From Brian Fargo: inXile asset crowdsourcing experiment a “resounding success”

Here’s what Brian Fargo has to say about about the joint asset crowdsourcing project between his studio, inXile, and the Asset Store for his upcoming game, Wasteland 2.

"The experiment has been, unquestionably, a resounding success in my eyes. What stronger connection could we have hoped to make with the community of fans, backers, and game artists than to get them involved in the actual production of Wasteland2. And much to our pleasant surprise, the level of quality and game-readiness of the submissions has by far exceeded our expectations.”

"Although it was a bit slow getting the experiment off the ground, now that we are heading into round 4 of requests, the turnaround time has narrowed to about a week for processing and a week for final submission, on top of the window for production. That brings us to about a month total for any given batch of requests. And because our batches are limited in the number of asset requests, we get an awful lot of variety in the submissions, affording us an opportunity to generate real diversity in our environments we would otherwise not have. We just broke the 100 submission mark, and if this model is sustainable over the long term, we expect to run into the several hundreds by the time we publish the title."

"With our review and resubmission process, in conjunction with our forums where participants go regularly for tips, advice, and feedback on their WIPs, we hope that this has been a little bit of an educational experience as well, for starting game artists or those looking to find a different approach to a pipeline. By the nature of trying to work within confines of our requirements, and seeing what other artists are producing, it seems a good environment for beginners to learn some of the ins and outs of a production pipeline. Unexpectedly, too, we have had a few game course instructors involved, who then in turn talk about the process with their students, which has also been great to help introduce the franchise to a new generation of gamers and content creators. We are currently also working toward setting up a few batches of assets for classroom experiments, where instructors and students will have the opportunity to work on our requests, without the confines of a deadline, and then have the opportunity to contribute to the production of a published title."

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