Taking influence on a game development and making money with it!

[szebus]

There is an interesting idea on the forum of one of my favorite games that is a must to share with You guys.

So the dude who is the Managing Director at Digitalmindsoft, came with the following idea:

Originally Posted by Instinct

We have a very interesting questions to all of our community members.

Imagine, taking influence on a game development and making money with it.

Often developers have great ideas and concepts but suffer from finding the right investor, or this single investor mostly a publisher is driving the game into a totally different direction than it was supposed to be.
Even worse, innovative games rarely get big budgets because they are too risky and may end up way below their possibilities.

Thus why shouldn't the person who buys the product in the end not have the influence on the project and even more: make money with the success of it?

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Let's take following suggestion:

DMS is preparing a new project and offers the outlines of the project to the community.
You than decide whether you like the project and want to support it or not.

Now, if you like it, you log-in to our special website and buy shares of the game, one share around 20€ (~ $28)

With each share you can:

• vote in Gamedesign polls
• have a look at the total progress of the project
• read development updates
• see size of total budget
• see amount of spent money for project
• see your share of the whole project
• see your % of profit
• earn money with the project once it's released

How does it work?

Each share you buy will give you 1 vote in important questions, the more shares you have the more influence you take into the whole project.

All investors will get a share of 85% of total profit done by the game, so a simple example:

one share: 20 €		
total shares: 10.000
development budget: 200.000 €	
				
approx game profit: 350.000 €
one share (x) earns: ((350.000 * 85%) / 10.000) * x
one share (x) earns: 30 € * x
profit with 1 share: 30 € - 20 € = 10 €
revenue rate: 150% of investments

If a game gets a real success you are going to be part of it and earn your share. The more profit, the more you earn.

Now let us know your opinion, but disclaimer: this is yet soly an idea and DMS is currently not lacking of new projects, but we wish to see new ways of project funding and closer work with the community.

source

[Puppeteer]

Sounds effective in theory, but because most ideas from community members are ******ed, I have my doubts about what the end product would look like.

Quoted For Truth

[Jean=A=Luc]

Stupid ideas aside, community funded/financially supported game development is an interesting prospect.

[szebus]

Indeed, it is an interesting project, but how would we know the game is what we aspect ? It is a gamble and beside this I don't think that any game developing team has it's investors for blank projects. Is this true Reverie ? For example You're fundings came after you had something to show.

[zach12wqasxz]

i think its a great idea. it allows a game to get the proper funding to develop it and enables investors to make a profit off the game. yes some ppl dont always have the greatest ideas for things but you would only have part of the shares in the hands of investors(not everyone would buy a million shares and own like half the game). so even with a community of devoted players financially driving a game the game itself wouldnt be completely in there hands, it would still be mainly in the hands of developers and publishers. the investors would get a say in some of the aspects but other things would be in control of the devs and pubs. its like the president of the united states controls a lot of the stuff that goes on in america, but the president doesnt make all the decisions himself, he has a huge amount of advisors and specialists to help him stuff he doesnt know what to do with, he also has congress he has to answer to and can override him ( sorry for the bad example, only thing i could think of comparing it to). i dont know about you guys but if i could invest 28$ in a game like this i would definelty do it. it would be a risk id be willing to take because even if the game doesnt do great i will still get a little profit(or maybe none at all but its only 28 bucks im willing to lose that). and if it turns out to sell like the call of dutys then id have quite a nice profit and i would get to see some of the things that i wnted in the game(maybe)

[Aametherar]

I think.
A. It's a good idea in theory.
B. When it comes to PC games the customer does not know what they want so the votings a bad idea. So if they like the ideas and progression of the game they should put more money into it rather than have say in some stupid game that ends up way too easy cause everyone wants to be all powerful.
C. Players would get ****ed off when the game falls through, which would happen often and they'd run around screaming im gonna sue etc etc. like annoying little weasels. The fact is anyone doing this would clearly be independent, and those games rarely make it to completion.

Other than that I still think it's a cool idea, but I don't see it working too well.

[Kire]

I think it is great idea, just as also said others about voting. Maybe it would be voting just for things the devs couldnt decide. But this would work similar as donations, just that you will have also something in return.
And to Aametherar C- If you state before they give you money (like... click button to agree blablabla.. before you proceed) than they cant sue you for that =).
Anyway i think the usual investor can harm game as much as could community do (but you can cut off some of the influence of those ppl) .

[Aametherar]

hah. I know about C, I was just pointing out the mass of whiny batches it'd create :P

[Joseph Visscher]

If you all feel bad,,, or good about it, You could start by each giving me your 28$, I don't really know what you'd get in return, could be a pencil or could be a paper clip.

Sounds like a pyramid scheme full of whinny biitches that would not let any real production progress.
You would not get anything unique or extraordinary from listening to a majority of people. Just a well balaced dull game that would be left in the closest in half a year. No... Unique and extraordinary ideas come from unique and extraordinary people; and with this method those people would just be a needle in a haystack on fire.

[Aametherar]

I agree 100% I just don't see anything coming out of it. What I see is amateur programmers artists etc. looking to make a quick buck posting their awesome ideas and then just being too lazy to actually make real progression in the actual construction of a full game. Now granted, there might be some people who have proven themselves in the gaming industry, possibly a few mod teams that have done some extraordinary work in the past, but I stress the word "might" and they would be few and far between. I just see a lot of money going into this "idea" and not much of anything coming back out. More a disorganized group of people who think that their dreams are going to come true if they throw money at it or just say they're going to do something amazing that they can't or don't have the ability or drive to do.