I've suggested this idea before and it's been shot down. Basically it would be nice for CS and DC to make some financial gain from WA's development, even if it's little more than a token amount.
They've been opposed to this idea because they don't want to be pressured with deadlines or mandatory specifications, and they have other obligations of course. By my way of thinking a large part of this donation would be in appreciation for work already done, with few actual development requirements. But what I do want to see are regular news updates (a simple short post every month or three) and a sense of life/hope to the continuance of WA's legacy. Now that some time has passed is there any change in perception of this idea? Obviously DC and CS would have to be on board or it's a non-starter.
I'm thinking a 1 year Kickstarter goal of up to $15000 USD might be attainable. This would indeed just be a token amount --- maybe there is a way to get them more money?
We could have a stretch goal for some larger joint project with Team 17 wherein CS and DC become paid developers with a leading role and absolute final say. Nothing as large and ambitious as WA 4.0 of course, just something marketable and substantial. Without checking, I seem to remember that a lot of the technical challenges of WA 4.0 were for technical benefits. Hopefully nobody has to rewrite the whole game from scratch, but there would unavoidably be lots of technical challenges for DC and CS to work out. In this partnership scenario our Kickstarter donations could be pre-orders to Team17 for the "remastered" WA, in return for CS and DC being given competitive multi-year contracts by Team 17. They could offer a discount for people who already own it on Steam.
Team 17 is worth $300m USD and they're probably ready for another project now that WMD has flopped. Worms is their biggest franchise and they've been driving it into the ground. There's got to be some potential there to figure out. They're seeking a new market niche as game publishers rather than developers, so they'd be fine with their role being primarily monetary. They could contribute nonessential developmental work such as updated graphical skins (switchable, not affecting gameplay, in WA's pixel style), and Steam achievements or whatever that would allow them to market updates as a big anniversary remaster. Team 17 could also contribute marketable new game content (weapons and such), since CS and DC have stated that doing so is not one of their primary goals. Team 17 would have to submit to receiving guidance of course to maintain WA's vision and so they include new strategic things as well as more explosions. Team 17's development cost for this would be much lower than for an all-new Worms game and the result would be far better.
In a partnership, how can Team17 be sure to make their money back? Our preorders won't cover it. How about opening Worms back up to a global audience? The Chinese/Korean games were huge with millions of players. All we need is to add unicode support and a translation bot for in-game text. Team 17 could arrange for the necessary servers/licenses. Other than that they can sell custom worm skins (cute little asian worms anyone?), flaming power bars, or whatever. Hopefully nothing that affects the actual fair gameplay, but I guess different lobbies could have different policies regarding p2w boosts and new noob-oriented luck-based content.
Deadcode and Cybershadow are literally geniuses - none of this can happen without them. No better Worms game will ever be made without their direct involvement.
I didn't spend much time organizing my thoughts, so as not to get too wed to any single idea. That is probably best for discussion.. so let's discuss!
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