•A development studio working on an upcoming title called Summer Eternal is offering players a direct role in how the company is run, through a newly formed “Players Non-Profit” organisation that owns 5 percent of the studio.
The announcement came alongside the formal reveal of a 500-page Anthology. According to coverage by Gamer24h’s Eurogamer, buying anything from the studio—including this volume—entitles purchasers to join the Players Non-Profit community organisation, which takes part in the studio’s governance.
The Players Non-Profit owns a five percent share in our studio. The other 95 percent is divided between other stakeholders: full-time workers, freelancers and investors in Summer Eternal.
Summer Eternal
The developers describe the structure as “more a collective than it is a company,” with community and developer ownership cited as core philosophical tenets. The studio explains that although 5 percent may seem small, it is “powerful enough for the player-pool to summon a general Assembly to discuss a topic.”
“This non-profit will be the ‘voice of the gamers’ in an experimental attempt to formalise the community decision-making in game development,” Summer Eternal said. The non-profit can use game revenue to organise events, support union-work, or whatever its assembly—comprised of all members—decides on.
The studio says the collective’s primary function is to “provide transparency and actionable means of interception to those who’ve put their trust in us,” allowing players to challenge features, mechanics, characters, or scenes. This communal approach to development is described as far rarer than Early Access initiatives, which studios commonly use but are described as inconsistent.
The Anthology doubles as part treatise on radical development ideas and the politics of making games in 2026, and part development diary about a project called Red Rooster. It includes interviews with economists Yanis Varoufakis and Richard Wolff, science fiction author Ted Chiang, Bioware veterans Mark Darrah and David Gaider, as well as stories from worker-run organizations such as the UVW-CWA, Aftermath, and Peregrine Coast Press.
The Anthology is available for purchase in a Standard edition for €69 and a Deluxe Firestarter bundle for €99 that comes with a vinyl and additional merch. Purchasing a copy also grants membership in the Summer Eternal Players Non-Profit organisation.
Elsewhere on the site, you can read a big reveal piece that outlines the new game from former Disco Elysium devs under the name of Summer Eternal – an “incendiary RPG” fusing the best bits of text-heavy isometric role-playing games with the world-building and player agency of an immersive sim. It’s bold, it’s ambitious, and it’s still in development, and if it all comes off, it could be something really special.
Studios commonly work ‘behind closed doors’ until they’ve got a nearly shippable build to show, and then players might get a demo or the press may see a build before general release. There are, of course, some studios that buck that trend with Early Access initiatives, but they are hit and miss for studios.
you can purchase one here – it’s €69 for the Standard edition, and €99 for the Deluxe Firestarter bundle that comes with a vinyl and additional merch. And, naturally, if you buy a copy of the book, you will also be entitled to a membership in the Summer Eternal Players Non-Profit organisation. You can join that initiative here.
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