I saw a blip on the GS front page this morning for an action/adventure/FPS game called Interstellar Marines. Starship Troopers and Halo and Gears, oh my, popped into my head. Because we've never seen a space marine epic before, right? But I am a total junkie, so I watched the video. Turns out the game may be less remarkable than the story behind it.
We all hear a lot of debate about mega-publishers vs. indie devs and how big business screws up creativity. One little Danish developer has decided to take on the world and go completely community-based, grassroots development and distribution. They're called Zero Point Software, and they're building the game on their own (they may have some capital funding; I don't know) with community donations.
The four guys behind it started off working in somebody's basement and have grown the team in the past few years. They issue lots of making-of-type videos and articles to keep the community involved and informed, including we the gamers in their development process. It's a very nice ongoing window into the game (unlike the big outfits that show up at E3 and GDC etc. and release snippets periodically to keep hype going). Now this is a reality show I can get behind! Plus, it's always nice to see a dev from a country other than the US, Japan, or England getting some love and providing a fresher aesthetic.
The game looks cool, if a bit derivative (some serious Star Wars influence going on there), but the premise/backstory is sound, and they promise unpredictable twists, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, I just want to see if they can do it. So I decided to donate, fully realizing that they may never even finish the game, let alone the planned trilogy. I'm sure there are lots of folks trying to do this elsewhere, and I'd love to hear about it. This just seems like a fairly unique instance in the community and business model aspects of game development, and I am intrigued to see how it turns out.