I am interested in the communities opinion on something I have been musing about for sometime now.

Would you as an MMORPG gamer be interested in a sandbox MMORPG Developer studio that: 

-Crowdsources creative pieces for the game that are voted into the game by the subscribing community?

-Music/Soundtrack

-3d/art assets

-anything else that can be created to customize the world/player characters that do not affect gameplay or balance. This can include professional quality dungeons, instances, maps etc.

-Company uses World of Warcraft business model with 100% of the profit rolled back into the game you pay for. After salaries and necessary business expenditures of course, think closer to non-profit organization for an MMO developer.

-$15 a Month subscription

-Box/Expansion Cost

-Cash shop for crowdsourced assets approved by majority subscriber vote, proceeds given to creator to incentivize quality asset creation. Limited to cosmetics, special lore content, world assets that do not effect gameplay.

-Extremely against any pay to win advantages 

-The above revenue streams, after expenditures, would be rolled back into the game with the following based on need/priority (Can be cross referenced between developer needs and community need vote:

-Offline Customer Support

-In Game GM customer support

-In Game professional DMs to run live content with special dev tools (If voted interest by community)

-Reasonable marketing/advertising to grow playerbase for community activity and increase in revenue for further development to build the best possible game.

-Increasing staff to aid in content implementation, quality assurance, and development. Unlike most MMO devs that cut staff post production.

-Server expansion to accomodate playstyle preferences Hardcore FFA PVP, RP, PVE, private rented servers, etc. even if not at population capacity (budget permitting before the above expenditures.)

-If revenue is so high that it cannot be reasonable distributed towards the game it can be evenly distributed into each subscribers monthly fee as a reduced sub price. (This would be voted on)

So in summary this company :

-Crowdsources+Subscriber votes on aesthetics/cosmetic items/lore/soundtracks for faster and more custom implementation

-Rolls all excess profits into expanding/bettering the game 

-Very anti pay to win

-Interested in creating a vast virtual world with sandbox and themepark components

If that company was going through kickstarter + private funding + a playable/viewable tech demo that made all financial records public to prove profits rolled into the game, and adhered to majority vote for crowdsourced creative content...would you support this with you wallet?

Please comment your thoughts comments and concerns for discussion.

Originally posted by jimdandy26
While there is power in the internet aggregate, no company can be ran as a democracy effectively, especially on such a scale as you suppose.

Perhaps, considering the only democratic part would be for aesthetic cash shop items, and last resort profit expenditure do you still think its not reasonable to manage via community poll only available to subscribers?

Not talking votes for meat and bones of the game (Gameplay, stats, etc.), think more like voting on the clothes and hair gel lol.

Also thank you very much for the quick response and your opinion :D

I am no such developer just really interested in the concept and plausibility with its strength/weaknesses

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Originally posted by RefMinor Is the game any good?

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I cannot say for this hypothetical company and game, unless I specified the game genre and feature list...plus we all assume the feature list was 100% accurate (which they usually arent)

For the sake of your discussion, lets assume it is a solid game to your specific standards of gameplay in the fantasy setting since that is very common. Not your dream game during formative stages, but it has alot of potential to grow quickly given the original posts circumstances of the company focusing on quality of content forsaking profit as revenue to build the best game possible over pure profit motivation.

Wee bit of pretend time for discussion around the company business model, and structuring.

I don't "support" devs. I play fun games.

The OP said nothing about if the game is fun. If the game is fun to me, how it is developed matter very little.

Originally posted by RefMinor
Is the game any good?

+1

Many features sound good on paper, but the game must be engaging and fun.

I agree about the fun part, a game without fun is another form of work essentially lol

The reason the OP focuses on the studio is because the developer, its structure, and motivation leads to the end result...hopefully a fun game although forms of fun may vary which is why I avoided specific details on the game itself as the end point.

Example: Some like tab targeting, some like free targeting as a requirment for a fun game...these examples of differences can go on a longggggg time lol.

So with that said, assume/pretend the game is something that looks like it can be fun for you based around your ideal MMO and is being made by a studio working under the conditions given in the OP.

Originally posted by RefMinor
Is the game any good?

