Valve: Let Fans Fund Games Development

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Although this is a novel idea, I’m not sure I want to “pay now, get game later” when some of these companies take upwards of 5 years to crank out a game. And yes, Valve is one of the companies that are a bit notorious for long development cycles. What do you guys think? Would you fund a game that you wanted to see made?

"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.'"
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Hahaha yea right. Just like DNF... everyone would have funded it for a decade and been burned.
 
We all know game developers are well known for always delivering on promises and release dates....:rolleyes:

EPIC FAIL...
 
Its called stock options. Public companies are supported by the community.

Companies need to get their heads out of their asses and work harder to get my money

Currently all my game purchases have been the $5 specials on steam, cause they are fun as hell.
 
We would be funding Gabe Newell's addiction to burger king

hl2-2-borg.jpg
 
Venture capital was devised for just this purpose......or stock in the company.

If I just "give" some money to valve or someone, and expect they will eventually come up with product I will enjoy......sorry.
The success of the game is from sales of the finished product......if I could also profit from same, that might be interesting.
 
Only if the finish product would exceed everything but that's a gamble so No Fucking Way I'm broke
 
only if I get all games that involve the developer's help for free. on alll platforms. even ones I don't have.

and free swag.

overnighted and in my hand on release day.

with all invites to all betas of upcoming titles.

forever.
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3D Realms should have thought of this sooner...they could have soaked the fanboys over at shacknews for another 5-6 years worth of WOW subscription money for Georgy B and CO....
 
If we pay for it, we should have say so in it, we should be able to test it all the way through, we should get a portion of the profit when its done and that'll never happen. This is the dumbest idea ever
 
Fans do fund games... when they buy a game they make that money goes into funding future projects.

The end.
 
Imagine a world where everyone you talk to who is a gamer has a vested interest in getting you to buy a certain game. Now recall current fanboy wars. Now consider fanboy wars where money is involved. Anyone else see where this is going?

Also, as a dev, keep your money... seriously... It is impossible to please everyone and it's folly to try. I mean, we've already seen what happens when publishers dip their hands too deeply into the development of games, but now picture dozens of people (again, all with a vested, monetary interest) shoving dozens of strong viewpoints into that pot... Gabe seems to be making the assumption that people are only going to support something they "know they will like" rather than attempt to utilize their money to try and steer the game in the direction they want it to go.

That, and as if the whole L4D 2 crap wasn't bad enough, imagine if people had actually invested in L4D 1...
 
Most 'fans' might end up being corporate businessmen with loads of cash and a desire to have a say in the game development stage.
 
Uh, no. The fact of the matter is, if you already payed them, there is no incentive to really do better than they absolutely have to. That said, the other method doesn't matter much to most developers either it seems, work on somethign and make it good to get paid more... but they don't. So much potential gone to waste in alot of games.
 
Sure I will fund games ... if I see some compensation which scales depending on how well the product sells.

"Fans" and "investors" ... so interchangeable thee days.
 
This business model is used in the game industry today. The difference is, the game companies that follow this model make analog (board) games. They only need between 25 and 200 pre-orders on a game to commence production and cover the entire production cost.

If Valve were to follow this model, their pre-orders would have to be in the tens of thousands (perhaps more) to fully cover the costs of a digital project. This model would have little benefit for the fans, as they would have to wait much longer to play a game than they're used to after a pre-order (save DNF).

All in all, I do not see this happening. One man's opinion.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Fans do fund games... when they buy a game they make that money goes into funding future projects.

The end.
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QFT.

If you want investors who are gamers, go look for them. If you want your audience to pay games before they are released, get bent. The way to get my money for a game is:

1) Make a game that I want to play.

2) Release it on PC. (Not some half-assed port with crippled console controls and performance. Release an actual PC game.)

3) Profit.
 
Its like Valve wants all the benefits of being a publicly traded company without actually being publicly traded.

If I was investing in a game, I would need to have some say in the developement cycle (ie the game actually gets released in a reasonable time frame), have some say in the priority of the game, and actually get the finished product for free at the end. All of which I am sure Valve would not be willing to cede.
 
MMO's have been following the model for years. Release a half finished game and charge monthly + an expansion or two to finish what was advertised in the original game.
 
MACH_OnE said:
This business model is used in the game industry today. The difference is, the game companies that follow this model make analog (board) games. They only need between 25 and 200 pre-orders on a game to commence production and cover the entire production cost.

If Valve were to follow this model, their pre-orders would have to be in the tens of thousands (perhaps more) to fully cover the costs of a digital project. This model would have little benefit for the fans, as they would have to wait much longer to play a game than they're used to after a pre-order (save DNF).
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good analogy, touching on a point i was going to make anyway.. the preproduction costs for current gen games are OBSCENE, not to mention when the ball starts rolling. valve saying "come on guys we should just pool our money" is awfully shortsighted considering all the negatives that immediately spring to mind (for one, the pointless inconvenience to us)...

it just doesnt make sense to me. its like saying "you want to get funding for a startup? lets abandon the concept of venture capital and everything it entails like informed investors with strong command of the products direction alongside their somewhat steady timetable, and all this stemming from a viable, realistic pitch... instead lets just hope to be able to take out a million microloans."

jfreund said:
If you want investors who are gamers, go look for them. If you want your audience to pay games before they are released, get bent.
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i may or may not have lol'd

Chombo said:
Its like Valve wants all the benefits of being a publicly traded company without actually being publicly traded.

