Where a highly skilled development team would pick up your indie prototype/wip game and pimp it out with high end features and artwork?
So cars went from this…
to this…
Would the same format of reality TV work for indie games and which studio would you want to pimp your game and why?
…Not really.
Basically, in this case there will be very little left from original idea, meaning it will be no longer game of original author, but a game made by that team.
Maybe small parts of a game, like a character or level, but not a whole game. It would just take way to long. A jeep like that could get modded in a day. A game (even for a AAA studio) would take weeks. It’s just not realistic.
Isn’t “pimp my ride” on a game the definition of a mod?
LOL or if you have to pay for it DLC?
Well it wouldn’t work if you gave them the game equivalent of a partially assembled car with bits missing…
Think about what a team of great graphics artists, modellers, animators, programmers, musicians and developers could do to pimp your ‘working’ game in 24-48 hours.
They could definitely Juice up your game like this…
And think of the polish/juiciness/pimpage experienced developers could bring to your game.
lol… its an interesting idea…
I’m sure some pioneering twitch streamer(s) might setup a website to take prototype submissions, then spend a week on the idea/submission they liked best or figured they could do the most improvement for given what the submission came with… what about the licenses for all the required assets used in the submitters Unity project 
And unlike the TV show the owner of the car isn’t likely going to be selling his/her pimped out ride…
While in this format the developer for the winning submission entry might get a much more improved game/assets back in which they would definitely be wanting to make money from, I’m sure for anyone who worked on the game who provided much needed improvement to take it to a better level might feel they should get a cut of the sales… it just gets iffy.
Yknow the money incentive… For a TV show the team is already paid upfront by the network for expensive and time. Short of them doing it out of charity, entertainment or an altruistic endeavor.
Think about what a team of great graphics artists, modellers, animators, programmers, musicians and developers could do to make a game on their own that they get to keep all the profits from.
I’ll get back to you when I think of a name for it. 
What about Fun, Love of Game Development, Altruism, Publicity and if they find a great game Sponsored Publishing!
How many of those pay the bills?
You should know by now few people do this game dev stuff for those reasons. $$$$$$$ seems to be the main reason.
That aside, I think it is an awesome idea. And actually it is what small publishers such as Big Fish Games do (or used to at least). They used to say send your work and don’t worry about graphics and so forth. If they like the game itself they would put artists on it as needed to polish up the graphics and so forth.
I think having just the polish it up part available would be ideal for solo programmer game devs. We can kind of do that already by hiring artists to redo the graphics but it would be awesome to have such a service (even paid) that would simply take a game and then create all music, sound fx and graphics to replace the placeholders in the original version. Actually seems like such a thing probably exists already someplace. If not then it should.
Because people who make games on their own are all miserable and greedy.
Maybe I’ve just seen too many “Make my game for me!” posts. If that’s not what this is, then I agree with Gar that a polishing service could neat, rather than fixing broken or half-assed messes.
If a finished game made with some degree of competence needed an extra bit of oomph, that’s one thing. But you’d probably have to wade through all the semi-assembled piles of store bought assets with ambiguous feature lists tacked on to find anything like that.
But even then I’m skeptical. How many people do you see get that far that haven’t already hired help or figured it out on their own?
They are called contractors and consultants. There are many, many individuals and teams available for this.
No.
Reality TV works because it is interesting or a train wreck for people to watch. No one is interested in game development, and it is not interesting to watch. Game development reality shows happen often, they just almost never air. Watching someone program or draw something that a really long time to do is dead boring.
And the pimping someones game is lame mashup (hard to call it an idea). A game in development, is not a car or a house. It is someone’s craft/art. What developer would want some others to come in mess with their work for a tv show? It makes no sense as to how it world work. If a
“contestant” needs that much help to improve their game, they shouldn’t be making games. Not winning surprise help from professionals. Games take years to build, this would be a massive waste of time for the developers and consultants. Ugh…
This is a sign of someone who has never tried to make games on their own. Simply put people who make their own games rarely have the time and finances to invest in the games others are making. Many of them are working day jobs and many of them have families.
We’re constantly seeing people on these forums mention that they only have one or two hours a day to develop their games after those responsibilities are handled. We also occasionally have people like @HemiMG_1 that mention they are barely staying in business and need to focus entirely on their own games.
Where would these people get the time or financial stability to assist others in a big way? Posts from @Arowx have a tendency to sound fantastic but the ideas are often infeasible and there is no explanation for how to make them so.
Q: How do they make the Pimp My Ride Show, how do they get speciality garages who need money to spend time working on someone’s car?
Same way you make any other show. Advertisements and sponsors.
By the way you may want to read these news articles before comparing your idea to that show.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2971533/Pimp-Ride-contestants-reveal-Xzibit-s-customized-cars-fake-just-didn-t-work.html
https://www.dailyworth.com/posts/3362-i-was-on-pimp-my-ride-here-s-what-happened
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/pimp-my-ride-cars_n_6663840.html
If the news articles are to be believed then the show was a scam, the add-ons largely didn’t work, and one blew up.
I was being sarcastic. I know all about being severely underweight as a result of trying to feed myself on the love for my craft.
Sarcasm is best paired with an emoticon to show that it is sarcasm.
Fair enough. In my defense, the rest of my reply did indicate my position. But I should make things easier to scan through. 
Back on topic, sort of: Didn’t the devs of Nuclear Throne stream development? If so, that may give some merit to the idea, other flaws aside.
They are paid, and paid for their appearance. Not to mention promotion for their business and merchandising.