Update 2022-10-07: This was a long-abandoned idea I had to crowd-source GTR2 mods but after feedback and thinking it over it doesn’t really feel compatible with the spirit of modding.
The GTR2 Mod Bounty Program is fan crowd-sourcing to improve our favourite game, GTR2.
The idea is to pledge money, any amount of your choice, towards one or more bounties, and then match bounties with interested modders who are willing to implement the requested features.
In return for successfully implementing the mod, modders will be rewarded with the bounty amount.
You can review the details including currently available bounties here:
If you have comments or suggestions for improvement, please reply, I’d love to hear what people think.
If you’re an interested fan or modder, please contact me!
Why a bounty program?
I’ve been thinking about crowd-sourcing sim improvements for some time. It’s not tied to GTR2, it could be applied to any sim being developed. It just so happens I’m starting the concept with GTR2 because I feel it’s a great platform that could still see much improvement.
There has long been a real-world problem with the way sims are developed: Their content is either completely open or completely closed. We all see what happens with the approach of iRacing, a wall-garden and expensive, RaceRoom, no modding, Reiza, completely open but having a hard go, and rFactor, open but moving to a more paid/closed approach.
Open sims are great for users, who get all the benefits of modders efforts, but developers can’t control their revenue streams when the content is out of their control.
Closed sims are great for developers, who can now control their content and charge for updates, but bad for users who can’t change anything about the sim and don’t get the benefits that modders bring to the table.
A bounty program attempts a win-win solution between these two approaches: Keep the content open, a win for users and modders, and provide a mechanism for developers to claim bounties for new or improved content, a win that allows them to control their revenue streams.
A further improvement, from a developer’s point of view, would be a bounty program that kept content encapsulated in DRM for a limited time, protecting their revenue stream, and at a later time would be opened up for end-users, which would give their userbase all the benefits of modder involvement.
I hope this bounty program takes off but I also hope it starts a discussion and gives developers some ideas about how they could approach sims differently, protecting their interests but also gaining amazingly devoted fans along the way.
(This has been cross-posted on racedepartment.com, nogripracing.com, and gtr2-endurance.forumotion.org)