If I was investing in a game, I would need to have some say in the developement cycle (ie the game actually gets released in a reasonable time frame), have some say in the priority of the game, and actually get the finished product for free at the end. All of which I am sure Valve would not be willing to cede.
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im inclined to agree with your general sentiment, but i think the talk of this concept wasnt restricted to just valve. think he was talking about an industry-wide grassroots movement for indy developers to stage a rebellion against the evil corporate whoevers who are restricting our gaming freedoms....or something.

the idea makes a certain amount of sense thinking about it from the perspective of a small dev team with a very short timetable. otherwise...im kind of skeptical
 
If interest and demand are there, I bet it would work... (not that I want it to work that way...)

Example: If the studio came out and said the final two movies (or the final book) of the Potter franchise won't be made unless people purchase advanced tickets to it, does anyone really not believe that in 24 hours there wouldn't be ~$100 million in advance ticket sales, nevermind the fact the movie won't be out for a couple of years?

Last I knew people are willing to give Gamestop $5 (10% of a $50 game...) to pre-order a game and know that they should get a reserved copy when in comes in stock... I bet people waiting for HL2:Ep3 would be willing to buy Gabe a happy meal (or $5, so Gabe can go buy his own happy meal...) to help push development of the game...

But again, interest and demand have to be there, along with experienced expectation... Although (arguably, anyway...) Far Cry was a great game and a great engine, it was (to my knowledge) made by a studio no one was even really aware of... They wouldn't have gotten my advance $5 for Far Cry, but they could have gotten it for Crysis...

But if Gabe came out and said that by putting $5 down on a pre-order of HL2:Ep3 that he believes it would be out a half-year earlier, well, what's your e-mail address, cuz I'm logging into Paypal now...
 
This seems like a terrible idea to me. Having lots of people giving you money makes them investors. Since you're now an investor, you should have a say in how the product is developed. Now just how exactly would Valve, or any other company, be able to manage that much input? Also, once they have the cash, why would they put any more time and effort past the bare minimum? No thank you. I'll continue to fund developers by purchasing their finished products at a store. At least I know exactly what I'm getting.
 
I would never support a games development. The incentive to make a good game would be dramatically reduced. While you might feel some pressure to make the game well in order to fund the next one, the fear that you won't recoup your investment is a much larger motivating factor in my book.
 
Tolyngee said:
But if Gabe came out and said that by putting $5 down on a pre-order of HL2:Ep3 that he believes it would be out a half-year earlier, well, what's your e-mail address, cuz I'm logging into Paypal now...
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Wow, your trust on anything Gabe or Valve says, is rather impressive, although not very good for your wallet, since they would just take your money and leave you hanging...for a long...long time...

Have you heard of Valve's Time ?Or their definition of Episodic Content ?

I guess not...
 
Hey gabe, i have a bag of cheeseburgers here if you change your mind.
 
With the exception of HL/HL2/Portal these guys have not put out anything that was there own. They've acquired most of their properties. For the most part these properties started out as mods to the original HL. So they've realy only had one IP and been feeding off of the community since then. They (Newell) need to get off of their asses and actually do something interesting instead of milking everything they can from the community.
 
Silus said:
Wow, your trust on anything Gabe or Valve says, is rather impressive, although not very good for your wallet, since they would just take your money and leave you hanging...for a long...long time...

Have you heard of Valve's Time ?Or their definition of Episodic Content ?

I guess not...
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It's $5, not $5,000. (which is about how much in taxes the bailout is going to cost each of us, if I rem right...)

Doesn't appear to stop people from having faith in politicians, and voting for them...

While I understand your point, my point is that if everyone was as tight with their wallet as you suggest, we wouldn't be in this financial mess. A $5 loss to Gabe is 0.1% of the loss I'm taking to fund people who buy stuff they can't afford.

The $5 on Gabe is a good bet...

(People need to stop being cheap on something good, if they're so willing to waste and turn a blind eye in other areas...)

Then again, people are willing to spend $50 on a game that hasn't been reviewed, and that more than likely by the time it's patched to the point of where it should have been in the first place, it's now ~$20 in the bargain bin... Even Valve's helping this out with their weekend deals, and holiday deals... If people are concerned about a $5 bet on a reputable dev, why on Earth are they spending $50 on something they could get for $20 in another half-year...

See my point on the $5/half-year issue? Maybe even better playtesting... Who knows, maybe someone would even have a WS monitor, so they can get the FOV correct before it hits shelves, instead of in a patch months later... (Bioshock... )

Then again, putting $5 in Romero's pocket would probably go to no good use. :D
 
Portal wasn't even theirs IIRC, it was originally developed by some students as a project wasn't it?
 
Chombo said:
Its like Valve wants all the benefits of being a publicly traded company without actually being publicly traded.
.
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This. Isnt what valve talking about the same exact thing as stocks. Instead of company stock, they want each game to have its own stock.
 
Tolyngee said:
The $5 on Gabe is a good bet...
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No, it isn't. You clearly never saw the definition of "Valve Time"...

As for the rest you said, it's not about being cheap. It's about not wasting money on things that don't make sense. If you want to do it, I'm sure Gabe and Valve will welcome your $5 or whatever you want to give them.

You're probably one that bought the Orange Box, even though you already owned Half Life 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 1 and thought it was a good deal :)
 
darkpaw said:
Portal wasn't even theirs IIRC, it was originally developed by some students as a project wasn't it?
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That's correct. They bought the idea and adapted it to their Half Life universe. Valve's only real innovation was the first Half Life. Everything else just banked on that success, or they simply bought other ideas / studios and slapped their logo on it.
 
wow addicts could fund an entire country if blizzard started doing this.
 
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