Crowdsourcing & Video Game Development

The advent of the information age is making the task of creating and distributing a game easier with better tools and more accessible with online product placement and marketing.  I would like to talk about two of the many advancements our current Internet has already given birth to but has yet to have reach full fruition.  The first is the creation of digital commodity archives and communities.  The second is the growth of open-call crowdsourcing communities.

              

As these advancements occur a new creative landscape will surface.

The Digital Commodity Archive and Community

Any digital commodity whether it be a photo, music track, source code, or 3D model could be submitted to an online archive community that could sell a non-exclusive license to use it.  The use of these generic digital assets allows for creators to develop products that would otherwise be inaccessible, thus creating new industry.

The demand for non-exclusively licensed game development assets is new.  Ten years ago getting a game on store shelves cost a lot of capital.  After spending so much money on product placement and promotion it would be silly to invest a minimalist amount developing the game.  With the development of online distribution and marketing, we have created a marketplace for smaller revenue projects.  It is here the demand to license these assets has been born.

The two business questions that must both be answered positively for the next crowdsourcing community development to occur are:

1 – Is there enough of a demand/interest for a creator to create and submit a given type of digital commodity to an online archive?

2 – Is there enough of a demand for that given type of digital commodity to generate and enough revenue to create and maintain an online community archive?

I believe both types of demands now exist for both sprite sheets (2D art) and 3D models.  I would like to share a timeline of what has already happened and what will inevitably occur.

 

1990s

We get email; the Internet is born

 

2001

Google creates an image search feature, granting users access to millions of images but they are not usable commercially.

 

2003

An open access model which allowed anyone to upload and market an image is pioneered.

 

2008(ish)

The same open access models that existed for image files are being populated with audio files.

 

2100

The generations that have lived and died since the beginning of the information age are being counted.  With each generation we create more and more digital content which eventually goes on the stack of things that belong to nobody.

 

Presently free time is the largest producer of generic digital commodities, eventually the largest contributor of these commodities will become the deceased.  In this observation we can see the exact nature of a digital commodity.  On today’s Internet where free time is the largest producer of generic digital commodities we should embrace the idea that a non-exclusive licensing fee could be a mutual way to emulate the world we will leave our children with.

Open Call Crowdsourcing

Prosumer

The video game industry has already seen the presence of an abundant prosumer.  Games that offer players the ability to create new content will see the prosumer create.  Games that are highly competitive will see the prosumer post on forums.  Working 40 hours a week developing a game is a job, a moment of creativity sprouting from a powerful thought is enjoyable.  Chess and Starcraft have both demonstrated the key role best performed by the prosumer in developing sophisticated gameplay.

 

The idea of blurring the lines between the consumer and the crowd as a fellow creator and business partner is something that gems of the information age like Threadless, Innocentive, and Mechanical Turk have already been prosperous in doing.  The abundance of prosumer activity in the game industry should be seen as an indication that there is plenty of latent potential to perform open call crowdsourcing.

 

Crowdsourcing game development requires first breaking specific project needs into modular components and then finding somebody in the crowd to produce each component.


[Work in Progress]