Indeed. First and foremost, I would want to check out is their game any good?

Originally posted by krage

Originally posted by jimdandy26
While there is power in the internet aggregate, no company can be ran as a democracy effectively, especially on such a scale as you suppose.

Perhaps, considering the only democratic part would be for aesthetic cash shop items, and last resort profit expenditure do you still think its not reasonable to manage via community poll only available to subscribers?

Not talking votes for meat and bones of the game (Gameplay, stats, etc.), think more like voting on the clothes and hair gel lol.

Also thank you very much for the quick response and your opinion :D

I am no such developer just really interested in the concept and plausibility with its strength/weaknesses

The only company that has attempted what you are supposing and succeeded is Valve, and even then it works for them because it has built on its previous successes and cut what did not work. Also, even if it is strichtly for aesthetics (which I doubt it will stay that way for long, power corrupts and all that) it will not be a majority vote due to first past the post voting system.

Who is going to pay to create a game that promises that it will never make a profit for them?

And how are you going to get players to create artwork for you?  You can't just take arbitrary artwork, stick it in a game, and expect it to work.

if the game is big enough, with enough freedom and good enough to justify the subscription then i'd support it. As soon as the cash shop goes into effect i remove my support if there is a subscription. Sub or cash shop, not both (much less if its related to the lore to force people to buy cash shop to progress deeper into the story).

Again, you decide, A) subscription or B) cash shop with no sub. Picking both = zero support from my wallet and im pretty sure many other's wallets too.

Great responses!

I think cash shop or sub is definitely a bit much too, imo B2P is most fair

Artwork and assets I think if you incentivize for assets through sales going directly to the designers I would imagine many employed and freelance designers with professional experience would take advantage of such a system.

As for getting someone to pay to develop a game that wont make a profit would mean it would have to seek funding outside of venture capital, majority of angel investors, and definitely IPO/public corporation. It would likely have to start small and build from its community hence the no profit concept being theoretically best bang for community fundings bucks.

Love it guys, keep bringing the concept troubleshooting :D

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Originally posted by jimdandy26
While there is power in the internet aggregate, no company can be ran as a democracy effectively, especially on such a scale as you suppose.

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Originally posted by Quizzical

Who is going to pay to create a game that promises that it will never make a profit for them?

And how are you going to get players to create artwork for you?  You can't just take arbitrary artwork, stick it in a game, and expect it to work.

It is actually very possible.

Pirates of the Burning Sea did this, most Ship models were made by the players. And also players can make thier own Sails and Flags.

As for the OP, yes I would support such a company, yet as others have said the game must be fun and engaging. The first reason I stick with an MMo is on its own gameplay merits. The rest is a bonus.

In this case a huge bonus since the company is not a Money grab under this premise.

I voted Yes - but only insofar as this is a pure fantasy.

Only a philanthropic organisation with a fanatical obsession with MMOs and good excuses as to why they don't bury their mountains of cash in something more worthwhile such as charity could do this - and such an organisation does not, and very likely will not ever exist.

Originally posted by RefMinor
Is the game any good?

Ditto'ed. Whenever you start a game on whether it fits in some Grand Philosophy of How The Way MMORPG's Ought to Be, you are already on the path to failure.

Final Fantasy XIV went in for the grand philosophy and crashed an burned. Yoshi-P took over and said the new direction is, "fun, live, reboot, and rebuild". Now of course this doesn't mean it WILL be fun, but at least he is starting with his head screwed on right.

The votes are going as I expected, I definitely think if a company said they would roll 100% excess profit back into the game I pay for I would be skeptical since its too good to be true.

The problem with this theoretical company is it is a catch 22 for a good chunk of people assuming the voting results were consistent with a much larger sample.

Catch 22 because this company cannot get the investment necessary from conventional sources, and thus unable to draw in community gamer "investors" since development would be shoddy at best on a low budget like most raw kickstarter projects.

Really good stuff guys.

I cant imagine if this hypothetical company had the budget of blizzard, how amazing would an MMO be in terms of support, content creation, and quality with a budget of several millions per month lol. I think at that point the only limit is the technological limits since there would be an army of programmers and support staff.