Has anyone tried a nonprofit game studio yet?
Like it makes money which only goes into expenditures like salaries, game maintenance and game development and reserves. But there are no no bonuses, no dividends, and no growth expectations. It would not be expected to make someone rich, but it's there to fund the lives of the game devs and the making and maintaining of games.
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2026
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What you're looking for is a worker owned co-op. It would keep the power in the hands of the devs. They would vote among themselves in how to operate the co-op. Like you asked for, their money would be used exclusively for maintaining their livelihoods and making games.
Okay but how to pay the employees when the first game hasn’t released yet? Still need an investor especially if you are going to start a studio with people that relied on a salary to pay the bills and have a family and don’t live in a dorm or their parent’s basement anymore. Like with these former idTech devs.
And the vast majority of investors want to see a return. Not many philanthropists out there who want to fund a game studio. And a loan from a bank is impossible if the studio doesn’t have revenue. A for-profit co-op is a better structure, since it allows investors getting a return. Even if the investors are also the employees they probably want to see their savings they put into the studio paid back.
It's not the 90s anymore. Crowdfunding and early access releases have been proven working.
And you can still get lucky and either be a wale or find one who really likes your specific idea for a game.
Not many philanthropists out there who want to fund a game studio.
States and even countries offer grants for the arts - start with a proposal, make a small game for startup capital, and continue to operate as a nonprofit?
I know the Dead Cells devs are some sort of coop.
ZA/UM before the investors took control.
Companies firing employees for AI, only for that AI to help crack their games, leak their exclusives, and those fired employees now create their own studios making the market more competitive
It wasnt for AI in this case. IdSoftware had arguably the best engineers in the industry. Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal look beautiful and run on junk GPUs to this day.
Something happened after Doom Eternal and next game came up... Just mid. Amazing cutscenes, very mid gameplay, garbage performance due to mandatory ray tracing, while looking same as previous games.
Game didnt sell well, parent company fired people EA style.
Also they fucked Mick Gordon their music producer who did music for all doom games.
Mick Gordon their music producer who did music for all doom games
Mick Gordon was eight years old when first 'Doom' came out, and the first video game for which he did sound design came out in 2006.
Fuck, right. Dont know how did that slip through
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Here's their actual website:
And they've created a Fediverse account:
I know it's possible to comment on Threadiverse posts from Mastodon, but it seemed easier to make an additional Lemmy account, too.
We doing this 200 years of experience thing again?!
Best of luck to them!
I do hope they succeed and I'm more than happy to support them if they put out something to the quality of Witchfire. That said the combined experience of 250 years does have a "9 women can make a baby in 1 month" vibe. Ubisoft probably has 1000+ years of experience and their games are still shit. Naming what they've worked on would give far more credibility to their experience.
The majority of our experience has been working together for Doom 2016, Eternal, and Dark Ages. There are a few of us that had been at id since Rage, and some have shipped games from before joining id, like Crysis, Call of Duty 3, Assassin's Creed 4, etc.
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What is it with horses and video game companies.
Man, I'm old enough to remember when game/tech companies were obsessed with Llamas.
It really whips the llama's ass.
Some people like trees, others like birds. We like horses.
Is that your hobby horse?
Look at my horse, my horse is amazing~
Give it a lick ~
It tastes just like raisins.
SHUT UP WOMAN GET ON MY HORSE!
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Thank you, I thinking this was old news or something because I thought they made Against the Storm. Turns out that was Hooded Horse
Also
One time Iron Gate Studio bought a horse after selling a ton of copies of Valheim
Danger Pay
For our first project, Hidden Horses is developing a high-octane single-player FPS. Influenced by games like Smash TV and movies like 1987’s The Running Man, the game will take place on a deadly game show run by a sinister but charming AI host. Our game will focus on classic FPS gameplay, awesome weapons, crazy enemies, and will be highly optimized.
We’ll have a lot to share in the coming months: in-person events, podcast appearances, Q&A’s, and even a promotional beer! Additionally, we will soon be releasing a documentary featuring the development team as well as a teaser for our upcoming project.
Pretty wholesome.
And now, free from corporate shackles they'll be free to make some actual interesting innovative games again. These innovative games will probably sell well, attracting attention of larger companies who will buy the new gaming studio. Said larger company will churn out generic sequels while slowly firing all the old talent. As the quality diminishes and the formulaic slop they're now making stops selling, the big company will fire everyone and close down the studio. Many of those fired devs will get together and form a new game studio and start publishing interesting games...
Hopefully we can stop that cycle by skipping the "larger companies [...] will buy the new gaming studio" step. We just want to make games. We're not doing this to get rich.
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I mean, innovative isnt a guarantee when leaving a company.
Lets not forget the devs who wanted an employee owned game after apex legends to form the game we know as Highguard.
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This description is bad. The grammar is off, and the studio was founded by id Software former employees. Some of whom worked on idTech, the game engine.
id Software still exists?
Not really. It's zenimax/Bethesda
Which is owned by microsoft.
Part of Microslop now
So no
Mhm,not a independent company anymore.
This is the stuff we need to support to take the big evils down.
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