Gabe Newell’s Game Financing Idea: Community Support
This is a really interesting idea for game financing. It sounds utterly impossible and unlikely to ever work, but it is still worth pondering. Gabe is a smart guy with a great history in the industry (his company is Valve, you may have heard of it… they did Half Life, Steam, Left 4 Dead).
Valve’s Newell: How About Community Financing For Games?
Newell continued: “What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’”
The Valve boss concluded: “So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead, have it be something where funding is coming out of [a] community for games and game concepts they really like.”
The article includes one example of a game developer actually doing something like this:
In addition, indie game developer Daniel Benmergui (Today I Die) “is pursuing a variable patronage model for his next game” on his website — with different amounts of donations giving rewards spanning from a mention in the game’s credits to a customized version of Daniel’s previous games.
That is very interesting, but I think the only way this will happen is if someone comes along and organizes something on a macro level. Someone with a real love for the industry, a lot of money, and enough reputation to get tons of hype. Like hmmm maybe Gabe Newell himself?
That’s pretty interesting. It actually reminds me a lot of something I heard a year or two back about Jill Sobule. After a bit of hunting, I found the relevant URL:
Jill’s Next Record
The idea was that she sought fan funding for a new album, and offered rewards similar to what Dan Benmergui did. The rewards were anything from a free album to house concerts to appearing on the album. Not a big Jill Sobule fan myself, but I definitely thought the concept was cool. I had never considered applying it to gaming, but I could definitely see the appeal of being part of a game’s birth and development. There are many of us who have supported MUDs for years, after all. It’s easy to feel a bit of pride and ownership when you do your little part to help something good grow.
Given the amount of gamers that are willing to buy a game sight unseen(ie preorders, early access betas), it wouldn’t surprise me if this could be made to work somehow. I’m not sure how it would be done logistically, but once you get some hype behind you, you can get alot of gamers to lay down some money before the game is done.