DevCoeur Guild
"Game Development, Leveled Up" 

The Vision

The Business of Creativity.

The DevCoeur guild provides structure, collaboration, and a shared economy of effort, putting developers at the ideal intersection of business and creativity. The guild removes the common obstacles that hinder independent game development and ensures that every contribution has value—whether it leads to a finished game or helps refine our creative process. Through experimentation, iteration, and shared success, the guild creates an ecosystem where developers thrive in both creativity and productivity.

Fixing Game Development.

Game development is often plagued by bad organization, marketing neglect, burnout, and team conflict. DevCoeur isn’t just about making games together—it’s about fixing game development by addressing these challenges at their root. The guild brings structure to development, establishes marketing roles early, fuels progress through passion instead of deadlines, and overcomes the tares of ego—fear of failure, perfectionism, and team friction—through an initiation gauntlet that ensures all members can deliver.

Gamifying Game Development.

Get XP in real life. DevCoeur turns game development into a rewarding progression system. Earn credits for completed tasks, gain recognition for contributions, and level up your skills through real projects. Just like in a game, every effort moves you forward—whether it’s grinding daily taglines, mapping out a design, farming sounds, or crafting code - rewards and achievements keep development exciting and sustainable.

The Structure

A Fluid Organization.

DevCoeur empowers members to contribute as much or as little as their passion allows. Any guild member can push an idea forward from inception to complete design. Once a concept is ready, a producer steps in to assemble a team, introducing leadership when it’s needed. The guild then votes on prototypes—greenlighting promising projects for full development or refining those that don’t yet meet the mark. This balance of open contribution and structured execution ensures that creativity thrives.

Voting

Guild decisions are made through three voting councils, each representing a different perspective within the guild. The final outcome is determined by the combined results of all three councils. The system is designed to balance democracy, leadership, and merit-based influence rather than being completely flat.

Member Council – Every guild member gets one vote. The decision is determined by a simple majority, which counts as one collective vote in the final outcome.

Leadership Council – The guild’s founders (or elected leaders) each get one vote. The majority decision counts as one collective vote in the final outcome.

Ownership Council – Votes are weighted based on credits held. For example, a member with 5 credits has 5 votes. The majority decision counts as one collective vote in the final outcome.

A decision passes if at least two of the three councils vote in favor. Otherwise, it is rejected. This system ensures:

Equal Representation – Every member has a voice through the Member Council.

Strategic Oversight – Leadership guides major decisions through the Leadership Council.

Merit-Based Influence – Contributors with more credits have more say through the Ownership Council.

The Credit System

Incentivizing Creativity.

DevCoeur operates on a credit-based economy, turning effort into equity. Every task that moves a game toward publishing, from initial concept to final production, is recognized and rewarded. As a project progresses, completed tasks generate residual credits—meaning that early contributions continue to earn rewards as later stages build upon them. This system incentivizes creative work, ensuring that every step in development is valued.

When a game is published, its profits are distributed among the members who contributed, in proportion to the credits they hold for that specific game. The more effort a member puts into a project, the greater their share of the final success. Over time, as more games are published and generate revenue, the overall value of the guild—and the credits within it—grows, much like an employee-owned company where success raises the worth of every stake. Every credit earned is both an immediate reward and a long-term stake in the guild’s future.

Achievement Recognition: Beyond Credits

Not all contributions fit within the credit system, but they still deserve recognition. DevCoeur features an achievement system to acknowledge milestones in game development. These achievements don’t carry monetary value, but serve to showcase a member’s impact on the guild.

FAQ

• Who owns the IP?  All projects originate from inside the guild. Don't bring your pet projects. The guild owns all IP originating from within the guild.

• When does the guild make money? After a game is published. If a game is successfully pre-sold, or crowdfunded. If investors invest. If merchandise is sold.

• How do members get paid?  Aside from the above, the shares of a published game can be minted into an NFT and sold. So if you have 20% of a game that brings in $10k per month, you might be able to sell the rights to its revenue for well over $2K.

• What happens if a project fails? There is no ultimate failure. But there is always micro-failure. If any part of a project fails, or ceases to inspire further development, it remains stagnant in the pool of projects until someone picks it up.

• What kind of projects does the guild take on? Scope is limited to short 3-month development cycles, which may actually be 6 months of part-time work. All projects must originate from within the guild. The guild does not take on Work-for-Hire projects.

• How does the guild ensure quality? The prototypes must be voted on. The quality of a publishable game can be determined by its Producer.

• What if there’s a dispute? The Producer guides the creative process of each game. Team members can join or leave a project at will.

• How does someone level up within the guild? There are no ranks in the guild. Members attain roles by going through the initiation process for each role.

• Is there a cost to join? No.

• How does marketing work?  Marketers will be guild members. Since marketers are not initially game developers, leadership will be recruiting marketers.

• Can members work on outside projects?  Absolutely.