This is an idea that I mentioned in another thread, but I think it might bear further discussion in a more general sense.
For the last few years, the makers of the game Cards Against Humanity have done different fundraising stunts on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., known for historically high pre-Christmas retail sales, at least until the internet took over). The Cards Against Humanity game is pretty raunchy, and the crowdfunding stunts were for publicity more than any noble cause. This year they dug a hole in the ground. The deal was that they would keep the digging crew digging until the money ran out. They ended up getting something like $100,000 in total contributions from fans of the game and others.
So, it dawns on me that while some people will voluntarily contribute money to a cause if it's one they like, many of those same people will not agree to "buy" something as useful as a costume piece in a game, because it feels more like a frivolous purchase or they see the company as greedy or something.
Thus, the idea is, instead of designing new costumes, power sets, zones, content, etc in the game and try to sell it after the fact, why not crowdfund new initiatives up-front and then only do those projects that get sufficient crowdfunding to actually happen. Then you can still sell the content or whatever to people who got to the party later and couldn't contribute tot he crowdfunding effort.
You could have any number of not-yet-fully-funded ideas on the game website that people could contribute donations to pay for, and the donors would get the new costume or whatever it is for free when it comes out, whereas everyone else would have to pay for it, because giving it away for free at that point would be unfair to those that donated.
If nothing else, you could gain some inkling of what new stuff people actually want based on how well funded stuff gets.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
An interesting idea.
I see pros and cons with it, of course. I think it would have the most benefit in macro stuff like zones and power sets, not so much with individual costume pieces. See, most crowd-funded projects, at least those that involve an actual product, have some kind of prototype or CG rendering of the final product so that potential buyers have an idea of what they are buying. We don't really have that luxury when the 'product' we are buying IS a CG design. I don't want to put down $5 for a cowboy hat and say "That's the stupidest looking hat I've ever seen!"
OTH, This might be an excellent place for a maverick company to do something like release the tool and set the parameters for creating something, and let the player base submit designs. The kind of thing that kept old Second Life around longer than it deserved. Now, I would personally want some kind of jury system that would pare down the junk. But after the community judges and starts 'buying' (or just voting), the item can go live. Those that want it pay for it, and the creator gets some kind of reward/payback.
Demanding to see what the fully done up costume piece looks like before deciding to fund it's production is tantamount to just buying a fully made costume piece off the cash shop, in my mind. I would think if crowdfunding for costumes were done, what you'd be shown would be an initial hand-drawn sketch or set of sketches for the costume in question, and nothing done in digital 3D until the project gets funded. That way the costume designers who work for the company can create things they think would be good to have, see what gets funded, then fully realize that stuff. You could even have forums to reply with comments on the items up for funding and get a sense of what people would want from there.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not a programmer or designer of costumes and I don't begrudge those people who would like to mod the game on the client side to make things look different on their own machine and then maybe give those skins to their friends or even sell it as aftermarket, third party stuff. I downloaded a TON of skins for Freedom Force when I played that game (for free, made by other fans of the game and uploaded to free sites). But I have to admit it irks me to think that there are people out there complaining that they have to pay MONEY for stuff like costumes (which in their mind ought to be free, like everything else) and then, seemingly out of the other side of their mouths, they want to cash in on a game like that by selling costume pieces either to the game devs or directly to the players, via the game's cash shop, and make money themselves on it in some way. I want to be clear that I'm not accusing WarBird or any other specific person on these forums of exhibiting this sort of hypocrisy, but in the general sense, I hear the shrill cry of "That should be free, man!" coming from one direction and then the sharpers on the other side of the coin saying "Hey maybe _I_ can make a buck off of this...." and I know, taken collectively, both of those statements are combing from future players of CoT, not necessarily out of the same person's mouth, but coming from the same general population, and it just kills me. What that sentiment, taken together, says to me is "We, the players of this future game, hereby forbid the Big Evil Game Company (TM) from actually making any money off of us, because that would be greedy, but we reserve the right to try to make as much money off of each other as we can, because when the GAME makes money, that's greed, but when _I_ make money, I totally earned it."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Seriously?
You are mad because different people who just happen to play the same game don't have the exact same opinion about how to monetize that game?
As far as crowd sourcing DLC for a game. Crowd sourcing is intended to be used by those who need an influx of capital to get something off the ground, when a company uses it as a marketing tool or a way to hedge their bets it tends to be received poorly. EA did something like this and they took a bit of a beating for it. Not to mention a failed kickstarter for DLC would probably affect the games population. At best I think if they do use crowd sourcing for anything in the future it should be themed packs that have no impact on gameplay. A example would be a horror theme pack that includes monster costume pieces, new horror type emotes, titles, base items and so forth.
