Okay, so not to get anyone's hopes up or anything, but I've recently been tinkering with trying to come up with some sort of "release formula". Many of us have found ourselves in such a delicate position with a few things that at some point in time found its way into their hands through typical strange and unusual circumstances. Stuff that might be nice to share, but due to circumstances (mostly economical in some cases), it's just not such an interesting thought. Now, here's the "thing" I've been thinking about: 1) The owner has his/her own round of sexual pleasure with the title, totally raping and ruining its purity and stuff. This mainly involves turning the title into what I guess could be called an "as close to retail"-like experience as possible (killing debug modes entirely, cleaning up a few things here and there if I care to, etc...) Please note that I'm talking about unreleased stuff here, so nothing like simple final review copies or something for released games (but... maybe old previews too, if they are noticeably interesting and different!) 2) The title is put up online, attached to it comes a nice note about how much someone loves you all, but that money is an object of great affection too! Please give that person money! *insert dedicated place to donate your money* 3) If people donating money at some point in total manage to surpass the initial investment (or just hit a sufficient amount), it'll be time to put up the untampered with "developer copy" of the title. No alterations (unless there's some sort of malicious watermark that could harm someone, then that would have to go. Please understand the importance of that) - Ofcourse, this would require evil trust and someone might abuse it, 'cause people suck. Thing is, if I went through with something like this, or anyone else for that matter, I'm just curious about if it is some sort of idea that people would be interested in "participating" in? (as in donating and/or evt. doing themselves in the future if proven successful) You always hear about people who wants to donate to something, but never put up, never "got the chance", etc... you also often see some... well... I'd call them unrealistic amounts, as far as trying to organize a public donation group to get a release of some sort done goes. The purist Nazis who craves their 1:1 can put up or shut up in this case too. They just got a free unreleased title that under most circumstances would've been considered impossible to get out into the public, and someone even went through the trouble of making it slightly more playable and enjoyable than it currently was. If they want the debug output and menu filled mess that it originally was, they can feel free to join the donation drive. So, yeah, I want to "challenge" the purists and "didn't get a chance to contribute" people, to put it one way. Stupid? Maybe! Anyway, I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on this sort of thing. I know a lot of people have kinda like done releases and then requested donations, but with the already released thing being what everyone's showing their gratitude for. I could've turned things around and said that the "altered version" is what people would be donating for, but... well... that kind of thing just isn't that interesting, and "anyone" could've done that. I'd love to see the initial release as the "big bang/eye-catching surprise", gaining the most interest, with the donation driven "original" follow up to it to be for anyone who cares about "that sort of thing". Now... I've written a lot of words (So many I couldn't be arsed to proofread this!) Please feed me your feedback! (Also, I'm totally posting this in here 'cause, well, I'd prefer to have some somewhat serious feedback to this)
Well, obviously we'd "assume" that a title subjected to such an experiment would've been of some sort of significance of some sort of general interest.
Id say its a great idea. Brings together a lot of people really, those who would have liked to play a 'final' version without all the mess of a debug version, along with those of us who like anything and everything. As always (and as it has be acknowledged), the title is everything, but Id imagine it would work out fine.
I was kinda hoping I'd get bit more feedback like Borman's there (maybe with some additional thoughts/suggestions and/or questions), but I guess I might've covered everything with my opening post. Anyway, basic idea is that "World gets new free game, purists/preservationists have to pay up!" (Kinda like how a school will be invited for free to visit a museum, while those who probably have a genuine interest in seeing the exhibition will have to pay... but they also get more out of it, as they don't have to follow the teacher!) Anyway, curiously enough, there might be a title in the pipeline for this little "experiment".
Before you start saying things like this you better have a conversation with ASSEMbler as we have largely put a stop to these kinds of releases. So make sure he is happy with what you plan to do.
It wont be a 0-bit "thing", and if you took a look through the OP, I don't think I described "these kinds of releases", at all. This is something I suppose someone would be doing "elsewhere". Reason I asked for input here is because I don't want five billion annoying PMs from people asking or assuming all sorts of stuff. I just want some input on the general "idea"
Not going to happen. Who do you trust to watch the building "donor" money? We couldn't raise even $2k for sonic xtreme let alone anything else. Do whatever you want, but nothing of that sort will happen on the forum.
Now this was the type of feedback I was kinda hoping to see! Good questions, even. And don't worry, as I said before, it's no 0-bit "thing". This is all just hypothetical stuff. This is indeed a good question. I've been throwing around some ideas, but everything falls down to the point of depending on the "trust"-thing and just "take my word for it", which is indeed an icky place to be :/ The initial release of a "near retail" (full) presentation would pretty much be the "offering" that's first given out as an attempt to build trust between the parts. Basically the freebie that shows that at least one part is serious. This was actually one of the things I had in mind (combined with drx' Hidden Palace's donation system) when I first started tossing this idea around. As, obviously, donation drives are a mess to organize and they involve a terrible amount of responsibility, commitment and often also restrictions. What if things don't reach the target price? What if the person receiving them doesn't hold up his/her end of the bargain? What about those who didn't donate? What about those who never got a chance? etc... which is why I ended up on the: "Initial Public Release first -> Donations second -> Debug Release finale". 'cause of that order, people have already at least got "something", so in general, one would expect the majority of the donations to've been "out of appreciation" for the initial offering (good will?), but at the same time, they'll "hopefully" cover any evt. original investments involved, which in turn would lead to another (trust based) release (which of course, I'm certain, some people's donations were targeted towards. As people ALWAYS want more). Anyway, this isn't too different from Hidden-Palace's paypal donation system, just that in a "one title scenario" like this, there already is "more" available "in the queue" (just that no one's paid for it, yet). There's no wait to see if there's "hopefully" a surprise release coming in the future. No kinder surprise disappointment. People would already know what would come if the donations reached a sufficient point. Basically, people donate money to allow for the purchase and release of more. Now, I doubt drx is running things entirely donation driven and I'm sure a lot comes out of his own pocket, but in general, the basic idea is the same. Thanks for the input so far, guys. Hope someone can dig out some more "issues" and stuff that would need more thought and problem solving in something like this.
your idea is in my view quite nobel but alas, this is the wild west of video gaming, everyone deals on arm's length. It's hard enough to establish trust between 2 people, let alone coordinating an unspecified number of semi-retail buyers. Don't get me wrong, I m all for new unreleased releases, especially regarding big ones, but unless someone has the kind heart of releasing them there's really not much else that can be done, practically speaking. on the other hand, if there was an auction-like website that handled all payments in an escrow account and money got stacked there, it could work, maybe. The problem, in reality, is that these titles are not legal to own in the first place so any coordinated attempt for a real legal and equitable solution would fall outside legal boundaries by default thus giving way to any bastard's ill will to the detriment of many who have donated money.
Owning an original proto/demo/review game can be perfectly legal, though a lot of gray area exists regarding the NDA's, contracts, etc. which would normally prevent its availability. It's the distribution that screws you over.
