Ever had an idea for a new game, but no way to make that idea a reality? Thread

Hello!

Have you ever played a game and thought “If I was in charge of this game, I would have made this level different, or maybe changed this boss fight?” If you answered yes, then you could be part of the next generation of game designers.

We’re a team of game developers that call ourselves Teemplay, and we have this crazy idea: gamers working together can come up with the best new game ideas.

So what? Gamers throw around new game ideas all the time, what’s the big deal? 99.9% of these ideas are thought up, discussed, and then forgotten about. We want to harness the power of those ideas to make the kind of games that we know people want to play. What we’ve done is create a way for those game ideas to actually become a reality. We’re in the process of launching our web platform where people like you can submit a new game idea or influence other ideas.

We’re doing a proof of concept with our first game, Unwind, which was chosen out of 314 game submissions in a contest we held two weeks ago. Currently, we have the first round of official voting going on for Unwinds storyline over at www.teemplay.com/story. If you’re interested in voting, learning more, or submitting your own game idea, head over to our website and see what you can get into!

Looking forward to seeing your game ideas come to life in the future!

EDIT: I've attached some frequently asked questions below.

Teemplay Game Platform FAQ:

What’s the point of all this? Well, at Teemplay, we have a few philosophies we hold dear:
1. Gamers have the best ideas for new games, because they dedicate a large chunk of their lives to learning new games and beating them. Period.
2. We think ideas get better the more refined they become, which is why we let our own game ideas go (we wanted to build an MMORPG). By having thousands of gamers help make ideas better, we know something better than the sum of its parts can be created.
3. We feel that there is too large of a disconnect between developers and gamers: We want our community to play our games, so instead of developing something and hoping they like it, we want to bring the community in before development even starts.
4. People should have an incentive to use our platform, so for every game we release, we will share a portion of the revenue the game makes...with the people who helped create it! From idea submitter to concept artist, even those that stuck around every day to upvote it, will get a portion of the revenue the game generates.

Why contact IndieDB?
The most important part of our equation is you! We’re building a website that crowdsources new game ideas, so we need a strong community to help get their ideas realized. We’re hoping that the IndieDB community could get behind this idea, as passionate about gaming as the community seems. We think your ideas could be the next step in our game development process.

TL;DR We give gamers like you the power to influence the games they play. We are a month away from launching our crowdsourcing game design platform. You submit a new game idea, the community influences it, and we turn it into a real game, and share some of the money it makes with the people that influence it. We’re about a month away from launch, but we have a test case running at www.teemplay.com/story, and our forums are up as well!

Please ask any questions you may have, and I will answer as quickly as possible.

Edited by: Excallibretto

Too many cooks spoil the soup... or something like that. What are you doing to prevent this from to becoming one giant discombobulated mass?

Wow, an entire organisation of idea guys.

99.9% of these ideas are thought up, discussed, and then forgotten about

99,9% of the ideas are "WoW but better", "remake game X on engine Y", "DragonBall Z game" or "let's mash all the genres and gameplays into one game". Most ideas are worth not even published anywhere and still there they are.

We feel that there is too large of a disconnect between developers and gamers

You really think there's a person involved in game development that isn't a gamer himself? Nope. Everyone there is an experienced gamer with game asset creation / art skills that you will need. There are no free riders in game development.

we turn it into a real game

I think you don't have a clue on game development. It takes time and effort and because of that most of the time it takes money. Where did you cover funding the projects? You are either going to need charity funders which will want to donate their money to an unrefined idea with poor prognosis or professional developers that are both able to complete *any idea* into a game and willing to work for free on it. I can tell you with my experience that is not going to fly.

share some of the money it makes with the people that influence it

You mean the idea guys that did nothing for the game or the developers that actually put the game together?

