Kickstarter isn't the only crowdfunding platform on the internet. There are plenty of folks jumping on the crowdfunding bandwagon, and with the decline of basic science funding, scientists are hoping to convince some backers that their pet projects are worth a multitude of small contributions. Here are just a few examples.
Jimmy Wales, who has become a bit of a thorn in the side of Hollywood of late, has given a speech in which he predicts that Hollywood is doomed, but not because of any threat from "piracy," but from the fact that technology and innovation means that the old infrastructure that filmmakers used to require is going away. As Ryan Singel at Wired reports, Wales' talk at the Internet Society's recent gathering let him predict that disruption was coming from the bottom up:
“Hollywood will be destroyed and no one will notice,” Wales said. But it won’t be Wikipedia (or Encarta) that kills the moviemaking industry: ”Collaborative storytelling and filmmaking will do to Hollywood what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica,” he said.
Wales hedged by saying predictions are easy — and he’s usually wrong. But he looks at a generation of kids growing up in a world of video and mastering editing software at a young age. His own 12-year-old daughter, Wales said, is already adept at iMovie and won a local award for a short film she made.
And just as Wikipedia has show that collaboration on the web is possible (despite the messiness, flame wars and turf battles found on Wikipedia Talk pages), the new generation will find ways to collaborate online to create movies to entertain themselves and their friends.
And, Wales says, they’ll do that with impressive special effects, CGI and even remote actors.
Of course, we've been seeing this trend already growing at the lower end of the scale for a while. For example, the power that individuals have to create amazing special effects has been documented for years, and the tools are only getting better and better. Does traditional Hollywood have even better tools? Absolutely, but this is a classic innovator's dilemma situation, where the tools at the low end are getting better at a faster rate, and they're reaching the "good enough" point pretty quickly -- such that the value of spending many many millions extra on special effects doesn't provide any significant benefit.
Add to that the growth of Kickstarter as an alternative funding platform, the growth of the internet as an alternative promotion and distribution method... and at some point the benefits of going with a traditional Hollywood studio become more difficult to quantify.
Of course, this isn't something that happens overnight, by any means. And there are some in Hollywood who appear to understand this and are working to get their studios ahead of the curve, though it's unclear if they'll be able to do that successfully. Either way, the point that Wales makes is a pertinent one. Instead of worrying so much about online infringement -- the studios might want to spend a little more time figuring out how they can remain relevant.
Here's an interesting one. Fast Company had professor Jonathan Taplin, director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab and the former tour manager for The Band debate Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit, Hipmunk* and Breadpig. The debate is definitely worth watching, but I'm disappointed with many of Taplin's claims. He starts out by going for the emotional, talking about how The Band -- whose drummer Levon Helm passed away the day after the debate -- had members who were no longer making $150,000 to $200,000 per year, as they had been able to do up until about 2002. As Alexis notes in response, there are all sorts of useful business models to help them make money -- and he's even offered to help them make money. And, indeed, the story of Helm is quite tragic, but at the same time, most people when they are no longer working tend not to make as much money as they did in the past. Copyright was never supposed to be a pension for retired musicians, so it seems odd to argue that it isn't doing that. That was never the intention.
Frankly, what bugs me most about Taplin's argument is that he continually takes things totally out of context. For example, he cites the familiar numbers about the "music industry" going from $20 billion to $6 billion. Yet he ignores that the overall music industry grew because other parts of the industry grew at a much faster rate. More ridiculous? He claims (totally incorrectly) that Chris Anderson believes that "everything should be free." Either he didn't read Chris Anderson's book, or he's purposely distorting the book, which focuses nearly all of its attention on how to get paid for content. In fact, most of the book is about ways in which a "freemium" model works -- where you have some stuff free, and other things paid. Why Taplin would then claim the book is that "everything should be free" is beyond me. To have a university professor so misrepresent Chris's book is ridiculous. He owes a major apology to Anderson.
Bizarrely, Taplin then claims that Reddit makes money off of piracy. Say what?! At this point I think he's just making things up.
He also completely misrepresents Google having to give the government $500 million concerning advertisements from unlicensed online pharmacies. Taplin calls them "phony drug ads," which is also inaccurate. In many cases the drugs were legit -- but the licensing of the pharmacies to deliver those drugs to the US was in question (some, in fact, appear to have been perfectly legit Canadian pharmacies). He then claims that if Google made $500 million on fake drugs ads they must be making more on "illegal pirate ads." I'm curious: who exactly is buying "illegal pirate ads"?
