Publisher Wants Users to Design and Fund Its Game
- Thread starter Keane Ng
- Start date
As I understand things it's not even "Design By Comittee" it's voting which means that they get to choose the options you vote for. So in the end your dealing with their committee coming up with the actual ideas and you deciding which one they should go with.
The biggest problem I see here though is that personally I've never heard of "Roundhouse Interactive" for some stupid reason it makes me think of people guffawing over Chuck Norris jokes on a WoW general channel. But basically I'm supposed to trust them what amounts to a fully paid off pre-order for the right to vote on the game that might be made if they don't go belly up.
What's more their top projected budget is 8 million, with only 3 million in development costs guaranteed... which means we're not talking a AAA title to begin with, and the options people can vote for are of course going to be limited within very specific constraints based on that budget, either that or they will do whatever expensive things fans demand, while raiding the cookie jar, then claim they went bankrupt and say "oops well, sorry I guess it will never be finished".
Once the goon community of Something Awful claim that they funded what was the nastiest porn movie ever made involving "scat swapping" (and it was up on their site at one point, I haven't checked recently, but what little I saw was gut churning). As a result I *DO* see the potential for the masses of the internet to actually pool together and produce something (or rather have something produced) but I don't know if it can be set up by a semi-pro company that seems like they might very well be setting up a scam.
Truthfully if the genere was RPG or action RPG I might be interested, but one of the problems is that in mass voting we might see something like "family entertainment" being developed from the get go, and then me losing all interest in what they do with it.
Indeed the project seems like it will lose people as it goes on, as more and more people become alienated by the votes.
On top of this assuming they don't just find a way to take a portion of the money, declare bankrupcy, and run, that they don't have a plan for a game already and will load the votes. I mean for all we know they are sitting on the world's lamest game already, will rig things so the community "votes" for the elements of it, and then release it saying this is what people want. Your paying in advance without ever seeing it, so it could be a way of recouping a previous project.
Yeah, I'm paranoid, but I do have visions of some guys re-skinning something like the old "Sneak King" game from Burger King (which they gave away for free I believe) and then sending out CDs of it once they have $50 and claiming this was the result of idiot fans.
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The biggest problem I see here though is that personally I've never heard of "Roundhouse Interactive" for some stupid reason it makes me think of people guffawing over Chuck Norris jokes on a WoW general channel. But basically I'm supposed to trust them what amounts to a fully paid off pre-order for the right to vote on the game that might be made if they don't go belly up.
What's more their top projected budget is 8 million, with only 3 million in development costs guaranteed... which means we're not talking a AAA title to begin with, and the options people can vote for are of course going to be limited within very specific constraints based on that budget, either that or they will do whatever expensive things fans demand, while raiding the cookie jar, then claim they went bankrupt and say "oops well, sorry I guess it will never be finished".
Once the goon community of Something Awful claim that they funded what was the nastiest porn movie ever made involving "scat swapping" (and it was up on their site at one point, I haven't checked recently, but what little I saw was gut churning). As a result I *DO* see the potential for the masses of the internet to actually pool together and produce something (or rather have something produced) but I don't know if it can be set up by a semi-pro company that seems like they might very well be setting up a scam.
Truthfully if the genere was RPG or action RPG I might be interested, but one of the problems is that in mass voting we might see something like "family entertainment" being developed from the get go, and then me losing all interest in what they do with it.
Indeed the project seems like it will lose people as it goes on, as more and more people become alienated by the votes.
On top of this assuming they don't just find a way to take a portion of the money, declare bankrupcy, and run, that they don't have a plan for a game already and will load the votes. I mean for all we know they are sitting on the world's lamest game already, will rig things so the community "votes" for the elements of it, and then release it saying this is what people want. Your paying in advance without ever seeing it, so it could be a way of recouping a previous project.
Yeah, I'm paranoid, but I do have visions of some guys re-skinning something like the old "Sneak King" game from Burger King (which they gave away for free I believe) and then sending out CDs of it once they have $50 and claiming this was the result of idiot fans.
