We're not announcing that we're doing this, but it's something I'm thinking about.

The idea here is to raise seed money for development. There are investors and publishers that are interested in NS2, but because we're still in the early stage of development, they would take a large percentage of the company or profits.

Getting funded by the community means a greater chance of us deciding when we ship (instead of a publisher doing so), and also means we would keep more of the profits and retain control over our company, enabling us to make better games in the future.

We will still need help from investors and a publisher, but the idea is to wait as long as possible before doing so. The more of the game we have done when we talk to them, the less risky it is for them, and the better deal we'll ultimately get.

Notes: - Assume NS2 would have cutting edge single-player and multi-player play in large-scale diverse environments. - We couldn't guarantee that the game would ever come out. There is always risk associated with creating software and games, but hopefully we've shown you with NS that when we put our mind to creating something, we'll do whatever it takes to ship it. - Assume that pre-purchasing the game now would cost you $25, and that the game would cost around $55 or $60 when it was released. - Assume you would receive the game in electronic download format (ie, no box), though there's a possibility we would send out physical copies (we would probably have to raise the price to $30 or so or limit it to United States and Canada in this case). - Assume it would have the following system requirements (this is a prediction, not definite): * 2.0 GHz Processor * 256MB RAM * DirectX 7 capable graphics card (128mb) * Windows 2000/XP/ME/98 * Mouse * Keyboard * 56k+ Internet Connection

So, if you had the ability to use Paypal or a credit card to pre-purchase NS2 now (for around $25) would you do so? Please e-mail me your thoughts, or respond in this poll.