Ownership
Submitted by John on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 12:09
This article originally appeared on The Next Generation blog at Simtropolis.com
This is the first of several posts which are slightly unrelated, but both to do with the concept above: ownership.
First of all, I want to expand a bit on the kind of framework necessary for a community-funded game project like I described in my first post. Assuming an amount of capital substantial enough to fund a game could be assembled, who owns it? Who manages it? How is it disbursed?
Obviously this is a critical issue for success. The framework that is set up needs to fulfill several conditions:
- It must be responsive to the community's desires for the project's direction.
- It must be legally responsible to its membership and its stated goals. In other words, it must be trustworthy enough for people to donate to without fear of fraud.
- It needs to have the executive capacity to hold funds and use them to carry out the project.
Clearly, for a project of this magnitude, it's not realistic for anyone to organize things on an individual basis. The problems with such an approach are obvious: The largest is that there is no accountability built in to the process. The individual assembling funds would have no legal obligation to either go through with actually completing the project, or listen to the community's voice in implementing it. Basically, only one of the conditions would be fulfilled. And even for that, it's probably beyond the capacity of one person to manage something on this scale.
Obviously, some kind of legal structure is needed. And of the choices available, it's clear that a non-profit organization is best suited to the goals I've outlined. Originally I envisioned something along the lines of a foundation: an entity that is given a specific purpose and a board of directors tasked with carrying that purpose out. 
But upon further reflection, and a look at the model that Drupal uses (thanks to Intoxination for pointing me to that) I think a better format might be an association (although I still think foundation sounds cooler). The difference here is that an association is more democratic in its organization: The members all have an ownership stake in the entity, and the Board of Directors is elected by the members. Furthermore, the members can exercise some degree of decision-making in the strategic decisions of the association, without having to entrust everything to the board members. Ultimately I think an association is the best choice; properly chartered, it would be able to meet all three of the criteria above. Ownership would remain in the hands of the community throughout the process.
I'll be posting further with details of how the charter for such an association could be structured. If you have any ideas in that regard please share them!
3 reponses to "Ownership"
1. Originally posted by
Originally posted by Simtropolis member pultava
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I should have read this before I commented the first post you made... but to the point. I dont know anything about the associations in xx (Canada/USA I assume) but as I have been active in Finnish associations I think the basic things we need are:
*a generic white paper of the project objectives and features (yes, a 3D, moddable, OS CB game)
*a board of directors elected by the members or shareholders
*at least one physical or virtual meeting a year to set the guidelines for next year and to elect a board of directors
*an accountant to get the finances right every year
*a swift start without endless dicsussions of different wants and not-wants -features
*a professional team to do the basic engine to our CB game - after that our skillful and devoted modders&contributers in CB communities can take further development to our own hands
*a lawyer to make the contracts with the professional team / outsider company
*(register an association within Canada/USA/Finland etc.)
The start of this new enterprise have to be quick and it has to get some results visible in a short time because when me get enough momentum behind the project the future funding and contribution will not propably be a problem. We have enough ideas and concepts already but the real work has to be bought from somewhere.
Just my 2 cents.
2. Originally posted by
Originally posted by Simtropolis member D Putman
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If the Assoc. can also be set up as a Non-profit (not sure how), there may be ways to entice people to contribute if they can be considered tax-deductible. Since the project overall is an "art" project that'd be given to the people, that may be possible
3. Originally posted by
Originally posted by Simtropolis member ScaryMonkey (aka John)
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Setting up a non-profit is the easy part... you can set up any company as a non-profit. The tricky bit is getting tax-exempt status, since you usually have to be a charity or be doing some perceived public good for that (and while *I* think gaming is a public benefit I doubt the IRS is likely to agree with me :) ) Actually, I think a better bet than the "arts" category might be trying to get the project classified as education/research, since it can be a tool for academic studies. This would be especially true if we can get some academic grant funding alongside our member contributions.
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