Well... I wasn't actually intending to address the original claim you mentioned, only to refute the child comment, "I am not aware of any good game that has been developed bazaar-style."
But it's interesting: I feel like you're describing two halves of a coin.
Mods take existing tech and iterate on gameplay rules to make a fun game.
Miegakure, in your supposition, has tech but no game.
Certainly, Miegakure's creator could not have developed it as a mod to an existing game. But once they wrote their engine, perhaps they could have released it and let mod creators experiment with the game part.
...In practice, that probably wouldn't actually work, just because it's hard to attract a modding community to a game that isn't already popular. But if a community somehow came to exist, the kind of trial and error that modders do sounds like a great way to stumble on the right gameplay concept that makes 4D actually fun. If such a concept exists. :)
But it's interesting: I feel like you're describing two halves of a coin.
Mods take existing tech and iterate on gameplay rules to make a fun game.
Miegakure, in your supposition, has tech but no game.
Certainly, Miegakure's creator could not have developed it as a mod to an existing game. But once they wrote their engine, perhaps they could have released it and let mod creators experiment with the game part.
...In practice, that probably wouldn't actually work, just because it's hard to attract a modding community to a game that isn't already popular. But if a community somehow came to exist, the kind of trial and error that modders do sounds like a great way to stumble on the right gameplay concept that makes 4D actually fun. If such a concept exists. :)