Sometime ago when I was in charge of quality for a global group of game developers, there were discussions about the future of the organization. At the time, the ambitious project in which we were involved was in early development. The group had seen more than one hundred team members over the past half-decade. We expected our team to fracture due to external constraints on their time.

To address our expectations, I proposed that we establish a channel for revenue that would be used to fund production. Among the number of suggestions, from merchandising to selling out, the most interesting was the suggestion that we form a nonprofit publisher of interactive entertainment. This organization would serve to formalize our group and retain our interests in providing a noncommercial, free real-time strategy game as promised to our community.

Due to various setbacks and creative differences, I left Wildfire Games; however, I believe we missed an extraordinary opportunity. Pursuing the opportunity would have, of course, consumed much of our time and the production schedule would have suffered. The nature of our loose, virtual team comprised entirely of volunteers insisted that we maintain our current course despite forecasts and conventions. In fact, I know we missed an incredible opportunity because someone beat me to the punch.

Martin de Ronde, cofounder of Guerilla Games, recently announced the launch of OneBigGame, the first nonprofit publisher of interactive entertainment. I’m excited about this venture, and I will be paying particularly close attention. Good luck to de Ronde and company!

In the meantime, there is a video preview of the project on which I worked. Check it out! The video demonstrates that AAA titles are possible without AAA budgets. Success can be achieved with only perseverance toward a dream of something greater.