Topic: Why hasn't any company crowd-sourced a game or at least part of it?

[Stogi]

What I'm talking about is this:

Hey fans! We are making a new game and want you to help us design the ________


Or


Hey fans! We are having trouble with ________. Think you can do better?


What made me think of this is:

I'm not a fan of metal (most of the time), but I couldn't help imagine how crazy it would be to play against those two witches with that remix playing in the background. It would be intense!

So if say, Nintendo, came out with some songs for the next Zelda and was like..."Hey fans! We want you to try your hand at remixing this song for a huge battle and make it as epic as possible!" We could listen to that caliber of work or better in the actual game.


Same could go for character designs or art style or ancient language or animals/npc's/names/places etc. etc.


The eventual game could be awesome.

[broodwars]

Actually, Capcom tried just that with Mega Man Legends 3 for the 3DS.  See how well that worked out.

[Stogi]

What exactly happened there? Tried googling it but nothing really tells the story from start to finish.

[broodwars]

What exactly happened there? Tried googling it but nothing really tells the story from start to finish.

From what I gathered from casually following the process, Capcom had set up certain areas for fans to vote on various character designs and whatnot, helping them shape the game that they would want to play.  But it gets conspiratorial from there, as Capcom alleged that they did not see enough fan participation in these processes to warrant continuing the project, so it was canceled.  It's general speculation that with Inafuda gone (who was the main cheerleader for the game at Capcom), Capcom didn't see a reason to keep the game around, so it was canceled.  The official line from Capcom, though, was that the crowd-sourcing process "didn't work".

Whether that's the truth or not is murky at best.  Personally, I'm inclined to believe the speculation that Capcom gutted the project because Inafuda left, and then they used the fans as a scapegoat.

[Stogi]

Not to sound like a dick, but how does that prove that crowd-sourcing doesn't work?

You, yourself, said that the likely reason the game was cancelled was because of inner workings and not the fans.

[broodwars]

Not to sound like a dick, but how does that prove that crowd-sourcing doesn't work?

You, yourself, said that the likely reason the game was cancelled was because of inner workings and not the fans.

Like I said, the "official line" was that the crowd-sourcing wasn't attracting enough interest to generate enough potential customers to warrant the game's existence.  While I believe that's not the case because I'm a conspiratorial-minded person, it could very well be true.  Only the die-est of the die-hards cared about Mega Man Legends 3, and only the die-hardiest of them were probably involved in the crowd-sourcing material.  You have to wonder just how many people were actually involved in these things.

You asked why other companies hadn't tried this, and I merely told you that one company did and the experiment didn't work out.

[NWR_insanolord]

There's a saying in sports when it comes to front office and coaching decisions: listen to the fans and you'll end up sitting with the fans. The idea being that if you let the fans dictate what moves you make you're doomed to failure, and in the process you'll lose the job. In these cases, fans don't always know what they want, and if you give them what they ask for you run the risk of them not liking it once they get it.

Conversely, taking Nintendo as an example, some of their greatest successes in recent memory have been had by stubbornly refusing to do what the fans wanted. Remember how many people complained and complained when Nintendo showed off their new first person Metroid game? Remember how much hate the cel-shaded graphical style of Wind Waker got? The best thing you can do in this industry is to give people something they didn't know they wanted, and that is, by definition, impossible to achieve through crowdsourcing.

[Ian Sane]

Fans don't know what they're talking about.  Except me of course.

I have noticed that most of the time when people list what they want in a new sequel their suggestions are usually either:

A. Everything imaginable that was already in previous games.  Listen to these fans and you get a nostalgic glorified remake.
B. Incredibly impractical and impossible ideas that current technology couldn't even do.
C. Something incredibly specific to the individual fan's tastes such that making the game the way he wants would result in something only he or a very small niche sub-culture of the fanbase would like (ie: let a tournament player design SSB and you'll get one flat stage and no items).

Being able to please fans is a real skill.  You really have to read through all the **** and figure out what they REALLY want.  Usually it isn't the same exact thing or a complete overhaul but something in between with a good balance of new and old.  And in a series it takes some real talent to recognize when a new idea is NOT popular and to know what to continue with in later games.  How often do we see some incredibly annoying gameplay mechanic or character remain in a series forever and forever despite no one admitting to liking it?

Nintendo did a good job of this when going from Mario Sunshine to Mario Galaxy but has sucked at it with Zelda since Wind Waker.

[BranDonk Kong]

It is actually bad business to listen to your fans, or at least to pander to them.

Fans: We want a game where exactly this happens

Company: Ok, here it is, exactly like you asked

Fans: Wow, this sucks

[Stogi]

That's not what I'm saying at all though. I'm not asking a company to be my bitch and do whatever I'd like. I'm asking them to allow us into the development process, even in a small, minute way.

I think it's a great way to build up hype and interest for your next project if you have contests where the fan's work could actually be in the completed game. A song, a character design, maybe even a story element. You can always ignore it and do whatever the hell you want, but just giving the fans the ability to participate doesn't sound lethal at all; in fact, it sounds like fun for both sides.

[broodwars]

It is actually bad business to listen to your fans, or at least to pander to them.

