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Editor’s note: I don’t mind ponying up for games, but I’m not ready to assume part of the risk of making them. Jon, however, appears ready to take Gabe Newell up on his latest idea: community-driven investment of games. -Jason
If anyone’s going to shake up the videogame industry, it’s Gabe Newell.
The cofounder of Valve and the man behind Steam and the seminal Half-Life series is no stranger to taking conceptions of how videogames (and their surrounding industry) should work and throwing them out the window.
In 1998 Newell’s company rewrote the rulebook on first-person shooters with Half-Life, and in 2003 he topped this with Steam, the content delivery service that has over 700 games and 20 million registered users.
It seems that Newell’s at it again with an idea on the future financing of games. In an interview with Australian videogame show Good Game, Newell expressed great interest in fan-funded game development.
In the future Newell hopes that developers will pitch game ideas to gamers, who can then decide whether to invest in the game. In return they’d get a copy of the game and possibly a share of the game’s profits if it’s successful.
The problems with this idea are too great to ignore. A game running overbudget would prove disastrous. Currently, if a game runs over its budget, a publisher generally injects more cash into its development. Publishers are generally large enough to have the resources to do this, and this would salvage the game’s development.
With community investment, the prospect of further cash injections is uncertain. How can you convince more customers to put money into a project that’s already gone overbudget?
Could such a system act as a roadblock to smaller, less mainstream, riskier projects? It’s hard enough to get consumers to buy a game even when it receives glowing reviews. Look at games like Psychonauts and Killer 7. The press lauded these games, and yet both failed to sell. How much harder would it be to sell consumers on such games without demos or reviews to back up their claims?
It’s OK for the cofounder of Valve to be make these comments; he is, after all, the founder of one of the most adored developers in the world (who also have a track record of success). I would — like many others — be happy to invest in Valve, because I know that I’m going to get a quality game out of it.
With other developers, I’d be less certain. Free Radical put out one of my favorite games of all time, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. They followed up with Haze, which is possibly one of the worst shooters of this generation. Likewise, Factor 5 made the sublime Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games before they made Lair.
Even reaching potential consumers/investors might prove troublesome. The reason games like Halo, Call of Duty 4, or Grand Theft Auto are such an amazing success is because it’s not just gamers who buy them. How do you reach the average consumer who’s content to pick up the latest Halo but not much else? How would you even begin to try and explain this new system to them?
Maybe I’m being a bit too pessimistic even by my surly-British standards. Fans would, after all, get what they really want out of a game. We’ve seen the numerous petitions on the Internet trying to force Blizzard to rethink Diablo 3’s art style, and it’s likely that if the investors were making these petitions, the developers would change the game drastically — and fast.
The risks involved with developing new properties could disappear. You’d have guaranteed revenue from the game before you even started production, and if you didn’t get the investment you needed for a title, then your loss is going to be minute compared with what you’d have lost developing a game yourself. Why not pitch something completely off the wall? You’ve got nothing to lose.
If any company could pull off such a radical shake-up of the industry, it’s Valve. They have the audacity, the money, and above all the sheer talent to attempt this crazy idea — and succeed. I’m excited about any developments in this idea, because the group that’ll benefit most from this should be gamers, who’ll finally have a way to make money off all their knowledge of game developers and companies.