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So, 20% of the users vote platform ??? and 16% votes for every other platform. Then you scammed 80% of your user base out of their money. Because they still have democratic power, they will universally vote for all retarded ideas to spite the ??? owners with petitions like "the loading screens should display goatse/tubgirl" and "The game may be no longer then five minutes"
That's actually the same thing that ran through my head. I've always thought "Y'know, the Escapist community is large enough, odds are we have people with talents in every aspect of game creation, why don't they all make one together?"Pandalisk said:
This seems the closest that game will come to. By my understanding, for that $50, you get a copy of the final game, so it's still a game for $10 cheaper than normal.
I'll probably sign up for this. It might screw me over, but if I win on even one of these votes, it'll make me very happy to see it in the final version.
I was interested until I saw the bit about netting him five million dollars before he's actually done anything. Now call me skeptical...
That said, this seems like a very interesting grass-roots sort of thing.
I really have no idea how to feel about this.
Gonna have to keep my eye on it...
That said, this seems like a very interesting grass-roots sort of thing.
I really have no idea how to feel about this.
Gonna have to keep my eye on it...
Maybe, but they'll be people who love games and want to play them rather than the design-by-committee where half the people never play games.RollForInitiative said:
Still, I ain't paying up front unless I get a piece of the pie. Sounds too much like poetry.com where the poets fund the book by buying it before it's made.
Okay, so after some consideration, here's my two cents.
In flipping through the game cartel's terms and conditions, I came across some interesting tid-bits (snipped here of crazy legal reiteration and doublespeak, for your reading convenience).
For example: "[Roundhouse] reserves the right to change the terms...including but not limited to the charges [associated with Game Cartel] without notice."
Or: "IN NO EVENT SHALL RoundHouse Interactive Inc...BE LIABLE FOR...[legal damages pursued with regards to] THE...FAILURE TO PROVIDE SERVICES...WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, [or] NEGLIGENCE."
In effect: "We reserve the right to change how much we're asking from you, at any time, without feeling the need to let you know. Oh, also, if in the end we totally zone out and forget to make that...game...thing? You totally can't sue us. Like, at all. And we're keeping the five million dollars."
Now I realize most of the above are standard clauses in a terms and conditions contract, but they make me nervous. This is an extraordinarily unusual step in gaming history, with no real precedent to compare by, and I just feel like it warrants some special consideration. (more so, anyway, than running on the honors system, beneath a contract which could best be summed to "NOT IT!")
More to the point: it seems a bit shady of them to be asking the gaming community to grant them the benefits of investors, without offering us the same protections.
In flipping through the game cartel's terms and conditions, I came across some interesting tid-bits (snipped here of crazy legal reiteration and doublespeak, for your reading convenience).
For example: "[Roundhouse] reserves the right to change the terms...including but not limited to the charges [associated with Game Cartel] without notice."
Or: "IN NO EVENT SHALL RoundHouse Interactive Inc...BE LIABLE FOR...[legal damages pursued with regards to] THE...FAILURE TO PROVIDE SERVICES...WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, [or] NEGLIGENCE."
In effect: "We reserve the right to change how much we're asking from you, at any time, without feeling the need to let you know. Oh, also, if in the end we totally zone out and forget to make that...game...thing? You totally can't sue us. Like, at all. And we're keeping the five million dollars."
Now I realize most of the above are standard clauses in a terms and conditions contract, but they make me nervous. This is an extraordinarily unusual step in gaming history, with no real precedent to compare by, and I just feel like it warrants some special consideration. (more so, anyway, than running on the honors system, beneath a contract which could best be summed to "NOT IT!")
More to the point: it seems a bit shady of them to be asking the gaming community to grant them the benefits of investors, without offering us the same protections.
Wow. That game has great potential to succeed however, potential means nothing unless they can follow through and make a great game out of it.