If You Had A Billion Dollars...What Game Would You Make?

If someone gave you a billion dollars to finance a video game, what video game would you make?

A billion is a lot of money, but considering that nowadays, some games cost $200M+ to make, it'll probably be enough to make the game and a sequel.

For myself, I think I'd want to finance an epic RPG that is playable with 3D glasses/goggles. It would be a fully immersed experience.

I would make a fourth installment in the Starfleet Command series for PC. I'd go with a more complex power management interface like OP/SFC II, but subsystem targeting, tactical warp, invisible no-shields cloak, and ship refits like SFC III. I'd make torpedoes a finite supply, with more variations in warhead and tracking systems.

I'd include multiple texture files for each ship, to match the major hull reconfigurations necessary to make nearly-infinite refit upgrades appear more "realistic."

I'd expand the playable eras to at least include everything between the Archer/NX-01 period and the 29th Century/Relativity period, complete with every major space conflict throughout that "history." And more races. Every Milky Way superpower ever mentioned plus one or two privateer/scavenger/pirate races, with an entry in every hull size class.

Once I was done throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, I'd include a more formal game spec interface for people who like to mod their games a bit. Something similar to what Eagle Eye released for SFC II/OP.

I'd make a game that is essentially Force Unleashed, The Sims 2, Postal 2, and Grand Theft Auto combined. It would be set up like a normal every day world, except you would have monstrous force powers. You could do normal things, get a job, get in a relationship, buy a house, cars, go to the mall, whatever, and no one else would know you had these incredible abilities.

Well, they wouldn't know it for a little while.


J.

Virtual Sex with ... {insert celebrity name here}

It'd be a sure-fire hit. Of course I'd start with the hottest actresses and supermodels. There would be frequent expansion packs (/snicker) for adding new babes.

And then I'd release (/snicker) the follow-up: Virtual Jail-Sex, for Volpone and "friends".

Next would come (/snicker) the Inflate-o-mate version for JohnM.

The real Ultima IX.

The one released back in '99 by EA/Origin was a huge slap in the face to all Ultima fans and a poor, poor way to end that oldest series of RPG games.

The real Ultima IX would have a cool plot, would incorporate all the features that made Ultimas IV-VII so great, and would probably use something like the Oblivion engine, but with the interactivity you'd expect from an Ultima game.

It would also reference and connect with the older games and ideally it'd be worked on by those guys who made the series what it was...

Updated PC version of Magic Carpet. ::waits all of two microseconds for the shock to subside:: Add in more spells (I'm sure someone could come up with some), allow for options with respect to playing difficulty, make most of the monsters' movements and actions a little more realistic, and of course the graphics and special effects would be improved--not "updated" to today's idea of "kewlies", mind you, improved.*

I dunno about the feasibility of a map creator--it might induce frustration in people trying to get a hillock just right--but an editor should be fine . . . oh, heck, I've got a billion dollars to burn, I won't burn all of it, bring on the creator and let them be frustrated, I say.

And allow for recording and such, dagnabbit.

I'd definitely put in an option to allow you to fly around upside-down, too. That would be sweet.

Plus lots of other minor improvements that wouldn't pertain to having a billion dollars to burn.


*Tomorrow's graphics capabilities. Hosing down your friends and their bases with meteors and volcanoes. Need I go on?

I'd buy spore.

Currently, it clashes with the whole "needing a degree followed by employment" thing going on, a billion dollars would mean I could forever game in comfort.

I won't say because anyone could easily see this and grab up the newest and greatest game idea.

I'd buy Freema Agyeman legally, along with a copy of Halo 3 that I'd merely pretend I'd made while she plays with my controller.

So, you have to stand in a giant warehouse or something in order to walk around without bumping into stuff?

Trust me, you are safe. There is nobody in the industry struggling to find ideas.

I'm gonna look at the conditions of this situation before answering.

What are the conditions of that money? Is this just a random gift or does it have to be a viable business proposition where it will make a profit for the investor?

