So as of 5:00 AM, I'm looking at $1,248,916 dollars donated by 33,771 people who want Double Fine to make a game. And I say donated, in the sense that Minecraft worked off donations. In this bizarre alternate reality where goodwill means more than exclusive retailer weapons and new copy content. Where people reward talent in an attempt to live vicariously through the Double Fine team to do what many of them at one point or another wanted to do.

To be part of the making of a video game they believed in.

And although there is probably a decent percentage of those people that just wanted to be part of the new thing, that drive itself seems to be a force to be reckoned with. This magical setup in which the consumers can hand the money directly to the developers and get the games they want. Of course, like anything else, there have to be some pretty fundamental changes to the way video game companies do business in order for a model of this type to be worth pushing people towards.

But with so many laid off or on shaky ground nowadays, how many times does something like this have to happen before the industry realizes that the reason this worked is for the same reason free to play games yield more consistent results. If you are upfront about what you can do, what you are doing and what you will do for a consumer, the number of concessions that consumer is willing to make increases drastically.

It's why a broken dragon is bad in Skyrim and funny in Minecraft. Skyrim shouldn't be broken, because it was presented as an amazing experience from the off. There was never any contact with any developer that wasn't completely sanitized. Every interview was full of PR spin. Every thousand screenshots released daily for that game were selling an experience that the game, amazing as it may be, would be hard pressed to ever accomplish.

And while I have no idea how to find the numbers, I'd say there's a larger portion of the Minecraft userbase using mods than there are Skyrim proportionately to their install base. Not because it's any easier, or does more for the product. But because the sense of a community affecting a game as it grows and develops was always there with Minecraft.

And this isn't to say that people will stop playing Call of Duty. This kind of thing is probably an interesting piece of news in Facebook and Twitter accounts across the world. The change isn't taking place there. The biggest difference I see coming is an entire generation of people who grew up in a time when a small team could make an amazing and tight experience without all the bells and whistles that pass for value today, coming together and speaking with their wallets. It won't be about what you don't buy, and that's a refreshing thought.

I've been thinking about the implications of the iPad as a gaming device. The iPad appears to me, a person who has never owned an Apple product, as more of a toy than the past iterations of iPhones and iTouches and variations thereof. I hear about and sometimes get to try out iPhone games because they're popular amongst several of my friends, but that is the extent of my experience with Apple, which may color my opinion.
 
Nevertheless, I immediately began to think about the type of games that a touch screen of this size would be good for. I didn't see this as something to carry around, but rather as a fancy tablet to use on the couch. That's probably how I would use it, specially considering the price point. I immediately thought of games like Civilization, Settlers of Katan, RISK. Turn based, with a big pretty map and touch screen controls to navigate through a (hopefully) competent interface. But then I began to think beyond the immediately obvious, and started to think.
 
What about Sam & Max? Monkey Island? Those weird Indigo Prophecy type adventure games I never get around to on my PC because the game library on it is too attractive to have it anywhere near the top of the list? With a simplified Telltale-esque interface and touch control, along with a relatively easy-to-run engine allowing for a decent frame rate, I think it would be an attractive option, particularly if these type of games migrate even further into an episodic format. I wouldn't mind laying around on my couch for an hour or two and beating a new Monkey Island episode. 
 
However, moving forward into the realm of the more difficult to accomplish, I started thinking about RTS games. And while I don't think a touch interface would be able to compete with the speed needed for something like competitive Starcraft play with it's heavy reliance on hotkeys and 3 clicks per second madness, I think that slower paced games such as Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire, and even the Total War games might work well. Because a good part of these games involves navigating through tech trees, charts, tactical maps and the like, a touch based option could be viable.
 
Further influencing my enthusiasm in this particular matter, the seemingly open-ended nature of the development market for this platform appears a boon to both its longevity and potential library. Of course, this is particularly optimistic, but I think it's not completely unlikely. I'm cautiously curious about this one, as I am with most Apple products, since I've never actually bought one for myself. 
 
I don't want another gaming gadget. At least, in theory I don't. But truth be told, I like having a variety of consoles and toys that do weird things around the house, and this is definitely something I would like to have around. As someone who once bought a Neo-Geo, there are worse $500 dollar decisions I've made in the past.