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Now, before the "omfg you so stupid crowd" chimes in - SOE has already implemented this.
Here is how it would work (or at least how I envision it):
Type 1: Public Offerings
Step 1: A dedicated player with some art skills creates textures, bobble heads, mesh variants, or even whole mechs.
Step 2: They pay x MC depending on submission type and the asset is sent to a filter. This could be volunteer content moderators or even the entire community via a voting/flagging platform.
Step 3: If the content is approved, it is added to the game for people to buy with MC. The creator then receives x% of the income as either MC, real money, or a choice of the two. (For example, a cool camo texture could sell for $5 worth of MC. The player can get $1 worth of MC per texture sold, or a check at the end of the month for 40% of the profit).
Type 2: Private Offerings
Step 1: A merc corp approaches an artist and asks for nose art, unit icons, etc to be made and imported for their exclusive use. They pay the artist for their troubles.
Step 2: Artist completes this and submits it under the merc corp's profile in the submission form.
Step 3: Content is filtered as before and is available only to members of that merc corp.
Step 4: Those members may now pay MC to use the unique asset (or pay a bulk of 20,000 mc or some such for unlimited use.
Collaboration - I can make some 3d models, but I suck at texturing. So if I work with another artist, we should be able to split the reward by listing 2 people. This promotes teamwork and ensures more complex models can be created and created with good craftsmanship.
Why should this be done?
PGI is a dedicated but small team that already has a huge development cycle without adding a lot of vanity items. Hiring additional artists is a large financial risk, as this content may not necessarily make back the wages, let alone draw a profit.
In addition, there are many merc corps that have been around through multiple iterations of Mechwarrior and have pride in the lore and heraldry they have developed.
This would allow PGI to add exponentially more assets with minimal investment and encourage players to invest more money into a game that they feel is increasingly theirs as opposed to yet-another-F2P-MMO.
Furthermore, this system is extensible and can cross multiple games, multiple play types (community warfare, information warfare, etc) and has potentially unlimited design potential.
I feel that this is a system that is highly beneficial to both the community and the life of the game.
Why Charge MC for a Submission - This prevents someone from uploading hundreds of poorly created items and flooding the filter. Potential content will need to be of high enough quality to warrant a submission, and nobody wants to waste MC.
Edited by S3dition, 13 November 2012 - 12:40 PM.
