In the third of three articles from GDC based on our chat with Acclaim CEO Howard Marks, we look at Top Secret. A revolutionary community designed and developed MMO project, Top Secret may well become the American Idol of video game competitions... or it may fail completely. With something this new, it's hard to tell, but having just announced the project, it was fascinating to see where Acclaim stands on it.

On message boards around the Internet, people have long whined that developers don't listen to them. There are thousands of indie MMOs in development, with guys who have good ideas, a few relevant skills and a dream. Now, Acclaim hopes to bring all that to the next level with an American Idol style collaborative game called Top Secret.

"I'm really happy that people are not happy," Acclaim CEO Howard Marks paradoxically proclaimed. Indifference was what could have killed Top Secret and so far, that is the one thing they have not seen. Strong opinions on both sides of the equation have been good news for the team.

Directed by David Perry, Top Secret is a collaborative project where the first 100,000 people to sign up gain the ability to influence the design, code, art and general direction of a fully funded MMO project. They post their ideas, their models, their code and Acclaim's team judges the best and imports it into the game. Some have mistaken Top Secret for a cheap way out of paying developers, which Marks insists it is not, noting the fully funded development team that does most the day-to-day development.

"The time of selling out is over," Marks told us during our GDC interview. He looks at the gaming industry as one plagued by derivative games, sequels and licenses and longs for the good old days of original ideas and innovation. And he believes Top Secret is one step back towards that.

All of Acclaim's more traditional products have relied heavily on user feedback during the development process, mostly in the form of surveys. Top Secret is the logical extension of that. This time, they set the basic direction - Perry's first community letter reveals that the game is an MMO racing title - and then let the community compete to fill in the blanks. Ultimately, Perry remains a director in every sense of the word. If the coolest system the community submits just doesn't make sense with the rest of the game, he is there to act as a check.

So, with the largest development team in history of 100,000 people, how do they filter out the noise? The first line of defense is a user reputation system that lets players vote down ideas and people that have not made a positive contribution. These systems have historically been rather effective. Beyond that, a team of moderators will also be hard at work to try and keep things on topic. Eventually though, they have to pick the ideas to incorporate and that is where David Perry and his friends come in. The team hopes to bring in a range of celebrity guest judges in various areas to make sure that the content selected is in fact worthy. Tommy Tallarico's name was thrown out as one that may come and help judge sound.

While the title is cooperative and takes community submissions in all areas including code, art, design and even tools, it is not an open source project. Once incorporated, the game will be treated like any other commercial product.

While Top Secret is interesting, it's the project that follows that might prove to be the real experiment. Based on this, Acclaim will select a winner and name them director of their own fully funded MMO. That person will work remotely and while there have been vague allusions to royalties as payment, Acclaim noted that they will do what is necessary to make sure their winner can perform their duties and pay the bills. The second project will retain Perry as an Executive Producer.

Marks told us that he hopes to do more Top Secret-type games, but will let the success or failure of this first attempt dictate that. Even if it bombs, he doesn't see why the company wouldn't honor its commitment and give the winner their own title.

Ultimately, this is something Marks and Acclaim feel is very important for the industry as a whole. Perry blatantly stated in his first community email that he anticipates developers to use this as a headhunting operation, so even if someone doesn't win, they may still get noticed. It really is American Idol for gamers.

Acclaim has a production, testing and launch schedule in mind for Top Secret, but is not quite ready to give that information out. Don't expect this to be a three year marathon though. Once released, the game will sport a similar business model to 2Moons and 9Dragons (free to play, advertising/micro-payment hybrid).