Fans: We want a game where exactly this happens

Company: Ok, here it is, exactly like you asked

Fans: Wow, this sucks

For a modern example of this, see Silent Hill: Downpour.  The game is pretty much exactly what people claim to have wanted over the past several SH games: a return to the gameplay & ideals of the original SH games.  That's what they got, and now the fanbase is complaining.  It's especially hilarious since everything they complain about were major issues in fan-favorite SH2 as well.

That fanbase in particular is hilarious in retrospect.  The main complaint about SHs 1-4 was that the combat sucked, so the combat was severely upgraded for SH Homecoming.  The fans complained that the improved combat made them feel "too powerful", so combat was stripped out entirely for SH Shattered Memories.  The fans complained that no combat at all was frustrating and dull, so combat was reinstated and made intentionally clunky for SH Downpour.  And, naturally, people are now complaining about the combat again.  I honestly don't know why Konami even tries to placate that fanbase anymore.  They just can't be pleased.

[nickmitch]

That's not what I'm saying at all though. I'm not asking a company to be my bitch and do whatever I'd like. I'm asking them to allow us into the development process, even in a small, minute way.

I think it's a great way to build up hype and interest for your next project if you have contests where the fan's work could actually be in the completed game. A song, a character design, maybe even a story element. You can always ignore it and do whatever the hell you want, but just giving the fans the ability to participate doesn't sound lethal at all; in fact, it sounds like fun for both sides.

With songs, I think there'd be a bit of an overload. Someone has to listen to all those and pick the cream of the crop for people to vote on. Plus, they'd almost have to all be remixes unless the level/boss battle was given away before hand. With character design, I don't think that many people care (see MML3). And story? Most gamers don't deserve a good story considering the backlash that the ending of Mass Effect 3 got. The story would end up sounding like one of Tosh.0's "Twitten By" skits.

[Ian Sane]

It is actually bad business to listen to your fans, or at least to pander to them.

Fans: We want a game where exactly this happens

Company: Ok, here it is, exactly like you asked

Fans: Wow, this sucks

For a modern example of this, see Silent Hill: Downpour.  The game is pretty much exactly what people claim to have wanted over the past several SH games: a return to the gameplay & ideals of the original SH games.  That's what they got, and now the fanbase is complaining.  It's especially hilarious since everything they complain about were major issues in fan-favorite SH2 as well.

That fanbase in particular is hilarious in retrospect.  The main complaint about SHs 1-4 was that the combat sucked, so the combat was severely upgraded for SH Homecoming.  The fans complained that the improved combat made them feel "too powerful", so combat was stripped out entirely for SH Shattered Memories.  The fans complained that no combat at all was frustrating and dull, so combat was reinstated and made intentionally clunky for SH Downpour.  And, naturally, people are now complaining about the combat again.  I honestly don't know why Konami even tries to placate that fanbase anymore.  They just can't be pleased.

See I would use that as a good example of a company sucking at interpreting what the fanbase REALLY wants.  Konami is just catering to their fans' every whim in an extreme way.  Konami is not figuring out what the fans REALLY want, just doing exactly what the loudest fans say.

The idea of "well you just can't please these fans" is a load of horseshit as well because you can't please everyone so someone is going to complain no matter what.  Again, the real skill is in determining if this is just a loud minority or if it reflects the fanbase as a whole.  What Konami should do is just make the Silent Hill they themselves want to make if they're unable to determine what the fans want.

[Stogi]

That's not what I'm saying at all though. I'm not asking a company to be my bitch and do whatever I'd like. I'm asking them to allow us into the development process, even in a small, minute way.

I think it's a great way to build up hype and interest for your next project if you have contests where the fan's work could actually be in the completed game. A song, a character design, maybe even a story element. You can always ignore it and do whatever the hell you want, but just giving the fans the ability to participate doesn't sound lethal at all; in fact, it sounds like fun for both sides.

With songs, I think there'd be a bit of an overload. Someone has to listen to all those and pick the cream of the crop for people to vote on. Plus, they'd almost have to all be remixes unless the level/boss battle was given away before hand. With character design, I don't think that many people care (see MML3). And story? Most gamers don't deserve a good story considering the backlash that the ending of Mass Effect 3 got. The story would end up sounding like one of Tosh.0's "Twitten By" skits.

It's very simple.

Ask the fans to submit 'blank'; let fans vote on the best 'blank'; then review the best 'blank'. If you don't like it, so be it. If you do like it, then use it. Give a copy of the finished game or some swag out just to show your fans you appreciate the hard work. That would be enough to spur the cycle once again, and voila, you have a never-ending gold mine of potentially awesome 'blank'.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I think there's a big difference between effective crowd sourcing and polls & surveys. I've always been a big fan of using crowd sourcing as cheap labor -- behold every internet site ever, driven by user-created content.

There are games that use this effectively. Not for a whole game design or anything (well, maybe -- CounterStrike?) but community-generated content has been finding itself into paid products. SSF2T HDR on xbla/psn has a soundtrack from the oc remix guys, and if you're pretty good at designing hats/weapons/maps, your stuff can get into TF2 and you'll also get a kickback from Valve when people pay for it.

So it's a thing that works. Pretty sure MML3 had its own problems that weren't crowdsourcing.