[fardo]

One of the best sonic games ever made, sonic mania, wasn’t made in-house by sonic team, but a handful of fans making fanwork.

Sega’s choice to treat their fanwork seriously and make them second-party developers rather than shutting them down was not only an immeasurably good thing for both the project and its fans, but a measurably, handsomely profitable move for Sega.

[bombcar]

I've just finished reading the Doom Black Book - https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/

The number of ports of Doom that were made by fans and only licensed after the work was done so it could be sold is surprisingly high. Randy Linden on the SNES is an interesting story (and the very chip he used was also a similar story at its inception).