From there, he tosses in the whole controversy over Backpage.com -- which has nothing to do with copyright, and he falsely smears them as providing a service for pimping "young ladies" -- leaving out the fact that (a) a court has already cleared the company and (b) this has nothing to do with copyright.
Taplin seems to be throwing together a bouillabaisse of arguments without understanding any of them, and thus misrepresenting nearly everything.
Alexis does a great job with his intro, first pointing out how movie box office revenue has increased, and then pointing out how innovation is the key here, and that industries can innovate their way forward, and points to Kickstarter's success as an example of how that's already beginning. Taplin, playing the old curmudgeon, insists this is all crazy. He mocks the movie stat because it ignores the collapse of DVDs. Of course if folks like Taplin had their way, there would be no home video market, because they tried to make it illegal back in the 1970s and 1980s (an inconvenient fact he seems to have forgotten). He also mocks Kickstarter because it won't fund Martin Scorcese's latest film. This is typical of someone who doesn't seem to understand the the innovator's dilemma. It's kind of shocking, frankly, that someone in charge of a so-called innovation lab doesn't understand how innovation works.
In the second part of the debate, Taplin goes full on elitist, mocking those people who use Kickstarter to fund a piddly $50,000 movie, because apparently, to him, those movies don't count. And yes, earlier in the debate, he was talking about how he was really concerned about the up and comers. He also seems to think that the only movies that matter are the movies that score big distribution deals. He's internally inconsistent and doesn't even seem to realize it. He goes on to mock the idea that musicians can make money other than through record sales. Except, he assumes (incorrectly) that the only way to make money is concert sales, and then says that some acts just can't get enough people to see them live. Um, duh. But that's always been true. Most musicians never sold enough music to make a living either, but we don't pass a law to change that. Taplin seems to be complaining that not all musicians or movie makers are rich. I didn't realize that was an issue.
Taplin then comes up with his "solution." It's to have every ISP charge users $2 to $3/month which would go into a giant global pool that would be distributed to copyright holders. Immediately, someone in the comments points out that doesn't fix bad contracts. It's even worse than that. First, the entertainment industry would insist that $2 to $3 is way too low. Hell, most music services alone get $10 or so per month. And really what Taplin is doing is to create a giant bureaucracy that won't effectively help small artists. He talks about ASCAP as the model for this. I wonder what he has to say about the fact that ASCAP takes money from up-and-coming artists and gives it to the largest acts.
Both videos are worth watching. The whole thing is only about 25 minutes, and I think Alexis more than holds his own, though it would have been nice if there was a little more time to hit back on many of Taplin's claims.
* Corrected after learning that Alexis didn't found Hipmunk -- just joined pre-launch.
One of the things that we always hear about new business models from critics is that they can't possibly "replace" some of the old business models. Often the talk is about how they're only good for "small" things, and how they simply can't scale. Of course, this seems to underestimate the nature of early experiments and how things grow over time. For example, Kickstarter has certainly become quite an amazing tool for helping to fund projects in the past couple of years. However, when discussing Kickstarter in the past, I've heard people complain that while it may be great for "small" projects of a few thousand dollars, it couldn't ever fund something "real," like more traditional sources could.
And yet... we've discussed how last year, Kickstarter users funded nearly $100 million in projects, and this year it's predicted to go much higher. And, already, we saw Kickstarter pass its first few million dollar projects. Then, late last week, the folks behind the Pebble e-paper watch announced that they were using Kickstarter to do pre-sales of their new iPhone and Android versions (previously they'd only offered a Blackberry version). The watch itself is certainly pretty cool. A smartwatch which is totally customizable, has a variety of apps, and basically acts as an interface with your phone (and it looks good).
And lots and lots of people agreed. Within just 28 hours they had already passed $1 million. $2 million ticked off soon after. It's now approaching $4.5-million, making it the highest revenue Kickstarter project ever—and it's the fastest to get to those kinds of numbers.
No, we're still not talking about the huge budgets around Hollywood blockbuster movies -- but we're already going well past what the most expensive albums cost to record. But, more importantly, it's not difficult to see the trend lines here. And, Kickstarter has only been around for about three years. Go back to the beginning of Hollywood. How long did it take the traditional methods to get around to funding $3 million movies?
As Kickstarter (and similar platforms) become more and more popular, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility to see a major motion picture funded via such a platform. This isn't to say (as I know someone will accuse) that this is the only way that such things will be funded. But it does highlight, yet again, that if there's demand, there will be ways to fund these things. If you don't think the future is full of amazing opportunities, you're simply not paying attention.
