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Crowd funding
Golarum
Member Posts: 151
Hey all,
I know that this debate has been done in the past on mmorpg.com but I wanted to share my point of view that I've had for a while on the subject.
Of course, there will be lots of people who won't share my views, and you are welcome to share yours, let's have an open minded discussion.
I am completely against crowd funding for any kind of project that is part of a private company, I will explain. I understand that we live in a consumer's society and that people feel the need to have everything, and from that need come decisions like for example, funding from their pockets projects that are owned by private companies with no monetary incentive returned, I personally would rather invest my money in a money making company where I have a chance to resell my investment and make more money, yes there is a risk, but the rewards can be amazing.
I see so much money thrown away, and yes I use the term thrown away on kickstarter for example on games, electronics, objects, etc, but if anyone dares to ask you for a dollar to help the poor, the sick children or any kind of meaningful charity, it's the end of the world, HOW DARE THESE DEVILS ask me for my hard earned money. Imagine all the money that is wasted on non charity crowd funded projects did go to the people in need in this world, we would actually see a huge decline in poverty. Just Kickstarter has had over 1.6 billion dollars invested in it's projects, that could build millions of shelters, create thousands of jobs, give clean water and food, medicine, etc to a lot of people/communities/countries in need. But no, I cannot send 20$ to help children who lost their parents in the war, but I can give 200$ to a private company that will get a game out to fill it's own pockets.
I know that people who put their money into crown funded projects do not have bad intentions, and I know that there are people who do both crowd funding and helping charities, but I am not talking about the few who do, but the majority who don't.
Unfortunately, we live in a individualistic society where my ''want'' is more important that the needs of the community.
I already know some of the arguments some people will make, a lot of people will also say that a lot of charities are dishonest, they put money in their pockets, there is some truth to this, but these are few, for every dishonest charity, there are a 100 honest ones, and if you do your research, you will find the good ones, if you don't find, it's because you don't want to find them.
As I said when I started this post, let's have an open discussion about this, and also, I am not here to criticize you, but rather to show you my vision on the matter, if you really feel that your hard earned money is being used the right way by crowd funding projects, then it is your money and your choice to do that, but me personally, imho, it is not a very smart choice to do so.
Comments
Really, you want to go into spending habits of people.
Good luck.
1) how people wish to spend the money they have earned is there own choice. if they want to give up money to a company.... but instead of recieving monetary gain decide they rather have some form of other payment in the realm of a tangible or intangible good or service.....well that's just an opportunity cost. remember most of the successful crowd funding is filling a market need(a new type of product, filling a niche entertainment need, providing a cheaper version of a different product, etc). The risk isn't in the decision to spend the money(if you decide you like the crowd funding's pretense, then you like the crowd funding's pretense).................. its on the back end hoping the company will deliver on promises.
2) non-government funded(ie not paid by taxes) charities are crowd funding. you can't dislike crowd funding yet like charities because they are the same thing. the only difference is the term "crowd funding" is a buzzword to make the transaction sound more business like. Benefits(the benefit from a charity for the person donating is in the from of an intangible) and the pitfalls(scams and unanswered promises) remain the same regardless if you use the term charity or crowd funding.
look at donating money to cure a disease.....you give funding from your own pocket to a charity who then gives it to private research institutions. if they succeed you get no monetary incentive return but then the pharmaceutical companies make BILLIONS off of said cure(assuming they just don't bury the cure for profit margin reasons).
3) taking away peoples right to choose just results in economic stagnation. if people are forced to give all there excess cash to others there is no incentive to work...which results in the market grinding to a halt. this was seen in many of the countries that decided to adopt the economic model called communism.
4) all that kickstarter money did go to creating jobs and keeping roofs over peoples heads. the kick starter companies(non scams) used the crowd funding money to hire people or purchase supplies from other companies thus creating a lively hood for the people involved. the only difference is instead of purchasing the social benefits outright, the process used economic drivers to do so instead.
5) the problem with social charities as you have described is they don't typically solve the problem just mask it. you give people food...they eat it...they need food again a day later. you create shelters for poor....they can't afford to maintain it....you end up with ghettos. Unless you find permanent solutions to the problems which are often at a government level(like stoping drug trade, programs to keep people from having babies they cant afford, etc) all you end up with at the end of the day is a bottomless money hole.
of course there are somethings like disaster relief and homelessness due to mental or developmental illness that are exceptions. But remember these problems often get buried under the other endless but preventable social problems.
in conclusion....while i agree crowd funding money could be spent on more charitable causes, i feel its unfair to villainize people who choose not too.
