM ANYONE!?haha how many people would pay $20-30 just to know the game will be out in 2 years 1 maybe 2 million? and have inside info(being an investor) of any projects, but strict and clear contracts need to be sighed b4 i send anything(fruad). But it wont work without a 3rd party ralling the cash. Human nature calls for individual needs and wants not others, so we may never see this happen.

 

[maigo]

"I'd gladly pay today for a video game tomorrow"?
I think I'd reather just buy stock in them

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

It's actually a great idea in theory anyway. Maybe have a plug to invest within the startup menu screen. Example: Ensemble Studios Age of Mythology start up menu under extra, own a piece of the pie and invest, and then you setup an account online. After that, you can get email that can ask you what type of games you'd like the developer to make and provide feedback from Beta's etc. This does make a lot of sense.

 

[zodiacfml]

it is as though, asking players to be investors. also, many developers won't ask help from consumers.
they just got more competition and more games out there than consumers can play.

 

[Guest]

When we Europeans do have to pay insane 50€ for a single title (wich even sometimes comes with 3rd party drm with severly limited activasions limits like Anno 1404 from UBI for instance) its not that strange that the sales drop like a rock, adjust your prices on steam and it will stop encouraging Piracy of the titles...

 

[Thurin]

no offense intended, but the only thing that will fix the gaming industry is to stop producing "shit games" and start producing great games again.

I remember that pre-turn of the century we had at the very very least 1 genuinely interesting and great game release per year.

Now well... let's just say that I have not seen a genuinely awesome game in years....

Take a bit longer if you have to, but don't expect a game that smells like shit and looks like it to pay off big once it's done and polished.

After all, a polished turd is still a turd.

(point here being that they would not need the consumer to pay for development if they would only come up with better games.)

 

[Firehead2k]

I'm thinking along the lines of Thurin here too.
It's been a year of shit mainstream games. I still have bought no game this year, even though I've been itching to get something new. No more WoW clones and CoD clones please.

And having the community finance the games sounds like having the cake and eating it too. I'd be all for it though if it meant games would stop costing €50 and include useless things like DRM, online activation, etc.

 

[shurcooL]

Good idea (at least the benefits it brings), but probably hard to implement.

 

[Clintonio]

So this is effectively small time shareholding.

Nothing wrong with that, since the industry for that is already regulated.

 

[Regulas]

Not here, My money, all mine. Seriously though, I won’t buy Left 4 Dead at the store, on a disk, because of the DRM. Making me connect to the internet to verify the disk I just paid for is BS.

 

[ssddx]

Perhaps everyone commenting should ponder on a few of these points:

-If the money is coming directly from the fan-base, they could accept more input and incorporate it into their game. The alternative (having a backer) leaves such decisions at the mercy of a company which might not have the same mindset as the consumer base.

-Developers need more consumer input if they are going to make a game that we love. Not all of them are talented enough to create a masterpiece like starcraft out of the blue. Games seem to be crap for this reason and also because they are rushed.

I would suspect that returns would be based on the amounts put up front. If you put forward lets say... $50 then you would get a copy of the game and a small percentage of profit. I doubt that you would make over $50 in profit ($100 total) unless it was a true masterpiece. If you put foward $20, or any amount in which X+Profit

 

[ssddx]

X+Profit

 

[ssddx]

X+Profit

 

[ssddx]

... Toms comment system is so annoying. I cannot seem to get my entire comment uploaded. I give up.

Please downrate the double posts which are worthless..

 

[decepticon]

Oh wonderful! Have us finance your ideas and then charge us AGAIN for the games. NO. If this were the case, then GIVE us the games for free.

 

[xsamitt]

Look at pc sales......More and more games are not on PC anymore.So my options are more and more limited to what I can buy.I will not be getting consoles not because I can't ,but because I refuse to.

 

[xsamitt]

People can't buy games if the people who make them refuse to make them for a given Platform.Then you add the fact that they are limiting the installs really tops it off.The big players are shooting themselves in the foot and are to naive to see it.

 

[aethm]

I think the idea has merit. I like to see valve give it go on a project. But in the real world I don' think it'll work. I doubt they would get enough upfront cash to start the project. What are you going to do? Promise them a free game 2-5 years in the future. That's not good enough for me. The idea of letting "modders" into the action to help is interesting. Valve should give it a try. A community financed AAA game with some community coders.