I’ve thought for quite some time that software companies in general, and game developers in particular, are a natural for worker-owned co-ops to break from the stereotypical realm of co-op grocery stores and coffee shops. Start up costs can be kept low, and marginal cost of distribution is negligible.
This seems like a great move.
The problem is artists... They don't generally have the wiggle room a developer has, a handful of devs can take a sabbatical for 6 months easy, but the artists that can pump out assets are either in crazy high demand or need another job to eat. Even supporting another person living in a studio and eating ramen drastically changes the situation
It's actually something I've put thought into recently, i have a friend very passionate about artist exploitation but I haven't figured out the structure to make it work. Artists aren't rare, but they're very in demand... There's got to be some way to help them bind together to take chances like this
I think for the artwork it is also more important to have it all done by the same person, or have at least one person at the top who works on it full time. Programming is much easier to combine if each module is written by a different person as long as all are competent but art styles will clash unless all artists have some common artistic director or something similar.
This is the exception to the no preordering games rule. Supporting a co-op.