If there is one sure way to succeed in the modern age, it is by being open, human and awesome. This is something that we are learning over and over again in the entertainment world, and it is especially true for those running successful Kickstarter campaigns. What started with the success of Double Fine's adventure game campaign has lead to the success of a number of other games. One of those games is inXile's Wasteland 2 project. This project is on track to raise over $1.5 million and as Brian Fargo has learned, this is all because the people behind the project have been open, human and awesome with their fans.
In the opening statement of the latest project update, Brian expresses his gratitude for the outpouring of support the project has received.
I continue to be overwhelmed by the positive feedback and enthusiasm from the support I have gotten from Kickstarter. The groundswell of people cheering us on and the evangelism - people spreading the word - is unlike anything I have experienced. In fact, I would say the last week was the high water mark of my career.
This is one of the best statements of gratitude I have ever read from an artist. Brian recognizes that this success is due completely to those who have shown support by donating and sharing the project with others. Without those two actions, there would be no Wasteland 2. As Brian further notes, all this came from being open and human. He shares the story of two people in particular that show the power of that philosophy.
On the next day I get a short tweet from an individual that confesses he pirated Wasteland as a kid and was donating to help make up for it. I of course forgave not knowing he had donated $10,000 dollars. An incredible gesture... now if we could get every pirate of Wasteland 1 to donate we could really beat the Kickstarter all time record.
This is the true power of openness and humanity. The power to turn a pirate into a paying customer. While not all pirates will turn around and pay $10,000, many will turn around and pay full price for later content made by an artist they love as well.
In the next story, Brian notes just how long lasting this openness and humanity lasts in the hearts and minds of fans.
And just today I got an email along with a donation from a kid who lived down the street from me when he was a teenager. His note was as follows:
"This message is intended for Brian Fargo. Brian, I was your next door neighbor when you used to live in Laguna. I was a pesky 15 or 16 year old kid that would come around and ask you about games. You would sit down and take time to talk to me about games, and the industry, and I just wanted you to know how cool it was that you didn't blow me off. It meant a lot to me. Recently, I found out about your Kickstarter movement for Wasteland 2, and I contributed to it because I believe in you and your ability to resurrect the glory of the franchise. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and thank you again for creating some memorable memories for me during my teenage years. Take care!"
It shows that being nice creates goodwill 20 years later.
If that kind of attitude toward his fans created a lasting effect of 20 years, just imagine how much more goodwill he has built up during that time and what he will now build up. This is not some get rich quick scheme but a way to find lasting success. Success that will last 20 years and beyond.
All of this success has led Brian to further express his humanity and gratitude. Rather than hold to this success and keep it all for himself, he has decided to help fund future Kickstarter projects. In a plan he calls "Kick It Forward", he will donate 5% of the profits made from Wasteland 2 toward other Kickstarter projects and asks that all other successful projects do the same. While the money he pledges won't come until after the completion of Wasteland 2, there are many other Kickstarter projects already making money that can really get this campaign rolling. What a wonderful way for artists to further express their humanity and awesomeness.
More and more crowdfunded projects are popping up all the time. We've mentioned a few recently, like the video game that collected over $3 million from tens of thousands of folks who essentially pre-ordered the game before it was even created. Here are just a few more cool Kickstarter projects that look interesting.
I'm kind of wondering if this one would have gone over better a few months ago, when SOPA and PIPA were still on the legislative agenda, but Andrew Couts at Digital Trends points us to a bit of a silly Kickstarter project to get the text of SOPA and PIPA custom printed on a roll of toilet paper (where they belonged in the first place). SOPA is pretty long, at over 70 pages (PIPA was a lot shorter), but there's still some extra space, where backers can leave their "own messages" for bathroom reading about SOPA or PIPA.
So far, the project doesn't have many backers, and looks like it has a pretty good chance of failing, but it is notable just how ingrained the absolute badness of these bills has become in the culture today.
ChurchHatesTucker points us to yet another example of how the strictures of the legacy entertainment industry are at odds with modern attitudes towards culture and creativity, and the hypocrisy of those who rely on fair use but seek to limit it for others. First, a bit of background:
The NBC series Community (which is awesome, by the way) recently introduced a show-within-the-show: a parody of Dr. Who entitled Inspector Spacetime and shown only in a few short clips. Travis Richey, the actor who portrays the titular character for his few seconds on screen, and who is also an experienced web series producer, immediately saw the potential to extend the fake show into a series of real shorts. He approached the Community creators with a script, only to discover that, as he puts it, "Hollywood doesn't work quite that way." He then had his agent pitch it through official studio channels, but never heard back—so he took the idea to Kickstarter, planning to produce the series himself.
Lawyers from Sony and NBC have contacted me demanding that I cease production on an Inspector Spacetime web series.