I think actual gameplay should be decided by the devs just based on the fact of how MMO game development works. What goes live is so far behind what the devs would be currently working on that anything kickstarted could take years to see the light of day. I think seeing years between a kickstarter and getting an add-on product is not going to be something alot of people will be interested in.
What I think Radiac means, its quite harsh to ask a small business to produce us assets that "we" want rather than what they want or view as the most monetizable. They can't afford to produce a product that will make them a loss as they have to consider things such as staffing etc.
A bigger company has the security of a larger quantity of assets, now i understand everyone wants to have what they are getting their in the flesh before they buy it but that can't always happen.
Its like the kid who complains that the Magic cards in the case are too expensive at the local store, then goes online, buys cards, then tries to sell them at a markup to the store customers out of his personal binder under the guise of "casual trading".
It's a lot of "Don't RIP ME OFF!!!" followed by "Hey, maybe I can rip OTHER people off...."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I don't see how they can't be combined. By that I mean MWM can make those things that they see as most beneficial to the game in the long run but at the same time have a form "crowd funding" for the ones that are not so beneficial/desirable that at least make them break even on it.
Didn't CoX have a contest for people to vote for which new costume they wanted, then the 50s retro scifi space suit was made in like a year?
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Counter-proposal.
MWM "decides" to do a Package Of Something and sets a Funding Target for that to happen. When the Funding Target gets reached, then the crowdfunding of that particular item gets closed, and everyone who ponied up for it will get that Package Of Something given to them (at no additional charge) when its development is completed. In other words, your Advance Donation "counts" towards getting early(est) access to the contents of that Package Of Something.
After the Package Of Something is completed and released, everyone who donated to fund it gets the Package Of Something automatically. Everyone else can either Pay Stars to get access to the Package Of Something too ... or ... WAIT for a period of time (6-12 months?) to gain access to the contents of the Package Of Something at a reduced price (potentially even "for free" depending on how the game is doing).
This way, the crowdfunding works as an Advance Payment for development of new Stuff™ which ensures that the costs of developing the Package Of Stuff are paid for, with the potential to earn more (through Stars purchases) for a limited time span after release, so that late adopters don't have a huge ridiculous bill to pay in order to "catch up" to what everyone else has access to. What is actually being bought and paid for then is EARLY ACCESS to the contents of the Package Of Stuff, as opposed to EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to the contents of the Package Of Stuff.
Everyone with me so far on the point, purpose and structuring of monetization I'm talking about here?
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Here is how I would crowdfund in game costume pieces and some on the fly example values.
A concept artist puts together a new costume. This is the "prototype" that the kickstarter wants to put into "mass production." The completion goal varies depending on the estimated number of hours it would take the CG artist to build the costume. Initially I could see MWM losing money on this part as they figure out exactly how much effort is involved in going from concept to functional pieces. Simpler costumes sets that reuse to some degree existing assets would have goals in the 250-500 range (10-20 hours of work at $25/hour) while more complex costume sets with new pieces and new work would be more. The general idea being to keep goals under or around 1000.
People who like the set can donate but donations would be limited to the live cost of the set. IMO this should average 5 dollars and 15 at the most. This means that you'd need between 50 and 200 players to invest in a new set to get it past the goal. The primary reason to keep the maximum donation capped is to prevent people from getting that feeling that they have wasted a ton of money on something that didn't come out the way they were hoping. It also prevents a single person from bankrolling a costume set that doesn't have a great deal of interest from the community, limiting MWM's ROI. Ideally if enough people are interested in donating to get a new set in production then down the line there would be people interested in buying that set after it is released. I would also limit the time span of the crowdfunding period if it can't hit the goal in a short enough period that would tell me that the ROI period would be quite long. MWM's goal for these sets should be to generate consistent and elevated income from these sets not slowly skim meager profits over the a prolonged time frame. This also prevents MWM from investing a lot of time into something that doesn't end up being very popular if the time it takes to make a costume is underestimated.
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1 Stretch Goal can be Non-Combat missions? what u guys think?
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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Non-combat missions are already in the plan, IIRC.
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why not just sell credits to the cash store and let the player pick and choose what he wants when it opens?
we get to fund COT, and there is an incentive to have a cash store up and running for launch.
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