My research has shown that i would not want to spend money into ANY of these crowd funding games.
I could go for crowd funding ,if it were perhaps a few dudes out of college but NOT towards known industry leaders who are already rich and have the avenues to get their own funding.This is simply a money grab ,this is EASIER for the developer to get rich and with ZERO downside,as with an investor they have someone to answer to as well as possible lawsuits.
I can simply point to the Naughty Dog team,a known giant developer now,started as a few kids out of college.If they could do it without crowd funding,certainly an industry leader could do it.However why should they even try if they see a ton of suckers willing to give them free money and with nobody to answer to.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am aware of crowd funded charities, that is why I was careful to state that I am against crowd funded private projects. Pharmaceuticals though are another debate, unfortunately, we need some of them, but most of them are just dishonest money grabbers, but I will not get into that debate for now
As for jobs, yes come of these projects are creating jobs, but with that same amount of money you are giving to 2-3 or 4 employee companies you can invest it to open a 50 employees company ( I am refering to a total amount a project is given), for example, these 2 guys have this single player game, they create it themselves, crowd funded for let's say 1 million $, sell it online, make an insane amount of money, then retire or try to figure out their next product, they did not really create any jobs other than for themselves, but if you took that million $ and invested it into opening a real production business for example, you would employ 20-40 people easily with that million $.
Some charities do mask the problem, but a lot of them don't, for example, charities that focus on finding jobs for the homeless, charities that build water wells and farms in poor towns, charities that give a chance at life to children that lost all their parents in the war, etc. I can name hundreds of causes that would benefit from this money on the long run much better than most of these crowd funded private projects.
Again, as I said in my post, everyone have the choice to do whatever they want with their money, but that doesn't change the fact that only putting your money into these kind of projects, and never giving back to the community is very individualistic. I think we need a balance.
Me personally, I spend a lot of money on games, I love gaming, but I invest that money into a finished product, a product that a company worked night and day to make, that they invested their own time and money to make. To me that product is something I will put my money into, but there's no way I will give my money to someone else to help them profit from it. I would rather give that money to someone who needs it.
Honestly I think the balance is pretty good between crowd funding and charitable contributions. After a quick google search I found these two interesting statistics...
2013 Crowd funding - 5.1 Billion dollars
2013 Charitable Contributions - 335.17 billion dollars
When you look at the numbers, yes it is a fair advantage for charities, but probably over 99.9% of these contributions come from governments, companies or charitable entities. Here I am talking about personal contribution, your average Joe who decides to put his money into crowd funding.
I have a deep respect for companies that fund their games without crowdfunding.
It shows me that they have confidence in their product and makes me more willing to support it.
Then it's a good thing that it's completely voluntary.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Can you better explain this connection between level of confidence and available funds/assets? I'm not following.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I hate to break it to you but there are charities that "throw away money". A well known Canadian charity last year raised 45+ million in donations and received no government funding. From that 45+million they spent 17% on the actual charity programs/research. Everything else was used as overhead or probably for tax breaks(meeting expenses, fundraising campaigns, paying employees or donating money to other charities).
You think that there is only 1 dishonest charity for every 100? That might be true but of those 99 that are left how many are actually spending over 60-80% of their revenue on the charity itself? Its probably lower than you think.
Private investors vs Public Investors.
If you have a solid product you'd be able to find investors without any hassle.
There are tons of indie games that fund their own projects either out of their own pocket or by finding people who aren't their future customers to put up a little money.
I think that the feeling towards crowdfunding mainly lies in what kind of person you are. If you're the kind of person who's not willing to do anything for others without a direct reward, you will not like crowdfunding. If you enjoy helping others and making the world a better place (in this case, help produce products you think are good to have), you will like crowdfunding. There are a lot of shade in between, but I think that sums it up.
I've also seen another way to describe it: crowdfunding is a liberal idea. If you're conservative, there's a good chance you won't like it.
(In response to the general responses here and typical feelings read about the internet and not just the OP's post)
So people who have money are trustworthy to make good games. As a result, those who adhere to publishers will definitely make a quality product without shady practices whereby things are forced on you without choice.
While some may see games like Star Citizen going all out with sales, ultimately that's a choice an individual makes. Whereas DRM and others things are not.
Nothing is inherently good or bad. You simply have to do research on a case by case basis. I've supported seven games with crowdfunding. Most have come out and I've been exceedingly satisfied with them; two have not, but I'm getting adequate updates.
