Consider Adverture games, and Double Fine Entertainment, for a few minutes, and let it all come together~

Tim Schaffer, like Todd, is the man. He created many awesome adventure games such as Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Monkey Islands, etc... but this isn't a biography about him~ Timmie's plan is to toss out an offer to the public since publishes toss aside the idea of an adventure game as trivially as we toss candy wrappers, because it's just not a great way for publishes to get rich.. He asked for $400k, and got 3 million in support by people like us, who want this content, and get crushed by corporations.


If Bethesda went the Kickstarter route, instead of upping the cost of publishing their own goods with little likelyhood of return, they could put a team together, and based on kickerstarter backers, they could make X amount of expansion packs.. IE asking $40, 000 per expansion, and involving the community to create

Anywho, my post is a mess.. hope you guys can figure it out and offer up your opinions

since beth also publihes its own material, its a bit farfetched, but this method, with enough backers, could be something pretty awesome - a small team that mods and listens to the community~ a better method to get mods to the consoles since it would be pubished at no real cost/risk to bethesda

Wait, I don't understand. You want Beth to raise money to hire a small group of modders? Or what?

Number one, mods to consoles isn't a Bethesda thing, it's a Sony/Microsoft thing. People should be bugging them about it.

About Kickstart, yes it would be pretty far-fetched. It's not as if Bethesda is looking to get financing to avoid dealing with publishers or because publishers won't back their product, and that's the main plus point of Kickstart for game developers.

meh, it feels like you take the life out of my words

Basically~

but more geared to listening to the community, and capable of releasing to consoles

Isn't this kickstarter a program to donate money towards a game's deveploment since the developers themselves can't afford it? I don't think Bethesda has that problem

I think so And i dont know much about kickstarter but isnt it like you give people money to create a game for you? or something like that,Like you tell them stuff and they make it.

Sorry about that. The developers do come in a read topics, but how much of that gets translated into a game or dlc, I haven't a clue.

But back to releasing mods to consoles, that's not in the hands of Bethesda. If Sony or Microsoft could be convinced to be less anol about what goes in to their boxes, I'm sure a way could be found to make small to medium mods work on them.

This. You don't need to scrounge up funding when you've got the revenue of millions of sales to work with. Beth isn't struggling to find resources (just because people don't agree with how they're using those resources, doesn't mean they don't have them.)


....if you think about it, we've all already contributed towards Beth's next game. By buying Skyrim.

That's not SOP, but it does happen...donate X and we'll do this, donate X+Y and we'll do THIS.

WAIT - I need to translate this.

You're saying that Bethesda should partner with Kickstarter to find groups of modders who would be interested in building DLC/expansions to Skyrim - Kickstarter would organize the funding in a "crowdfunding" sense, Bethesda would grant the SW licenses and control final QA for quality and 'lore consistency', and the group of modders who did a particular expansion would share revenue with the other two.

Did I understand you correctly?

Jesus this kickstarter program has been everywhere lately. I cant get away from it!

a smaller more dedicated team could specifically target the most desired community-suggested elements, such as more dynamic quest choices, less linear dungeons, and more favourable features like spell crafting and spears.

It just seems more cost effective, and being part of bethesda, it would have more potential to be released on consoles as it would be a part of them, and have the Beth rubber stamp, not just from random individuals in the PC mod community, giving it better credibility with bug proofing etc..

and yeah, I know beth has the money and does its own publishing.. but publishers tend to control content a little too tightly~ I'd imagine a small team limited to doing DLC and expansion packs could have more flexibility

the more money they get, too, would generally mean more content like Yasgur said.. donate X and get this.. donate X and Y and get this, and that, and this~ or make a community poll in which directions theyshould move in the most (dynamic decisions, more lore, variety of creaturs, less linear dungeons since we have a ton already, and features, etc.. all these possible categories)

as it stands now though.. they are making EPIC expansions, in the likes of Shivering Isles~ don't get me wrong, that sounds awesome, but personally I feel a lot of things Can not, and Wil not be implemented as 'flexible' as a Kickstart DLC team could provide.. It could stand as more minor secondary method of monetary income for them, while not 'competing' with their current line of Epic Expansions by the full Beth team.


(summing up post... more community based features implemented, and distributed through consoles - as its from Bethesda and more likely Approved of Officially)



.. I know I'd pay/invest for Beth to make a community poll in which they hear our opinion on what directions DLC should take - I want less linear dungeons, dynamic quest decisions (multiple solutions), and better in game difficulty settings (eating/sleeping, less quality loot, resistances to iron/silver, etc..) Others may be more inclined to Lore and linear quests, like the major DLC that beth is doing regardless of community opinion


EDIT: and yeah... I ment a Beth team - just a smaller group, not the full developement team or full expansion team - just a group of their best making quality stuff

I would love that but, i dont see that happening D:

Edit: never mind

kickstarter is for devs who don't have the lubricious amount of money that bethesda does. *facepalm*

true but publishers don't invest in this sort of thing - kind of smaller scale and potentially more long-term than 'official' expansions (in this case I mean official as the full dev team making dawnguard, like they did with tribunal, shivering isles, etc~) ..

these types are more geared as heavy hitters to rake more cash of skyrim, but shorter term in that there will only be a handful of expansions before it's over and essentially 'abandoned' . .. whereas kickstarter would be a smaller team, more community influenced - most games get what, 5 expansions at most, and one at least - and it's not the great IMO .. though Ilie shivering isles - ..

it's kind of hard to communicate the differences.. I'd be like comparing Dawnguard (assuming thats the name for the next expansion) as Skyrim Itself, and kickstarter stuff as expansions for it :/ but that doesnt quite define it - so, I' at a loss for words here if no one understands

current beth team = heavy content ... beth kick team = expansions/dlc, etc, but more leaning to the communitys voice, and less epic since its got a smaller team? meh


anyway, was checking for opinions, and whatnot farfetch'd like I saidsince Beth IS a publisher too - but as I've been trying to explain the difference ... we'd be paying for more of what we, the players, want, and less of a heavy-content package of randomness, which is most likely linear quests, with a handful of new NPCs, and two to ten linear dungeons

edit: to continue my colour shinyness~ for example, we get that new set of linear quests, new linear dungeon, a few weapons, and some npcs, a good story .. great~ but what specifically would YOU want in the game? theres somehing inbetween the lines of those things that you want for sure - a specific story that relates to _____ (insert: falmer, argonians, history and more refined differences bewteen each city) .. or new features (spears, vamp tree (I know ....) and such)

sure they give some of the shinies that we've asked for, but they aren't really as much community geared - they got their hing, they will release it, and that's that it'll be Epic I'm sure and I am looking forward to DawnGuard - Skyrim is my first pre-ordered game ever, and I intend to get its expansions, but I also hope for things that I know will never get implemented unless there is some kind of kickstarter "official bethesda" team listening and making DLC and expansions with us directly in mind