8-bit game on BD-R, for charity

[IDGabrielHM]

tl dr version: The Internet should make a 22.5 Gigabyte 8-bit game for free, sell it for cheap, and donate all profit to worldwide charities decided by the people who contributed.

long-read version with full explanation:

Gentlemen.

There is a wondrous thing out there known as the Blu-Ray Disc. The BDR is scaled to roughly 25Gb in size though it only typically withstands about 22 1/2 GB of use, give or take. The size is nothing all that special, not today when a PC typically runs from 500 to 1000Gb in HD storage size.....however only a scant few years ago 25Gb was large enough to copy the entirety of my own PC with room to spare. It is significant, and what can be done with that kind of size is significant.

I often, as I'm sure many gamers do, return to my Nintendo Entertainment System for a round or two on one of my forgotten games of childhood. It's not just for the sake of nostalgia; these games are legitimately fun and engaging even though they are dated two decades and have 8-bit constructive limitations. NES game designers put out their fair share of bombs but NES games that were good then are still good now. Very good.

What if, today, in the age of the Wii the XBox360 and the PS3, what if today a new 8-bit game was made? People would play it if it was good, that's to be certain, but would they buy it? Would they approve of it? How far could the game maker push that title with today's technology.....?

Most 8-bit games during their hay-day ran between 200 and 300 Kb in size. That's really next to nothing at all in modern context, so small you could fit 4 or 5 on a little old 3.5" diskette easy as pie, and even that's antiquated. The largest games pushed 700+Kb in size, but they were exceptionally rare cases and for their medium incredibly intricate and/or long. So let's be pessimistic about the venture and limit our fantasy.

If you restricted the limit of a BDR to just 20Gb of data, and inflated the average NES game size to 800Kb per game, that means you can fit 25,000 NES games on a single BDR. It also means, that an 8-bit game 25,000 times longer and larger than the longest and largest 8-bit game ever published can fit onto a single BDR.

That's 25,000 times more potential for game variation, innovation, and extension. With proper compression utilization and conservation of pallets, it would even be a little bit more.

What if a person didn't make the game, or even a company?
What if The Internet made the game? The grandest 8-bit game in history? A game made by people from all over the world all contributing and collaborating over the net, a hive-mind of individuals whom with the least bit of drive and creativity would reduce a task that would otherwise consume lifetimes to a scant few years if not less.

A primary format would be settled upon, perhaps an RPG of unequaled caliber or a Fighter of unparalleled action, by the first to come to the fold. Later, others would contribute not only to the primary framework but also hundreds and hundreds of mini-games, asides, map variants, musical scores, cinematics, framed as shooters or side-scroll platformers or birds-eye 4-way walkers or what have you. Nearly endless creative license could be permitted without damaging the core integrity of the game at all. Editors would be promoted from the hive to review and include, discard or tweak all submissions and bring discussion for their best application.

If the pessimistic constraints are held to, then there will likely be over 2Gb of leftover space for environmental inclusions to enhance the game, such as days worth of original music and hours of cinema interludes, even some short blips of DVD-quality work could be thrown in for laughs.

What if they all worked for free?

A BD-R can have slight variance in cost, but it's safe to put them at $1.50 at most per disc even when not buying in bulk. Even crappy current-gen games sell for at least $10.00 at a drastic price reduction, so let's just drop that price to $9.00 to hedge the bet a little more. Now we'll assume a processing packaging etc cost that'll probably amount to $0.50 per unit, but hell let's make it equal to the disc cost for no reason. That's still $6.00 profit on every 8-bit game sold, and it can be played on a PS3 or PC with a Blu-Ray player depending on where the hive decides is the best market.

If you could clear a half-million units sold, that'd be $3,000,000.00 in disposable income that now belongs to The Internet. Hell, you could even pay the contributors, let's say a reimbursement rate of a penny per 10Kb. That'd still only be about 22 grand out of the profit. But free is preferable.

Now, what to do with that money? I'd say Every contributor who's work made it in to the final product, no matter how big or small, gets a single vote. They vote for the non-profit charity of their preference, and a percentage of the profit equal to the sum total of votes it received relative to the total votes cast overall goes to that charity. This can be any legit no-profit-margin charity in the world, and it will get some money guaranteed just by virtue of getting a single vote; no contributor walks away dissatisfied.

Now you have tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of people worldwide who can look back and say, "Look at what we did together." The greatest 8-bit game of all time was invented and they took part in it, and because of what they did and because the world accepted the product they helped create, the world was able to help itself by contributing to its own relief through charity.

A massive, Internet-wide pro bono publico effort to not only give the world a supreme new source of long-lasting entertainment, but also promote friendship relief and love of charity worldwide at the same time.

The only question remaining is simply: Is It Possible?
Do you think it would work? Should we as An Internet try?

I certainly know I'd love to play it.
Wouldn't mind making some of it either.

[SteakandKidneyPie]

This is a thread where you start up flash animations and other things. Not Dreams.

[IDGabrielHM]

The description says artists, writers, musicians, programmers and voice-actors.

All of these things would benefit the project by participating.

Where would you then recommend I seek out people to get involved with this?
Rather than just condemning me for trying.....

[TurkeyOnAStick]

At 8/29/10 12:36 AM, IDGabrielHM wrote: tl dr version: The Internet should make a 22.5 Gigabyte 8-bit game for free, sell it for cheap, and donate all profit to worldwide charities decided by the people who contributed.

Nice idea.

But you've given no specific details, nor does your profile indicate that you are able to run a Flash collab.

Feel free to post in the Collab Idea Lounge, but I would suggest somebody with a vision and capability to run an 8 bit collab.
(and remember it's a lounge, so people are free to discuss ideas in there).

Also every collab in this forum has the choice of sending their ad earnings to a charity, regardless of whether it is 8 bit or not.