There are plenty of game ideas and only the best survive through to make an actual game, that is for a reason. Get this: nobody likes idea guys. You need to be able to do something for the project otherwise you're just dead weight throwing uneducated ideas around. A team of skilled game developers is able to come up with and refine the ideas BETTER without one or god forbid an entire community of idea guys that A) don't understand anything about game development process and what is viable B) will not sacrifice practically any time on it and C) will not commit to the idea.

I hope you reconsider your approach although crowdfunding does seem to get all kinds of attempts. You have not done your base research for the project.

For game idea refinement and community support in developing an idea there are actually good places already such as Gamesprout.com.

^this

I'm sure it will be a massive hit with idea guys, but how are you going to get actual devs to work on the project?

In addition, there are some things that most gamers simply don't know about, like which engine is best for the job. If you asked them, most would just spout off something with good graphics like Frostbite, without knowing how easy it is to develop on. How would those areas be managed?

Yeah.....I think Shadowflar3 pretty much covered it.

Hello and thanks for the quick response!

To answer Shadowflar3:

First off, I made the mistake of not making myself clear. We aren't just idea guys. We aren't just the guys responsible for the web platform. We are a team of dedicated game developers, ranging from college grads to veterans in the industry, with decades of gaming experience behind us. Our web platform is being built specifically so that we can find the best game ideas, and get our professional team to assure they come out quality.

"99,9% of the ideas are "WoW but better", "remake game X on engine Y", "DragonBall Z game" or "let's mash all the genres and gameplays into one game". Most ideas are worth not even published anywhere and still there they are."

You're absolutely right. Our platform isn't for making the games that are part of that 99%. Our platform is for finding the ideas that really stick out, that are revolutionary, and having the community refine and polish those ideas. From that point, we take our our entire team and sit down every Thursday, and put all of the ideas through our gauntlet process (we see how feasible the ideas are, what our budget is, what the timeframe for each game is, etc) and see if the game is actually a good fit for us.

With a web platform, it's no surprise that sometimes the community will choose ideas that are just not possible from a game dev standpoint, and sometimes, we need to be the ones that say "Listen guys, we know that you want Skyrim 2 with space combat, but we just can't do that."

You really think there's a person involved in game development that isn't a gamer himself? Nope. Everyone there is an experienced gamer with game asset creation / art skills that you will need. There are no free riders in game development.

You're right in saying that game developers are all gamers, but that certainly isn't the case the other way around. When I said there is a disconnect, I suppose it wasn't clear enough that I didn't mean "Game developers aren't gamers themselves!" I was simply referring to the fact that the gap between game developers, and the gamers that are playing their games, is very large.

We believe that there should be a higher level of transparency between Producers and Consumers: Developers and Gamers. Isn't that the entire goal of the indie gaming community? I sure thought so!

I think you don't have a clue on game development. It takes time and effort and because of that most of the time it takes money. Where did you cover funding the projects? You are either going to need charity funders which will want to donate their money to an unrefined idea with poor prognosis or professional developers that are both able to complete *any idea* into a game and willing to work for free on it. I can tell you with my experience that is not going to fly.

We are actively pursuing seed funding, and we're received nothing but positive feedback from our investor network up to this point, so how are we covering funding? Angel investment for seed funding, and move towards venture capital if we achieve success. We've built this company from the ground up in the past two years, with our original business plan outlining the events that have led up to right now.

You mean the idea guys that did nothing for the game or the developers that actually put the game together?There are plenty of game ideas and only the best survive through to make an actual game, that is for a reason.
Get this: nobody likes idea guys. You need to be able to do something for the project otherwise you're just dead weight throwing uneducated ideas around. A team of skilled game developers is able to come up with and refine the ideas BETTER without one or god forbid an entire community of idea guys that A) don't understand anything about game development process and what is viable B) will not sacrifice practically any time on it and C) will not commit to the idea. I hope you reconsider your approach although crowdfunding does seem to get all kinds of attempts. You have not done your base research for the project.For game idea refinement and community support in developing an idea there are actually good places already such as Gamesprout.com.

