Would you dare to play an online game where your future is decided by the community?

[TerraBravaStudio]

Hi all,

A question I keep coming back to while building my game, and I'd like to hear how you see it, both as players and as devs.

In most browser games, your progress is yours. You click, you wait, you level up, and the other players are scenery or targets.

I've been going the other way. In Sideralis, very little about your future is in your hands alone:

• Prices are set by players. What your factories earn depends on what everyone else is selling, and for how much. A rival dumping steel on the market can ruin your week.
• Your company is worth what others think it's worth. You can open your capital, and what players actually pay for your shares counts. You always keep control (no hostile takeovers), but your value isn't yours alone to decide.
• Other players can spy on you and sabotage you, and nobody sees the odds before trying.
• Even the game's direction is voted on. There's an ideas board inside the game: players propose and vote, and every suggestion gets a public answer, including the no's.

What I like about it is that every decision matters, because someone else feels it. The risks are obvious too: a new player can feel they have no control at all, and a small community can feel empty, or end up steered by two or three people.

So, honestly:

1. Would you have the nerve to play something like this, where the community writes a big part of your story?
2. Where's the line for you between "the community shapes the game" and "I have no agency"?
3. For the devs here: how much power have you handed to your players, and did you ever regret it?

I'd love to hear stories, good or bad.

(If you want to see what I mean, the game is here. But I'm more interested in the discussion than in the clicks.)