It's a risk to even buy finished games nowadays for the consumer. Let's not place distrust in proven developers who have a reputation at stake rather than someone who just gets out of class -- or claims they have -- and has no experience to give what they say they can offer. This, to me, seems backwards as a whole.
Granted, that is not to say that new guys and girls can't produce something good and innovative. They just have to provide more proof that they are capable that just doesn't revolve around hype and marketing.
The massive budgets we've had in the last few years for games did not make them any better; many of them are something some consumers would consider poor, yet they sold on hype and pre-orders and franchise. Having money as opposed to asking for it does not make a good game; in fact, it's a process of games development to acquire money throughout development. It used to be only from publishers and investors. Now people have a chance to get things made from a genre that some might think is dead.
Thus do we enter the resurgence of CRPGs such as Pillars of Eternity.
I have two main concerns about Crowdfunding in gaming.
1 - I've been around long enough to have seen how easy it is to make it appear as if a game is actually being made well, only to find either there is no end product or that there is no usable end product.
This concern is easily alleviated by my power of choice not to put up money.
2 - A massive increase in toxicity and the sense of entitlement that runs rampant in our community.
I have already seen posts decrying crowdfunded games spending money on advertising. As if them putting up 5, 10 or 100 dollars has made them feel like an investor. Let's get something straight, THESE ARE NOT FINANCIAL INVESTMENTS. You are pretty much just giving these projects money based on a list of promises they make. This doesn't entitle you to ANYTHING. You're not a stockholder; you don't get a say. And you'll have no recourse when those promises go unfulfilled. Trust me, they will go unfulfilled at some point in some games.
Your only recourse will to be to go online and scream and bash, further degrading the community as a whole.
I used to marvel at how much people felt they were entitled to after spending 50 dollars on a game box and then spending 15 a month to play.
I live in fear that this will make those days look sane.
And there ain't a damn thing in my power to alleviate that concern.
I really hope that *insert game name here* will be the first game to ever live up to all of its pre-release promises, maintain a manageable hype level and have a clean release. Just don't expect me to hold my breath.
"Solid" in that sentence is just as useless as "fun". If you have a proven product or business plan, yes, you can possibly get funding. That aside, you're now drawing an odd connection between one's confidence in their product and the quality of it, of which there is no correlation.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You know exactly what I meant when I used the word "solid".
A bad product is a bad product.
If you've ever looked for investors for anything then you'd know that if your product is trash you'd find out very fast.
If we're talking about games then most crowdfunding is just selling concepts and ideas and not a finished product.
That's why I have respect for those who go through all the steps that companies used to do before crowdfunding ever became a thing.
Putting up money for something to make money is one thing but putting up money with the hope of playing a good game that may or may not ever be made is something completely different.
So, basically, to sum up, nobody should spend any money on video games at all. Period. Right? We should just give all our money to charity.
That's a very noble and just cause, but you're making the assumption that none of us donate to charity as it is. Also, your assertions about the level of government funding is completely out of line. Government funding represents about a 5-10% portion. For instance, the government support for the United way in 2015 was $270M compared to $4.3B in funds raised. So, basically, the amount raised by the United Way, alone, is more than double what is raised through Kickstarter.
Also, those people actually creating products could be creating jobs, for all you know. Star Citizen currently has 250 people working on it. Also, if you think that the "poor" don't get any donations you're flat out wrong as well. If that was the case, there wouldn't be professional beggars. You've seen them, come on.
Here's the fact. I don't view Kickstarter as a charity, I view it as a pre-order and I WILL play my games and order games, in general. If the time comes when I put money into a project that DOESN'T get released then I guess I'll have to deal with that, but to date I haven't had that happen to me. Until then, I've got $20 burning a hole in my pocket since I only spent $25 on Pillars of Eternity (that ACTUALLY costs $45). What should I do with it? Hmmmmmm, idk, maybe I'll give it to a charity, maybe I'll buy a game. One thing I can tell you is it won't get dropped into some crusader standing on the corner thumping a bible, telling me how horrible a person I am and how I need to give him money to avoid eternal damnation.
Crazkanuk
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IMO that is completely untrue, you won't have a more liberal person than I am, believe me, also I am extremely generous, my gf is always criticizing the fact that I put more energy into helping others than myself. I am not criticizing crowdfunding in general, I am criticizing crowd funding private companies where their sole purpose is to fill their products, I would rather give my money to someone who is going to use it for something meaningful. That is not being individualistic, but rather generous and smart.