Breaking away from the Usual TOP SECRET Game Dev

[Hazard]

Not in the sense that all source assets and code are all available to be nitpicked, but the everyday processes that are used in order to accomplish tasks and whatnot.

Public access into how a game developer 'makes their game'

Do you think this kind of approach would be beneficial or harmful to the industry?

Sure it would take extra time for someone to document it all - but at the moment, all the public gets to see at best would be a strictly moderated forum containing screenshots of how the games progressing and people submitting ideas of what they think would be 'cool'.

Do you think old hacks who have spent years of mastering their skills and grown a studio over 10 - 15 - 20 years would ever reveal the innards of their studios to the masses.... for free ?

What say you people - would you like to see a game developer open its doors in such a way ? Kind of like creating a 'Current Mortem'.

Lastly, Yes this question does bare relevance to Kalescent Studios, as we are thinking about approaching a somewhat open development relationship with the masses.

I appreciate any comments here, feel free to bombard me with your thoughts, bad and good.

EDIT: One other thing I thought I should mention is:
I dont mean sharing the innards of the game to the point of where there is no surprise when its finished    - I'm more talking about the processes / systems / tools / methods and tests used to achieve a satisfactory result and whatnot.

[AssKoala]

Many consider that a trade secret, many wouldn't want the public to know what they do.

Of course, most of the methods are fairly public.  You just have to know where/who to ask.

[Josh1billion]

That could be a business mistake.. your competition could become more powerful, and new competition could be sprouted.

[Kha0s]

depends how u look at it.  letting others know your secrets makes you less powerful compared to your peers.  however, it creats an overall environment of more educated people which will benefit the entire community and technology as a whole.  if you're in it to make money then of course you wouldnt share.  however, if you are in it for the science and for knowledge more than money, why not share?  its better for everyone.

[Hazard]

Thanks guys,

Asskoala: Youre Right about that - thing is though most developers have a lot to hide, with dodgy practises and whatnot. Alot of these dodgy practises are the 'trade secrets'.

But im not out to expose those - or cause a comotion, so thanks for your thoughts!

Josh1billion: Fair comment, thanks - but the last part of your comment is the main reason why I'm thinking about this approach.  However the first part might cause some interesting situations, if my ideas are good enough to be stolen by rivals, especially larger sized rivals, I'd be pretty stoked.

In saying that though - no I'm not talking about revealing the inner workings of the actual game to the public as to ruin the surprise, I'm just meaning taking the current style a step further, for example:
other than just asking the "Should we have save points?" yes / no poll on a forum, like taking that further and explaining how we implemented the save points, how we balanced them out so that it was not such a hard slog between save points - without showing them all your save points and maps, this can still be explained.

Alot of the fundamental elements of game design i believe are still hidden and sealed up for the old masters to take to their graves, this is not the way it should be, sure they earnt it, but each generation is supposed to be better equipped than the last!

 Im not sure how riveting a read it would be, but nevertheless it would be available.

Kha0s: You pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as my thoughts on it go. Our team makes money by selling our services to larger development teams in Australia, USA and Europe, but now its time to devote our off time to our first game project and like so many others have said - we simply arent in it for the money - that will be our approach with regards to our development anyway.

Of course the proecess would be geared toward marketing the final result from the beginning, but at this stage there is no loose situation for us at all.

Worst case scenario is we finish the project, the public gets some tutorials out of it, we get to push our skills - we have a crap load of source material to call upon to have another go - the negatives are, we lost a few months and could have spent that time making money elsewhere.

Thanks for your input guys - any more comments would be appreciated, at this stage we are only thinking about it - really trying to weigh up whether or not we should be so open with our processes, for the sake of 'good samaratanism' ( thats not even a word! )