Bay 12 Games Forum

Hello: I enjoy playing the game & reading the boards, have paid to support development and will do so in the future, thanks to all involved.

Like many other players, I would be interested in getting DF updates faster.  I read about how Bay12 turned down a big licensing deal to maintain control, that is the right move.  However, I wonder if there is another solution that would be win-win for everyone involved: Bay12 makes some more money and retains control, players get more dwarf fortress faster - crowdfunding.

Here are two ways that it might work:

General / Dev Based

• A crowdfunding page is setup (kickstarter / indiegogo / etc.) with set of specific goals.  The goals will be some multiple of the yearly salary for a competent developer in Bay12's neighborhood, plus some extra for overhead (taxes, insurance, etc), and a little extra on top of that for some bay12 profit.  Just to make up a number, lets call the goals multiples of $100,000.  This number could be accurate or way off, no knowledge of the economics is assumed.
• Fans / Players / etc can donate to the crowdfunding goals.  No money is taken until the goal is reached.  However, when it does, Bay12 gets all the cash at once, and could then hire a developer with a one year contract to speed things up.
• With another dev working full-time on the project, things would probably move a lot quicker, and everyone wins!
• The improvement here is two fold.  With an "I'll chip in if everyone else does too" system like this, more people might be willing to pay more, because it will seem more official, and everyone will feel like they're on equal footing.  Also, even if the level of funding were a little bit higher now, it is uncertain month-to-month.  If it came in big globs, then more planning-for-the-future could be done (e.g. the sort of planning necessary to hire an additional developer).
• Maybe even, the first "goal" (which could sort of repeat every year) would be to pay existing salaries (e.g. the creators).

Project / Feature Based

• Like the General program described above, but each crowdfunding "goal" would be a feature.
• Thus, people would pay to support specific features, where the features are pre-vetted and approved by Bay12.  With this pre-approval, things Bay12 doesn't want (e.g. 3d graphics) would never make it to the feature page.
• However, features that Bay12 DOES want in the game, people can pay to support them and also get them to come out faster.  For example, modders might pay for specific modding interfaces (e.g. a Python API to the main window display).  Or, people who love Adventure Mode might pay for additional features in that section.
• Each feature would come with a price tag and a delivery date, e.g. 2/3/4/5 months from reaching the funding goal.
• No guarantees, but good estimates all 'round.
• These projects/features could then be either developed in-house by Bay12, or subcontracted to a select, pre-vetted, known & trusted group of contract developers.  This would provide the same sort of speed-up benefit as the general / dev based system, but with less overhead.