I don't know of any game that has cost close to that much. GTAIV apparently cost around $100M, with speculation that MGS4 cost around that level as well. If we do have to make a profit on the project it would be extremely unlikely to do that on a $200M+ game.

3D glasses that you wear while looking at a pc monitor, or the full on headset type VR setup? If going the full VR how do you intend to deal with the disorientating effects of the focusing issues inherent to current VR setups?

I'd remake FF7 on the ps3, call it a day and pocket the rest of the money.

Pong 2: The Reckoning

I think you'd spend the majority of your money on law-suits.

Real Life (Now with better graphics) on the PS3.

No conditions, it's a gift. You can either make the game you want, or make a game that will make money and (hopefully) make you richer than you already are.

I would want a full on headset VR setup. In terms of the disorienting effects, I'd have to use part of that billion dollars to make a headset that doesn't have issues with disorientation.

In terms of walking around, I'd first start off with just an RPG that allows you to look in 1st person, but you would have to push forward on the controller to walk. I don't think the technology is there yet where we can have you be able to walk anywhere you want without hitting walls, etc.

Even with a billion dollars, I somehow doubt you can get the technology viable and cost effective enough that you could sell it and make profit. For me, I'd want the game/technology to make a profit, and not just throw money down an abyss.

This seems like a great idea, but historically, porn type "games" have never done well commercially. It could be argued that because they historically have not made money, no company has ever tried to make a high quality one.

I think you would need some sort of licensing to use celebrity images, unless you are planning on recreating the celebrity, then use a different name. If you called the latest expansion pack the "Catherine Zeta Jones Eats Your Asshole", there would surly be lawsuits flying.

Hmm, it might be possible, but to the best of my knowledge it's a problem that they are still trying to find a solution to. I'll assume that with your billion dollars they figure out some funky eye scanning laser tech or something similar that allows the problems to be solved.

Seriously, don't. I paid fifty dollars for a bunch of stupid minigames.

If I had a billion dollars, I'd slap Will Wright with a tuna fish until he promised to make a proper SimCity 5, not that "societies" abortion.

I'd hire a crack team to research and another to begin compiling data. I think we'd have to use data for the year 2000 or so.

Basically, I would try to recreate our world virtually as the barebones of a game. How much of it we could map and keep as much fiber and detail to make it look pretty, I have no idea. Though that would be the start point. It would be a copy of our world to the last detail, each house stick for stick, including the families that live in them- it wouldn't use avatars modeled after the actual people, but census numbers to determine which types of characters to generate. We could start small- all of New England would be a large enough game world to give a good taste of what I have in mind.

Then, each person that buys the game, or rights to play it anyway, could come down with a few of their friends and have them digitally mapped into the game. Then their avatars would replace their placeholders, for them and other users through patch updates. This would ensure that only people who want to have their likeness used are involved and help create a more immersive experience for each player.

That is the basic version of the game. You could do anything you normally could in real life, with real world consequences- like GTA without being over the top. [ENVIRONMENTS WOULD BE FULLY DESTRUCTABLE]

Then there would be parameter sets available for purchase- "GTA" mode, War mode, Zombie survival mode, the AO parameter- SimSexLife- to name a few. Of course, those are very basic modes, some later installments could include remaps and mods that completely change the look and feel so that you could experience a futuristic Earth, or one from the middle ages.

Once the framework is in place the possibilities would be endless, but it would probably take a good part of the Billion to even get the framework in place.

Yup. Not impressed.

^I'm a victim of hype? Some of us actually remember the glory days of Maxis.

When was this? During SimAnt or SimEarth?

The two greatest games Maxis released, off the top of my head, were The Sims 1, and Sim City 3000 Unlimited.

Well, I've been a Maxis fan since the release of SC2K. Even today, I like their non-expansion stuff. And, quite honestly, they are producing the only good games to come out of the bloated EA nowadays anyway.

Wing Commander Online: Kilrathi War. Imagine being Marine Fleet or pilot or privateer. This owuld be perfect time perioud for a setting. Imagine bombing runs against enemy shipyards.

EA has picked up the last couple of years, they are producing quite a bit of quality product now.