Although impressive, this still doesn't include the difficult bootstrapping step. What this example, along with Louis CK, Trent Reznor, and Radiohead show, is that if you're already famous via traditional means, then you can crowdsource enough money for your 3rd, 4th, or 8th production to go indie. But how do you crowdsource money for your first, without going with the "traditional" media industry?
In fact if you are well-known, it's not clear you even need Kickstarter at all. Einstürzende Neubauten, a niche-well-known industrial band, raised a substantial amount of money just by adding a subscription feature on their website in 2002, for example.
> But how do you crowdsource money for your first, without going with the "traditional" media industry?
You work for free or very little money either by having a day job or living the life of a starving artist. Nobody is going to fund your first game, because your first game is going to be terrible. Heck, your first half dozen games are probably going to be terrible. People like to think of guys like Notch (Minecraft) or Edmund Mcmillen (Super Meat Boy) as overnight successes, but they made games for a long time before they made it big. If you are lucky, you can scrape enough together in your early career to pay your rent and eat. Heck even the legendary John Carmack was making little games for Softdisk then the commander keen games before id struck gold with Wolfenstien and Doom.
Fwiw, the Edmund Mcmillen example isn't really accurate; he made a considerable amount of money from his previous game, the IGF-award-winner Gish, that he co-developed with Alex Austin and Josiah Pisciotta. Super Meat Boy was his follow-up.
Gish only made sales of $120k[1]. Edwin worked with a publisher and as you mentioned worked with other people, so I don't think he made a considerable amount of money there. In interviews and podcasts he frequently mentions being 'poor' for a long time while making games.
Even disregarding all that, he was making games before he made Gish, so the example still holds.
My point was, nobody is going to pay you while you practice, unless you get a job with BigCorp as part of a team and work your way up.
I think this is a bit of a strawman-- How does somebody who's not already well known raise money for their first video game, comedy show or album with the traditional media industry?
If big artists are able to cut their ties to Big Content using crowdfunding, that will cost them a lot more money than if independent artists who they never would have signed anyway does. If the publishers lose profitability, and there's less revenue being extracted from the content industry by corporate middlemen, that can only improve the ecosystem for the little guys.
Well, many do so: among other examples, Trent Reznor, Radiohead, Louis CK, and Tim Schafer are people who've raised substantial money from the traditional media industry without first having a hit. To replace that, which I'm interested in, we need a way that they can replace their first major success. For example, what alternate funding model would've allowed Tim Schafer to get The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) funded via some other mechanism than LucasArts ponying up the money? Or: what non-TVT funding source would've paid for Reznor's Pretty Hate Machine (1989)? I hope it's possible, but to me, that's the hard question, much harder than answering how to pay for Reznor's later, post-fame albums.
Not quite true, lesser known developers have been successful on Kickstarter in the past. An example off the top of my head is the game "No Time To Explain" from relatively unknown developer tinyBuild[1]. The key here seems to be producing a cool looking prototype to show off to Kickstarter, then gathering funds to polish the game, add content and finish development.
It seems like Kickstarter is more than capable of helping unknown developers generate funds to support development.
Probably the same way many "iphone accessory" start-ups started on kickstarter. Show some kind of prototype, impress people and get them to believe in your vision, just like "real" investors would.
You work hard. Play small venues for little money or code in the hours after work, and roll the limited profits you make from that into something bigger. As independent artists and developers have been doing since money has existed. You think that 'traditional means' will bankroll you if you're unproven? In order to get a studio's interest you need to have fans already.
True, in indie music that's possible, though that also predates the internet; e.g. Fugazi made millions in the 90s with self-distribution (Ian MacKaye's estimated net worth is something like $20 million these days). Would be curious if it's accelerated, decelerated, or remained constant in frequency.
What I don't understand about this argument, every time I see it, is how do you think Trent Reznor, Louis CK, Radiohead, etc. got to the point where they could trade on their good name?
Do you think Louis CK was just sitting on his ass and then, BLAMMO! FAME!: he was a superstar comedian?
No, something tells me all these examples are of people who worked their ass off under the traditional system, to a point where they can now buck that system.
So what will be the answer under this new "non-traditional" system? Same as it ever was: work your ass off.
Or more to the point. How do you crowdsource if you don't have the name recognition and track-record to trade on? You better be one hell of a salesman.
In fact if you are well-known, it's not clear you even need Kickstarter at all. Einstürzende Neubauten, a niche-well-known industrial band, raised a substantial amount of money just by adding a subscription feature on their website in 2002, for example.