Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

As part of my degree, I've come across a shocking statistic that raised my interest in the all important question of designing video games: How to fund the process. More on that in a moment.

Dark Millennium Online, as well as WARonline are prime examples of what happens to video games that either: Lose their funding and are bought out by a "moneygrubbing" company that does not share the same respect for the franchise as the original developer, or the publisher simply loses so much money that it cannot fund projects that are not essential to its own survival.

Such is the business world - the rich prosper, the poor weaken and are consumed by the richer.

However, the statistic I found changed everything. In 2011, individuals (not corporations, organised groups, private business - individuals like you and I) from only America donated 80% of the 290 billion dollars raised for charities and non-profits. That's 217.79 billion dollars, out of pockets like you and I - nontaxible, and freely given under all economic situations. To put that in perspective, the highest grossing video game in hard copy sales topped 700million dollars. Not even 1% of personal donation money. Not even close to 0.1% of personal donation money. Now, these causes range from extremely relevant and purposeful causes like AIDS, hunger, and Heart Disease, to stopping corporations from doing things a population doesn't want - some are even vague or even fraudulent like the old ads of the SPCA "feel sorry" depicting animal cruelty while a majority of their funds went to private accounts and not to helping animals.

Yet, think about it. Every charity or doner has a purpose - they believe (often rightly) that by giving money they will help a cause they agree with. Why then, should Warhammer 40k be any different? Our dollars have significant say in what Games Workshop produces - whether it be plastic or electronic, they do everything in their power to rope as many of us as they can into buying their products. They want satisfied customers because satisfied customers are loyal buyers. Should the entire 40k community decide to boycott them tomorrow until a new SoB codex came out, the product would come out hastily and fervently.

As powerful stakeholders to GW, A movement in which a majority, or even a significant amount of people will stand behind will end up changing GW's policies to coincide with our own. That's why I propose that we brainstorm on how to raise funds to "put our money where our mouths are" to do what literally no other business is capable of or at least willing to venture: fan driven products. If we pledge enough money, say for example: a second Space Marine where more emphasis is put into xenos races and multi-player options are likewise expanded - we may find that through our efforts, GW will push THQ to push Relic into developing our game. Or even Relic may take initiative on its own. If you don't believe that this is possible, look no further than something called CSA farming.

CSA farming is a new development of farming where at the beginning of a growing season potential buyers purchase crop shares to which the farmers promise to deliver to the best of their ability. If there is a poor harvest, those who bought the shares receive as much as the farmers can deliver -only an act of God can stop entire farms from not producing- and even then the farmers are protected enough to plant more seeds to deliver another share. If the harvest has a surplus, the farmers deliver that surplus. In essence, it's a win win because the buyers share the risk of supporting locally grown food that is of much higher quality (and much cheaper) than organic food you may find at a grocery store. Regardless of the outcome of a season, the farmers still get paid so they may try to commit to another growing season for their customers. In a way, by pledging money, we'd be prepaying Relic with the promise that'd they'd deliver a game to us. Should we get to that point where a contract may be signed to receive our donation, Relic (or whomever would develop the product) is obligated to deliver what we asked and paid for. The relationship to the community and prospects Relic has under this type of business model is incredible and should rightly excite you to the prospect of how powerful we, as hobbyists, fans, and fanatics are to 40k.

What's really the issue is, what do we want?

So a kickstarter?

Almost even more than a kickstarter - though that is a possibility. It's closer to preordering a game that we have some say in designing.

The one tiny problem in your plan: you have exactly zero chance of getting the community to agree on what to do with a plan like that.

Depends. Do you want another video game from Relic? Why or why not?

Design by committee usually fails really bad. The vision that drives good products gets diluted pretty fast once everyone has gotten their "good idea(s)" in.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Almost even more than a kickstarter - though that is a possibility. It's closer to preordering a game that we have some say in designing.

Well, the problem is that you have to get GW to start that plan to begin with, otherwise your money and your mouth are just bouncing off a brick wall, being unheard by anyone. I've spent time calculating the market cap for GAW in previous threads. If you want to actually BE a "powerful stakeholder" of GW and get them to try more democratic policies, create a not for profit holdings company that seeks donations towards acquiring equity until you're the controlling vote. Allow those who donate to have a vote equivalent to the amount of money you've donated.

It's like the ultimate post-IPO kickstarter, kind of.



Disclaimer: I may only know enough about the stock market to be somewhat dangerous to myself and those who listen to me. I'm not a market analyst. Also, don't blame me if putting the nerds in control of GW runs them out of business.

Not exactly, if money was raised and held over the head of Relic before it was donated, GW would have little say in the matter because we'd technically buy the game before it was even produced. I also wasn't planning on a takeover of GW, I was only suggesting that by raising enough money we could allow Relic (or another dev) the means to create a game to which the community would largely enjoy. The problem with proportional donations is that a large base of players may be alienated when for example, I, one of the richest people in America and therefore the world, demand that if I donate 5 million dollars they would have to use my fan fiction in the video game (therefore 'cannonizing' it). It would be awesome for me, but I'm sure that hundreds would find it offensive to how they understand 40k. Perhaps not - I take great pride in my writing, but nevertheless, large single doners with say in how the money is used is a wicked double edged blade.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Not exactly, if money was raised and held over the head of Relic before it was donated, GW would have little say in the matter because we'd technically buy the game before it was even produced.

GW still has to give Relic permission to use their IP for the game. Now, it might be foolish of them to decline the license when there are already enough pre-orders to guarantee a profit, but they could do it if they wanted.

Which is what I'm saying. Why would any company deny an outright donation from it's own fans? An action like that would disenfranchise almost all of its own player base, let alone make international news and tank its stock. That in my mind would be an unforgivable act just below the level of outright stealing the money should a strict contract not be enforced. That's were grant writing comes into play because we as players could vote where the money goes when a contract is written up. All of our ideas may still be represented by a few dollars in the * miscellaneous jar* - which can be implemented in as many creative ways as Relic can imagine, but the massive and overwhelming majority would vote to sustain a quality fan driven product.

I'm suspecting GW's hands are tied by whatever contract they've got with THQ/Relic at the moment; THQ's the only significant publisher losing money at the moment, I suspect they'll go bust at some point and the 40k video game license will pass to some other developers.

I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea to have fans build a game (maybe partially built already) directly to GW instead of trying to throw money at them; I don't think GW's in dire straits financially, a cash offering wouldn't really push them to alter their plans. If you showed them a decent product that they wouldn't need to pay as much for as the stuff Relic's churning out, I suspect they'd be a little happier.

Plus then we might get something cool like an Inquisition CRPG based on Abnett's works instead of all these cliched Space Marine saves the planet from aliens/chaos plots (I wrote a concept for one for my portfolio as part of a college application, there are some technical difficulties with the implementation (mostly because of the nonlinearity of the game requiring a lot of recorded voice lines) but it'd be pretty awesome if it got working).

You misunderstand, the money wouldn't be going to GW, it'd be going to a competent dev, such as Relic or another to do almost exactly what you suggested.

One thinks that most of that donation money is the super rich avoiding taxes. There's 300million people in America last time I checked, you're telling me that everyone single man, woman and child donated 1,000 dollars (or 1,000,000 dollars, depending on what definition of Billion we use) each?

1,000 dollars in a years time per family member? That's really not that far fetched considering many church goers donate many times that amount. Sure there are many likely candidates that donate millions, but like the research showed, the vast (and again 80%) of those donating is every class below the third tier of the socioeconomic latter. The tax break is intended to get rich people to donate more - but the vast majority of those who donate aren't rich.