Though I firmly believe the law would be on my side in producing this parody, I have no wish or ability to fight a show that I love as much as "Community." I had hoped that they would embrace what is essentially a fan film and appreciate the value it adds to the character, and the audience that we would bring who are finding "Community" for the first time through this character, but alas, that's not the case. So, I will be removing all references to Inspector Spacetime from this series (it only happened in the title anyway), and altering the appearance of the Inspector so that he does not look like Inspector Spacetime. What remains is 100% the creation of myself, my writing partner, and you, the fans.
The title card on the video now reads "Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time", and the project is already more than half-funded, with the rest of the month still to go. Richey says the money is for equipment only: everyone involved is a volunteer, and the finished series won't be monetized at all. This is a case of someone who just loves to create, for its own sake, being blocked by problematic, hypocritical legal claims. Problematic because a name and a simple character concept, barely established with a handful of brief clips, should really fall on the idea side of the idea/expression dichotomy; hypocritical because that character is himself a direct parody of a much bigger cultural icon, and relies on that very same dichotomy for his existence.
Some will say that it's no big deal: he changed the title, and now he can make the series. Luckily, this time, that does appear to be the case—but there is no reason even that should have been necessary. As Richey says, he still thinks he is in the right, but has no intention of going to court: not just because of the expense, but because he doesn't want to. He wants to create, not have creator-fights with his peers. But somehow the industry that claims its every move is about protecting creators always manages to get in the way of people like that.
An interesting point made by Carl Franzen, looking at the continued growth of Kickstarter raising funds for content creators, is that the site is expected to surpass the amount of funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts this year. They're expecting to break $150 million (this past year it was closer to $80 million), while the NEA has $146 million to give out. Obviously, there are all sorts of differences between the two, but as a milestone, it seems interesting and noteworthy. Also, of course, $150 million may pale in comparison to what some of the big entertainment companies spend, but watch the trend lines and remember your innovator's dilemma lessons, and you'll begin to recognize that new opportunities and new business models have tremendous potential. The old ones? They're losing steam...
Whoa. After dinner, I did a quick look around the web to see if anything interesting was going on, and saw someone mention that the Double Fine Adventure project on Kickstarter had raised over $100,000 in just a few hours. I clicked to open the page, but then went off to do some other things, take my dog for a walk, tuck my son into sleep, chat with my wife, etc. Then I came back to my computer, and someone else mentioned that it had now raised over $200,000. And as I write this, it's getting mighty close to $300,000. Who knows where it'll be by the time you read this. Either way, the basic story is that popular game development shop Double Fine wants to create a new point-and-click adventure game, but says that no publisher will pay for such a thing (even though they have Ron Gilbert -- the creator of the original Monkey Island games on staff).
So they decided to go to Kickstarter. And, as a part of that project, they're also planning to create a documentary film about the making of the game... using the same filmmaking team, 2 Player Productions, who have also been working on a documentary about video game maker Notch (who you hopefully know already). But they wanted to raise $400,000. $300,000 for the game, and $100,000 for the documentary. That's still a significant chunk to raise over Kickstarter... but clearly the public thinks it's worth it. You should check out the awesome video that Tim Schafer, Double Fine's boss, put together, embedded here:
The video is quite awesome.
Separately, Double Fine wanted to offer some super premium tiers which were simply too rich for Kickstarter to handle, so they had to post them to their own website. These include the following:
Pledge $15,000 or more:
Dinner with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $20,000 or more:
Dinner and BOWLING with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $30,000 or more:
Picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $35,000 or more:
Undoctored picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $50,000 or more:
Become an actual character in the game.
Pledge $150,000 or more:
Tim Schafer (that’s me) will give last four remaining Triangle Boxed Day of the Tentacles, in original shrink-wrap.” (Limit of 1) (Holy crap, what am I thinking? I only have four of those!)
There are plenty of interesting things to discuss about all of this, but one of the key points is that this shows how content creators sometimes can read a market much better than the traditional gatekeepers. Double Fine knows that no publisher would give them money for this game because the "experts" at those publishers (gatekeepers) don't think there's a real market for them. But there clearly is, and it's all coming out thanks to the Kickstarter campaign, and this massive rush to fund the game.
I also find this amusing, coming just hours after someone was telling me on Twitter that Kickstarter was no way to fund serious development, because people just aren't willing to pay for creating new things. It appears that plenty of people disagree. Anyway, we've embedded the pledge widget below, because at the rate people are pledging, I'm sure the numbers we talk about above are likely to be out of date pretty quickly, and it seems likely that this game will far surpass its $400k goal. I'm just wondering if Ron Gilbert will ever actually smile.
