What if different game studios built their own solar systems in one shared game?

ss6 wrote:

Could some version of this work, or would coordinating that many independent studios make it basically impossible?

It's not a problem of coordination. It's a problem of recruitment. You'd have to have an incentive to get studios to spend resources and time on it. An incentive like money is usually best.

I would expound upon what Tom is saying, to say it's not just a problem of coordination (which is certainly very much an issue) or recruitment (money).

From a purely creative standpoint, while giving independent teams autonomy/creative license could certainly produce unique content along the veins of what you're suggesting, this still boils down to essentially doing a lot of outsourcing. When you outsource asset creation, you come across several issues. Firstly, as Tom points out, no one professional is creating things for free. So, cost immediately becomes a factor (and everything that goes along with outsourcing, legally; negotiating contracts, etc.). From a purely creative standpoint, one of the big issues with outsourcing is ensuring quality and consistency in style. While your idea's main thrust is intended to give lots of leeway on the creative side, there would still need to be art approvals (for quality, if not thematically). Logistically, it can get even hairier. Unless you are working across a stable and mature engine and toolset, you would spend a LOT of time coordinating/distributing engine and toolset updates, along with necessary documentation and guides. Even with big engines like Unreal or Unity, making sure everyone is using the proper game build and tools is usually trickier than you'd think.

If you're thinking of having the community do such content generation, your issues don't really reduce in any way. You still have content approval and toolset/engine updates to deal with. Although you might save a little time in (not) dealing with contractual/legal issues, I think the variability and quality of the incoming assets would eat up even more time for approvals.

So, the TLDR; Money-wise, not really a savings unless you're going for pure community-driven content. Creatively, you would get some diversity in content, but the production coordination and approvals are probably harder than you might envision.

I think the idea could work creatively, because each studio could give its solar system a genuinely different identity. The difficult part would be keeping everything technically compatible while preserving that creative freedom.

ss6 wrote:

So you basically have this tradeoff where procedural generation gives you the scale, while handcrafted stuff gives you uniqueness. Having both at the same time seems almost impossible.

It's not impossible.
You could take No Mans Sky and add handcrafted content to selected planets.

Now you say there is a problem with repetition of procedural content at scale, but there are many ways to solve this:
Make realistic space travel. If it takes 3 years to get to Mars, you have 3 years to make content for Mars and release the game just with Earth. \ : ) /
Or maybe better, do something to drive players attention towards the only 5 populated planets of your game, while the procedural universe is just there to gather resources for example. Eventually you add more planets later.

ss6 wrote:

But what if, instead of one studio trying to build an entire galaxy, you had a shared galaxy where different studios were responsible for different solar systems?

Say you have the money to fund 10 games.
Each of these games can have unique mechanics, artstyle and tech.

But you rather want a single huge game, actually some space opera spanning a whole universe.
Multiple studios make the content, but consistency forces them to give up all 3 sources of variety compared to 10 unique games.

Which option has the higher chance to generate a good game?
Which option has the higher chance of 100% failure, wasting all the money and work?

I think we all have this vision about your idea in one way or another. The idea of a giant virtual universe of fun and possibilities, shared by all players, and all creators. Basically the internet of games. Spielberg even made a movie about this idea.

Personally i call it 'The final game'. It's final because there comes no more other game after it. And it's singular not plural, because it's just one game, with just one evil mega corp left to host and monetize it.

Is this really a dream we want to make real? The start of something new, or rather just the end of what we loved?

Time will tell, i guess.

ss6 wrote:

Could some version of this work, or would coordinating that many independent studios make it basically impossible?

Well, Chris Roberts makes a lot of money by answering this with 'yes'. ; )

Shared IP, like the SCP project, is an unusually collaborative but realistic possibility.

But what you are proposing is more advanced: shared detailed game content, to the extent that the contributors would contribute to a shared game. And if the collaboration produces one game, its cost structure would fall apart (however revenue is shared, it would still be enough to pay for procedural oatmeal or for limited handcrafted content, without increasing magically).

ss6 wrote:

The differences between studios wouldn't be something you'd try to hide.

Look, I'm gonna bite on something that I didn't see previously discussed. Why do you think different studios are going to do terribly different stuff with a star system anyways? Do you think there's really some kind of untapped wellspring of either art direction or game design sensibilities out there? I don't. I see AAA products and it's all wet, lather, rinse, repeat to me.

You are confusing a lot of studios for a good studio. Give the money to the latter. Good luck figuring out which one it is.

bvanevery wrote:

Why do you think different studios are going to do terribly different stuff with a star system anyways? Do you think there's really some kind of untapped wellspring of either art direction or game design sensibilities out there?

Imo, the idea to make an entire universe by joining studios misses the point, since the universe will be still too empty or small. The users need to create the content to make this work. But the question is how. Idk how it's done in Roblox, so i compare a user level editor for Little Big Planet vs. an entire game engine with the follow up game Dreams. The latter maybe was too difficult and complicated, the former may be too restricted.

So maybe it would be an idea to have multiple studios working on specific games, tools and editors, targeting different skill sets across creators.

bvanevery wrote:

Good luck figuring out which one it is.

Social media mechanisms such as likes would tell. Maybe players can also donate real money to creators to crowdfund their promises.

But well, personally i'll rather keep it small. Remembering what got me into games, it was never the scale of a game which made me like it.

bvanevery wrote:

I don't. I see AAA products and it's all wet, lather, rinse, repeat to me.

I see a cycle of scaling up over the last two decades. Farther, higher further, more. Each new game twice as big as the former, with twice as many devs, and twice the cost.
Maybe this progress was impressive for some time. But now it isn't anymore. The scaling is expected and no longer exciting.
It's at this point even overburdening. 200h games with more content i'll ever able to play does not attract me, it puts me off.
I was very impressed from No Mans Sky. It was just procedural, but it felt truly infinite.
But i was not impressed from Starfield, which still felt small and fake even if backed by an army of AAA devs.

Interesting concept, but the business side breaks down quickly. Unless studios are guaranteed a return on investment, no one is going to dedicate team resources to building content for someone else's platform when they could just build and monetize their own standalone IP.

I can also say from working with Microsoft back in the day, when corporations have a strategic partnership, and one is the dominant partner, they will use that dominance to yank the rug out from other companies and make them unable to control the market or thrive in it. This is part of why companies don't want "big" partnerships, they want to control their own destinies. Cooperation and industry alliances always have adverse interests, because someone is generally winning from those arrangements a lot more than the other guys are.