Funding
These articles describe ideas for funding the game's development.
Incorporation and Taxes
Submitted by John on Mon, 11/29/2010 - 15:31
As we move towards formally incorporating the project, I've been looking into a couple issues surrounding taxes and non-profit status. While I'm still convinced that a non-profit organization is the best setup for the project, there are a couple hurdles to clear if we want to reap the full benefit of that status.
Market Saturation and the Funding Countdown Timer
Submitted by John on Tue, 09/21/2010 - 13:03
In a previous article on setting tiered funding goals, I briefly brought up an issue which I'd like to expand on in today's article: market saturation. Market saturation is the reflection of a basic reality for any fundraising enterprise: the pool of potential funding is not bottomless. Of the six billion people people on earth who migh potentially donate money to this project, we are realistically dealing with several much smaller subsets: first, those with computers powerful enough to run games; second, people who like city sims; third, people with fifty dollars or more to spend on entertainment; and fourth, people who are convinced that this project's goals are feasible and are willing to risk money on that assumption. Of those four, only the last one is able to be increased by our efforts: at some point, even if we could convince every potential donor to pledge their support, we will run up against the limits of the group defined by these other subsets. How big is that group? There's no way to know.
Rethinking the Linear Funding Model
Submitted by John on Sun, 02/14/2010 - 18:33
When first conceived, community funding for Metropolis was a fairly straightforward idea: collect money, hire a team, and make the game, with each step completed before the next begins. As the project has taken shape, some problems with this concept have emerged, prompting me to rethink the paradigm a bit. I want to explain what those problems are, examine some alternatives and their relative advantages/disadvantages, and consider how to they could be implemented in the current structure.
Outside Funding
Submitted by John on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 12:58
This article originally appeared on The Next Generation blog at Simtropolis.com
Funding, as I said before, is probably the single largest hurdle to getting a project like this one off the ground. While I think community investment of the type I've described previously will have to be the cornerstone of any funding efforts, there are a number of other possibilities for soliciting contributions. And, as any project manager will tell you, there is no such thing as too much budget!
