Crowdsourcing: Beyond the Beta

Any independent video game developer who has ever released a public beta has taken part in some sort of crowdsourcing. When a beta is released, the point is not simply to give the community a taste of the game before it's released. You're seeking the input of the beta testers. An employee could just test the game, looking for bugs, of you could get the community involved. That is crowdsourcing.


crowdsourcing: The act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to a group of people or community in the form of an open call.

Because beta-testing is such a common practice, I'd like to bring to light a great example of an indie developer crowdsourcing. World of Goo developer 2D Boy used crowdsourcing to reach out to their community for the Linux version of World of Goo. With admitted inexperience at releasing a game on Linux, 2DBoy used their blog to ask the community for help.

They wanted to know how Linux users would like the game distributed, and what has worked in the past. Linux users were given the power to decide how they would be able to purchase the game. The community was able to feel involved in the process, and that their opinions were values, while the developer was able to overcoming their unfamiliarity with releasing a game on Linux.


Of course, crowdsourcing can be used in an even more integrated way. TheGameCartel.com is an interesting project that is using crowdsourcing as the means to the content of the game.

Based on the input of the community through their website or their Facebook page, the developers will create the games content. It is a completely community created game with the developers just constructing the crowdsourced content. It will be interesting how this project works out.

As you can see, crowdsourcing can not only be a great way to get your community involved with development, it can be a vast resource of information.