From a designers point of view I think its a bad idea to give them such broad choices as you suggested for the first choice. Smaller more target choices might be a better idea.
After some thought I agree with you here.
There was a small game that tried to do this from the very start allowing users to choose a few things per release. I was initially very interested but as releases got further apart I lost interest and now I can't even find it to link for you.
Do you think the game got any popularity boost because of allowing users to choose stuff? If they continued to release often, do you think the interest would stay, or did it exist only because of the initial "whoa, something new" factor?
This is an outrageously bad idea from both a dev and a player standpoint.
As a player, why would I invest in a game that other people are just going to change the direction of/ruin?
As a developer, why
As a developer, because publicity. It's hard to get and this is one way to get it.
As a player, because players want to be a part of it. Check out Minecraft forums and you'll see hundreds of "Notch, make this" threads.
Again, choices would be set-up by me, and would be sensible in the context of the game. No choice would ruin the game, but it would change certain aspects of it. And is that worse than pre-ordering a game you have no control over whatsoever, and in many cases don't even have a playable demo, but just some screenshots, trailers and promises?
Also, would GTA be ruined for you if instead of real estate market you had the ability to take over docks business and control drug flow into the country? What about skateboards instead of bicycles? Or if there were no airplanes and boats, but instead every car would have interior modeled so you could drive in 1st person?
Some of there choices are minor, some are not, but I'm positive you'd have your favorite to choose in every case.
Other developers (from small indies to large/famous developers like David Perry) have attempted to do this. To my knowledge, none have ever been successful.
Make the game that you want to make. I know that's cliche but just like you could never attempt to have a crowd direct a movie, you could never ask a crowd to direct a game. Too many opinions, expectations goals... unrelated features and requests get voted in and you end up with a hash of conflicting features that were each submitted with totally different objectives in mind.
If you have any links of those game, please share, I'd love to check them out. I'll check out David Perry. As the features would be directed by me, there would be no conflicts or gameplay degradations.
Except the very first poll about the game idea, I don't really see the benefits. Why not do the Worms attempt and put just everything into it, what comes to the mind of the game makers?
Because it takes time to implement features. Even more time to polish it. Devs cut features all the time due to time constraints. Why not let players choose between two features which one to have in game?
Plus... sorry, players are not that imaginative and they will propose things they have seen in other games, so if you did your homework you already know what they will propose
They would not have the option to propose anything, just to pick between features I would select.
in short: you can't do this if you don't make sure you prototype the fuck out of every single votable decision tenfold. and why would you even do that?
This is no different than implementing your idea into your game before you know if it'll actually work. You need to have at least some orientation if some feature would fit the game before actually implementing it, or you'll end up throwing out a lot of work before having a finished product. If you do have it, you will also be able to 'blindly' pick two features that would work.