Valve: Gamers should fund development
Community could finance games to get what they really want, says Newell
Gabe Newell has suggested games could be developed using money invested by a community.
"One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community," he told ABC.
At present, Newell explained, games require an investment of between USD 10 million and USD 30 million before development can even begin. "There's a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative," he said.
"What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, 'Hey, I really like this idea you have. I'll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I'll also get a copy of that game.'"
Earlier in the year, Newell expressed his view that developers and publishers should view their products as services and interact more with their users in order to win new customers.