The Problem

In general, it seems like many video game work environments are not good. People are spending a lot of money on games, yet still huge, successful, studios can suddenly and unexpectedly shut down. Developers trying to independently produce their games are finding it extremely difficult to achieve economic success. For an art form that is worth billions of dollars, it’s a complete shame for it to be restricted to such specific socioeconomic groups and circumstances. Because of this, I think it’s worth exploring new models for what this situation can look like.

Background

First, I’d just like to set up a few reasons why I think this issue is important.

Some video games cost a lot of money. Grand Theft Auto 5 cost around $265,000,000 to make. Skyrim cost around $100,000,000. These are huge costs that need to be remade in sales, and that burden will inevitably affect the development process. Large amounts of financial pressure can easily lead to unrealistic deadlines, crunch time, and a complete lack of creative risk.

Some video games make a lot of money. Grand Theft Auto 5 made over 6,000,000,000 in revenue, which according to gaming analyst Doug Creutz is more than any entertainment release by any form of media. I’m not trying to argue that this is a good or bad thing, but it does imply a responsibility to the larger economy to make sure that this power is used in a positive way.

Most video games don’t make any money. According to this article on PC Gamer, there are around 10,000 developers on Steam, yet approximately 8,200 of those developers have never made any money from their games. I understand that many of these games might not have been advertised, or simply not been very well liked, but my point is that a very small fraction of game developers are able to sustain themselves well enough to fully dedicate themselves toward their craft.

There are culture-changing benefits to be found in restructuring the way video games are produced to provide financial support for small, independent game developers who would normally be unable to dedicate themselves to game development. Diversity in video games is not good, and if we want to see video games that affect the world in a substantially positive way, more people need to be brought in.

A Solution

I am proposing a publicly funded and organized network of game developers that receive a universal basic income. People donate money to the network and that money is distributed evenly across the whole network as a set allowance. If there is a surplus of donations, more game developers are democratically brought into the network. All games and assets are free and open source.

The goal is not for good games to make as much money as possible; the goal is for as many active game developers to be as financially secure as possible. Artistic stability for the larger community is more valuable than personal profit.

Here are a few guiding principles I have in mind:

All organization is non-hierarchal. Creators should have as much artistic freedom as possible. Access to video games should be as free and open as possible. Financial security is essential, but profit is unimportant. (it is better for 100 game developers to be able to support themselves than for 10 game developers to become rich.)

The benefits.

There are basically two groups that I want to benefit from this system: content creators and gamers.

Content creators can include programmers, artists, sound designers, game designers, etc. Really, anybody who the community deems necessary. There are a few benefits creators can get from this system:

Financial stability. Creators are given enough money to be able to sustain themselves while working on games. Complete creative control. Not only is there no company hierarchy involved, there are no direct monetary incentives involved with the games. That means games have far less of an obligation to widespread popularity. Everyone makes the same amount of money regardless of the success of each individual game. Pay is dependent on the network as a whole: as long as the creator is accepted as a member of the community and the community is healthy, they will be paid. Access to a collaborative open source community. Source code and assets for each game are open and available to be used by other developers. This means developers can borrow code or assets from each other to make games they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

For the other group, gamers, the benefits are a little bit less direct, but still real:

More free video games. Creators are making video games that are openly released to the public. This is a pretty obvious benefit to everybody. Access to video game source code and assets. Fan games and mods are accepted and encouraged. Games that are made by people with full creative control. Game design will not be motivated by what makes money.

I think the main benefit of this for gamers is that we are supporting a community of creators making games without monetary incentives. They won’t be rehashing other successful games. They won’t be making conservative design decisions. These benefits, while not exactly transactional, are extremely interesting.

What needs to change?

In order for this to work, there are a few things that people are going to have to accept. Creators will need to let go of ownership over their output, and the hope that that their work will successively bring them greater and greater wealth. Once you’ve made it, you’ve made it - financially speaking. From here, you pour yourself into the inherent value of your profession. The public is paying you to dedicate yourself to games, and to share what you find without reservation. Creators need to be making games for the public, and the public value of their works are tenfold if their output is completely open.

For gamers, there needs to be a fundamental change the way we support video games. You have to be willing to give money to the ecosystem as a whole, rather than giving to individual creators for specific works. While I don’t think this means gamers will be getting anything less for their money, it does complicate things from a psychological standpoint. Gamers need to stop viewing their money as something they give in exchange for a product, and rather see it as a way for them to support an institution that provides them with significant life value.

This leads to a moral problem that comes along with most institutional support: we have to accept that some of the money we give will be going toward people we don’t like. This can definitely lead to serious problems, but I think these are all problems that can be reasonably dealt with by a thorough and democratic process for the selection of creators.

So how does this all work?

While I feel that the overall goals and values of this plan are reasonable, there are a lot of details to this that need to be discussed as a community. There are different ways we can implement the network, and I don’t think there is any single most efficient answer. We need to find a way to implement this that is agreeable for the specific people in the gaming community. Because of this, I am hesitant to define certain mechanisms of how I imagine this network working without rigorous discussion. With that said, I have a few ideas to throw out publicly as a starting point.

Building a non-hierarchal network with secure voting and a trusted way to distribute the money is - as far as I am aware - going to require blockchain technology. If people are going to trust this network, it needs to be completely secure and communally run. If this network were run by any type of centralized power, I think it’s likely that things would fall apart pretty fast.

Another important issue is figuring out the politics of how creators are selected. Are creators selected by a popular vote? Is voting open to the public, or only donating members of the community? How do all of these decisions affect the diversity and quality of creators? I think these are questions that need to be discussed and answered communally.

Now what?

At this point, I’m trying to start a conversation around the following question: how can we set up a system of wealth distribution that helps independent video game creators focus completely on the artistic value of their output?

If enough people are willing to put serious effort and support into this question, we can create an ecosystem of video games that is considerably more free and open than anything that exists currently. As a society, it is paramount that we consider how we can best fund the arts. Video games are a perfect medium for this type of experimentation. We have options for how this can work.

Thanks for reading. Any feedback is immensely appreciated.