I think that there a lot of idea guys that are out there, and about none of them are doing anything worthwhile. We aren't those guys. We are a team of experienced game developers that BUILD the games the COMMUNITY votes on. We take ideas that are refined by our community and give them a quality assurance test, and physically make the games a reality.

Thanks again for the long response, looking forward to speaking with you again!

Excallibretto wrote:
You're absolutely right. Our platform isn't for making the games that are part of that 99%. Our platform is for finding the ideas that really stick out, that are revolutionary, and having the community refine and polish those ideas. From that point, we take our our entire team and sit down every Thursday, and put all of the ideas through our gauntlet process (we see how feasible the ideas are, what our budget is, what the timeframe for each game is, etc) and see if the game is actually a good fit for us.
With a web platform, it's no surprise that sometimes the community will choose ideas that are just not possible from a game dev standpoint, and sometimes, we need to be the ones that say "Listen guys, we know that you want Skyrim 2 with space combat, but we just can't do that."

It's like trying to poll a world full of people which toppings to put on a giant pizza and think everyone will enjoy the result because everyone got to vote and have their say. There will be everything from garlic to orange to living chicken to cobblestone and an asteroid on your table and you're going to need to figure out how to make it into an edible pizza. If you'll pull it off, it's still by no means thanks to the community that gave you the ingredients but despite of it.

You're right in saying that game developers are all gamers, but that certainly isn't the case the other way around. When I said there is a disconnect, I suppose it wasn't clear enough that I didn't mean "Game developers aren't gamers themselves!" I was simply referring to the fact that the gap between game developers, and the gamers that are playing their games, is very large.

The gap is large, in which respect? Gamers that know how to make games don't specifically need to communicate with gamers that don't know how to make games. It is painful and unfruitful. Gamers that know how to make games should communicate with each other to improve on their game quality.

We believe that there should be a higher level of transparency between Producers and Consumers: Developers and Gamers.

As I said before, gamers who know how to make games (aka developers) have nothing to learn from gamers that don't know how to make games. Gamers on the other hand have everything to learn from the developers. So what does the "transparency" mean here? Developers explaining why you can't have that Skyrim 2 with space combat. Over and over again. To everyone who doesn't have the insight to game development aka the people you specifically want to interact with.

Isn't that the entire goal of the indie gaming community? I sure thought so!

No. But that seems to be a common misconception. Indie community's main point is to support people who want to make games, not people who have neither skills or will to learn how to make games themselves (aka idea guys).

We are actively pursuing seed funding, and we're received nothing but positive feedback from our investor network up to this point, so how are we covering funding? Angel investment for seed funding, and move towards venture capital if we achieve success. We've built this company from the ground up in the past two years, with our original business plan outlining the events that have led up to right now.

I'm sure you sold the idea with the tagline "profit" and it really isn't about some beautiful thing about bridging a gap you try to sell this thing as to the community.

I think that there a lot of idea guys that are out there, and about none of them are doing anything worthwhile. We aren't those guys. We are a team of experienced game developers that BUILD the games the COMMUNITY votes on. We take ideas that are refined by our community and give them a quality assurance test, and physically make the games a reality.

Except you just said you need to turn down some parts that are unfeasible. That is natural but it means you won't be simply making what the community wants. You want something that fits your budget and within that you try to do the best you can and instead of planning yourself you put so much effort into building a channel to receive any ideas from anyone in any phase. For your benefit.

I know what the site I linked you myself is about, thank you. And I know what you are about in contrast. The difference is GameSprout is the beautiful, open, share-your-ideas-and-see-what-comes-out-of-it thing and you are "everybody throw us anything for free and we'll catch the part we think we can use for our own and our funder's profit". While the latter sells better to investors I suspect it sells much worse to the community.

Thanks again for the long response, looking forward to speaking with you again!

No problem. Same time tomorrow?

Edited by: shadowflar3

Someone wrote: Isn't that the entire goal of the indie gaming community? I sure thought so!

Not really, TBH. Mostly, we want to make our games, but don't have a AAA budget.