Gabe Newell Wants You to Fund Your Games

[Keane Ng]

Gabe Newell Wants You to Fund Your Games

Valve boss Gabe Newell says that he's "super interested" in the idea of having gamers foot part of the bill for development of games in exchange for profits and a copy of the game.

Gabe Newell's chock full of big ideas, and his newest and biggest one doesn't have anything to do with DRM or how to get you to fall in love with a videogame character, it has to do with how you pay for your games. Not as in how you purchase them, but how you might pay for their development.

"One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community," Newell told ABC's Good Game [http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/webexclusives/]. As Newell sees it, with the way game development currently works, developers need "$10 to $30 million" in funding to even get started on a project. "There's a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative," Newell said.

A possible way to eliminate all that risk might be to ask gamers to pay for the development of their games. "What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games," Newell explained. "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."

Which sounds somewhat similar to ventures like The Game Cartel [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92543-Publisher-Wants-Users-to-Design-and-Fund-Its-Game], which asks gamers to fork over dollars to make a game that they'll have a major hand in designing, in exchange for a copy of the game. Now what Newell's imagining is different - he's proposing people fund a project that'll be developed by another party. That involves quite a bit of faith in that party for people to be willing to fork over their money. I don't imagine it being hard for a company like Valve to call on its rabid fanbase to help out here, but for smaller, less visible developers? Maybe it wouldn't be as easy.

[Via GI.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/valve-gamers-should-fund-development]]

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[The Shade]

Well, sounds kinda under-developed so far. But if Gabe Newell believes in it, I'm sure he of all people could find a way to make it work.

Now if Ken Levine supports the idea, it'll be unstoppable!

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

No, no, and fuck no. If I really wanted to invest I'd do it in the stock market not on the game itself. If I've read this news story wrong please someone explain it to me.
[small] I'm really tired okay?[/small]
Gabe I'm sorry but every time you open your mouth I dislike you more.

 

[Azhrarn-101]

If this goes ahead, EA will be bankrupt within a year. =D
I mean, seriously, would you give EA money on the promise of a good game somewhere down the line? Knowing them it would not be finished, horribly unoptimised and probably no fun either.

I don't really see this taking off tbh, so many games sound good on paper, but are at best "meh" in execution.

 

[hamster mk 4]

It sounds like a good idea in theory, but would likely fall apart in practice. Either it would lead to design by committee or people feeling shafted when the game fails to meet expectations. Not that people don't feel shafted when games fail to meet expectations, they will just feel more so.

What would be nice is paying for a demo of the game in alpha stage with the understanding that your money and feedback will be used to further the game, and you will get a full version of the game upon release. Just like Tale Worlds did with Mount and Blade. The main problem with this model was that Mount and Blade was a tremendously repayable game. Most modern games have 10 hours of content and are not repayable. Thus early buyins would get their experiences ruined by multiple iterations of the same thing.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

I might be willing to get on board, but first you have to promise not to make a sequel one year later.

 

[Grayl]

I like this idea. He's basically saying let customers be investors, and in return, you get a copy of the game and maybe some of the profits made from said game.

For the gamer, this probably wouldn't mean that much. They may get a say in how the game works, and of course they might make something from it, but nothing more really.

For the developer, this means that not only do they get more money, but they get more time to make the game in question. And, for those games that fall short, this means that they get more of a chance to show off their potential. Wasted potential in games is one of the biggest downfalls, I think, in the gaming markey today. Someone comes along with a great idea and just doesn't have the time/money to fully explore the possibilities of their idea, due to money-hungry publishers that want the games released the second the first level is made.

It sounds good on paper. I've no idea how it'd pan-out, though.

 

[Kiutu]

Buying is funding. We pay enough as it is, stop being greedy. I don't like Gabe, even prior to this. Not making me like him now either.

 

[Torque669]

It sounds great but like Keane said who can trust the companys will return on there deal.

If they did too many people would fund the game, therefore getting the money back and the game so in other words. The developers wont make any money.

 

[Nerf Ninja]

I thought we funded development by actually BUYING the game?

 

[Anarchemitis]

Very yes.

 

[Rathy]

I think this is indeed a good idea, but the problem is it would only work with a few companies as it stands. The issue is every company would want to jump on this bandwagon, and people aren't going to be comfortable with too many investments on incomplete games.

 

[Aiden Rebirth]

two words... DUKE NUKEM!!! seriously this idea would go up in flames, do you know how many products go belly up before development even gets half way done, this is horrible.

 

[Citrus]

Haha, always the picture of Gabe playing WoW. I can't help but imagine that when he's interviewed, the reporters go to his house and he distractedly answers their questions as he keeps playing.

 

[Abedeus]

The only company I would trust is Blizzard, and that's only when it comes to Diablo.

And maybe Bioware. I would also say Ubisoft, but I'm giving them the finger since PoP's "no DLC on PC" bullcrap.

 

[Woe Is You]

Buying is funding. We pay enough as it is, stop being greedy.

Well, the news bit says that in the hypothetical situation that such a try a business model be tried, the investing player would get a share of the profits in addition to the game.

I'm not seeing how this'd work in real life but I'm not seeing this comment as Gabe being greedy either. More like utopistic, for two reasons, actually: one is that getting players on board with something like this would be extremely hard and second is that by accepting such money you're basically promising the players both that the game will be done and that it will sell enough to return a profit. Tough sell.