I seem to want to talk about money quite often. Well, I love
money and so does everyone else. We do what we can to create and store cash
like energy and like energy it seems like money is always transferred but
destroyed if there is a fire. Today we’ll fight premature holes burning in our pockets.
The last couple of years have yielded some amazing video
game related projects from some interesting funding methods. The best examples
of this are Minecraft and several high profile Kickstarter projects. Crowd
sourcing and selling Alpha/Beta access is a dream come true for smaller studios
with niche projects that wouldn’t otherwise see the light of day. This is
great, but there is no guarantee that a final product will be delivered. It’s
kind of fun to imagine the gamer population as some sort of confederacy of
venture capitalists that can shape the horizon. A bunch of people assume it
functions as a pre order service and forget about the risk involved, you may
get a bad game or no game at all. Pulling together and funding something you
believe in is a great feeling and everyone should feel what it’s like to get a
better than expected investment return.
If you’ve logged into Steam in the last six months you’ve
probably noticed a ton of Early Access programs that have peppered the new
release list. These games aren’t finished and some don’t even resemble the
final product. This can be an awesome experience for some, akin to seeing a
car built from the ground up and witnessing every change as it is made. The
historical value here is great and will interest those who are into game design
theory but can rub others the wrong way because the games may not be “fun” yet.
The most successful example of this has been Minecraft, it was available for purchase in its early stages. Sorry kids, I played some early builds and there
wasn’t even any mining to be done. Being in on the podcast conversations and
seeing the newest games can be a huge bump in your nerd cred but you have to
remember you paid to beta test. People usually volunteer their free time or
even get paid to make sure code is up to scratch, wouldn’t it be awesome is
someone would come over to your house and pay you to clean it? Do your research
and make sure you’re throwing your money at something you believe in, there are
plenty of developers that figured out how to siphon money out of the big name
publishers and there are people in this world who will steal your milkshake.
The internet has changed our lives and how business is done.
The record and movie industries have had their fights and seen independent ventures
eat a little more into the profit margins by mainlining straight into the
audience. Well, that topic sounded a lot more interesting in my head. Join me
next time I update, but you have to bring your own snacks.
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