Topic: Just an idea... what do you think? (Bounty, game development) (Read 663 times)

Surely there are some among you who had the chance to play the great and amazing game "Master of Magic" back in the old days - and surely some of you even liked it... and would even like to play it today, only with better graphics and sound, modernized and remade... but sadly there simply isn't such a remake yet, or at least not to my knowledge.

(Yes, I do know about Age of Wonders, which is sometimes quoted as a MoM-remake, but at least in my opinion, that was not good at all, to say the least. Too many changes, too many restrictions... and it looked much more like a HeroesIII-clone (Now don't get me wrong, HeroesIII is a great game too, but if I want to play that then I just play that; and when I'd like to play MoM, then I'd like to play MoM).)
(I also know of the Civ4-mod FFH, which is very good too, but is still not an MoM-remake.)
(I've also heard of Stardock planning doing something like this for quite a few years now, but as far as I know, in reality they haven't done anything at all.)

So I guess you already know where this is heading, since the idea is quite straightforward: since apparently no established company is going to do this, it might just be worth a try(?) to crowdsource together a significant amount of Bitcoin-bounty for any group of independent developers willing to take on this challenge and at last make a decent MoM-remake. (With "decent" I mean of course keeping everything intact from the original gameplay, and only modernizing graphics, sound and suchlike. Extras of course can be added, like multiplayer, etc., but strictly optionally, and there should always be the option of the original gameplay as well. )

The bounty would only be payed once the game is indeed finished and approved of as indeed a good remake by a significant majority (at least 60%) of those pooling together the bounty. If after a given period of time no-one takes on the challenge at all, or if no-one manages to make a good remake, then the funds would of course go back to all those who have pooled it together.

(Since the developers will get the bounty as payment for their time and efforts, the remake itself should also be freeware; but of course no-one forbids the developers to collect further donations for their work from the grateful fans. )

So... what do you think? Could - should - this be done, and if yes, then how should it be started?
Any comments, ideas, etc. welcome.