Community funded additions

So the idea I am thinking about expands on this thread, see the idea is this:

The game is free to play

1. you have an area within the game world that is locked.
2. it has been speculated by the developers that a add-on DLC will be added soon but it needs funding.
3. and a date has not been confirmed for its release.

Would you believe a community, or even yourself, would donate to the development of an add-on DLC, that once its funding goal is reached, it would be free for all people to play in?

Would you also do this for other aspects of the game such as:

• Well a drastic thing would be a server for a specific region, e.g. a dedicated server for Australia.
• Maybe adding a whole new mechanic system such as, adding magic to a game where there was previously no magic.
• or adding in a whole new race that has their own villages, demographics and such.

Steam did something like this with DOTA 2, how the proceeds you'd pay for a certain item go to the prize pool of the international tournament.

 

Personally, I would not donate to "development" in a free to play.

As for why, two reasons.
The first is that I can't trust the developer to not try and set the "goals" way higher than what it would cost, and it has been shown times and times again that many tend to prefer going for that quick and easy money.

The second is that I want my money to buy me something directly, in those games.

There have been examples somewhat similar with preorders a while ago, with unlocked "bonuses" as more people preordered.
It really didn't reward anyone, apart from pushing that preorder culture that bites us on so many occasions.


In itself, the idea is not bad, it's basically crowd funding expansions, that benefit even the "free" players, but I'd prefer if it was done in a similar way as how Dota2 set up for the first Internationnal.
They put for sell a virtual item, that gave various things to the player upon paying, and 25% of the price went directly to the pool for the tournament.

If you were to set up something similar in a game, I'd say that any purchase should put 10-20% into that "collective" pot, along with a clear indicator (progress bar with numbers?) to indicate when it should reach the goal.
That way, players would buy something for their character (a skin, a disguise, whatever your model allows for), and contribute toward new content for everyone.
If your game is not giving too much power to paying players, it is a model that should please most people, and if players paying pocket money can get nice things, it would make more "free" players spend a few dollars once in a while, because that also speeds up when they can get new content.

 

Definitly, but you have to give an instant reward to those who fund equals their investment like you mentioned. Otherwise you can only expect leechers and those pay no money. Basically you show the players where their cents are used in developement and that is nice.

No to the servers, this is the devs job only. You cut your own flesh by not providing sufficient infrastructure. Yes to well thought out mechanics and races.

I bet if some of the strech goals weren't reached, they'd have come into the game some other day. You payed for the compendium and got alot of items from that alone. The strech goals were a nice bonus.