I joined a kick starter project a few months ago that was going to
convert Miles Davis' Kind of Blue to 8bit chip sounds. I put in $25 on the project and got the results about a week ago (also a CD is in the mail) and was pretty impressed with the entire way that the money was raised in such an efficient manor and everyone got paid that should have.
It sounds like Gabe Newell (of Valve) thinks this system could be applied to game development:
Quote:One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community. So right now, what typically happens is you have this budget - it needs to be huge, it has to be $10m - $30m, and it has to be all available at the beginning of the project. There's a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative.
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.'
So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead have it be something where funding is coming out of community for games and game concepts they really like.
Sounds like a cool idea and Steam already is the perfect distribution system for it.
Web Exclusive Interview - Gabe Newell - Valve Software
