Crowd+Funding+and+Video+Games

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 * What is Crowd Funding? Crowd Funding in the base form is consumers gathering together to fund some sort of project. When talking about as it relates to video games, it is the use of websites like //Kickstarter //and //Indiegogo// to fund the development of a video game. Generally the funder will be compensated with direct influence over how the end result will come out. There are usually two parties in crowd funding, the funders who fund the project and the campaigners who attempt to get the project funded. || media type="youtube" key="l0ljzAi5DuA" width="233" height="133" align="center" ||

=Failure= Some crowd Funding projects end up not being able to follow through delivering the game they promised.When a project fails, it is typically up to each individual sites rules on what the campaigners should do. An example case is the //Yogventures!// //kickstarter// project. The planning behind the project was poorly planned, and much of it is funding began to run out. When it was finally inevitable that the project would not be able to deliver on the game it promised, the director of the game added one last post to the project's campaign page that apologized, stated where the funds went exactly, and then essentially abandoned the project.

=Benefits of Crowd Funding= Video games often directly benefit from the crowd funding process. Such as the //Republique// kickstarter where the developers were originally going to port the game directly from mobile to PC, but due to the input of the funders they decided to make a game designed similar to the original mobile version but played to the strengths of the PC. Many potential funders spoke out against this, so the developers changed the plan to appeal to these people who were not funding the campaign because of the direct PC port. Anthony N. Smith talks about this relationship between the funder and the campaigner and how it can shape a game during and after the crowd funding process. Just like //Republique,// game developers can listen to the conversation happening around their campaign to make the campaign better so it can reach the funding goal. The interaction does not stop there though, as many developers take up the funders as a sort of focus testing group. Now this role changes from campaign to campaign, but this is better than normal focus testing for games as this group is more dedicated to the project. If they were willing to fund it, they would be happy to give ideas to make it better after all. Or at least answered questions the developers asked them.

=**Compared to Other Funding Methods**= Crowd funding is the most recent funding method for video games, and it has already changed the way game funding happens. The three original methods investors, publishers, and self funding. Self funding has always been the least likely scenario so it will for the most part continued to be ignored.

Publishers
Publishers are essentially companys like Electronic Arts that fund the game directly and set goals the developers have to meet in order to continue to get funding. Originally, publishers had power over the developers. The developers needed the publishers where as the publishers could easily find another developer. The process of finding a publisher could go on for a while, even if one is intensely interested. And the game is still being worked on at the same time while being funded out of pocket. So developers usually get desperate, which means the publishers have the upper hand. This is why most publishers gain control of the individual property (or IP) instead of the game developers keeping it. Crowd funding effectively changes this. Developers now have this medium where if a publisher does not agree quickly to agree to publish the game, they can attempt to self publish the game using crowd funding. In the future, this could end up leading to game developers keeping control over their IP's instead of the publishers.

Investors
As the name might suggest, these are traditional investors who buy stock in a company in order to control how it is run. This process usually leads to very inside the box kinds of games. Investors generally like safe games that will build a good company they can sell for a big return. This can, and usually does, conflict with the developers intentions of simply making a good game. Investors like to follow what are called design trends. Back when //Call of Duty: Modern Warfare// was a huge hit, more and more first-person shooters began to come out to attempt to follow in on this success. The same thing is happening now with open world games. These design trends usually cripple what the game designers can do, and lead to games that do not have a lot of passion behind them. Crowd funding changes this by giving the game designers an alternative to giving up artistic freedom on their game.

Examples of campaigns from the Auter Movement.
 * Auter Movement The Auter Movement is a movement currently happening in Japan where veterans of the game industry are currently leaving their large publishers to start their own game development studios to create games with a smaller team of highly skilled developers. Many of the most renowned Japanese developers have done this because of the introduction of crowd funding. || media type="youtube" key="XUWFH17Q3Aw" width="253" height="140" ||
 * //Mighty No. 9// by Keiji Inafune, developer behind the //Megaman// series.
 * //Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night// by Kogi Igarashi, developer behind //Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.//
 * Shenmue//[|3]// by Su Suzuki, developer behind //Shenmue 1 & 2.//

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Citation

 * Spaghetti. "Spaghetti". //Spaghetti.// @http://tinka.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/a-spaghetti.jpg. Web. April 25, 2016.


 * "Kickstarter." //Kickstarter//. PBC. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.


 * "Indiegogo." //Indiegogo.// Indiegogo. Web.2 5 Apr. 2016.


 * Extra Credits. "Extra Credits: Crowdfunding." Online video Clip. Youtube. Google, May 20, 2012. Web. April 25, 2016.


 * Winter Kewl Games LLC. "Yogventures!" //Kickstarter//. PBC. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.


 * Smith, Anthony N. "The Backer–Developer Connection: Exploring Crowdfunding’s Influence On Video Game Production." //New Media & Society// 17.2 (2015): 198. //Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File//. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.


 * Extra Credits. " The New Future of Japan - The Auteur Movement - Extra Credits ." Online video Clip. Youtube. Google, July 15, 2015. Web. April 25, 2016.


 * comcept USA, LLC. "Mighty No. 9." //Kickstarter//. PBC. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.


 * Kogi Igarashi. "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night." //Kickstarter//. PBC. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.


 * Ys Net. "Shenmue 3" //Kickstarter//. PBC. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.