Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Penny Arcade Kickstarter

As some of you may have read, the folks at Penny Arcade are running another kickstarter campaign. This one, with a goal of $10.00, is to bring back Downloadable Content, their podcast series.

I've seen some of the ranting on Twitter about how they've co-opted the system and done all sorts of horrible things through this act, and thought I'd put my two cents in:

So what?

Many people do not use Kickstarter for its intended purpose. Fangamer, for instance, used their Kickstarter to fund the reproduction of shirts that had already been produced and sold profitably. Where was the outcry in that case?

Anamanaguchi, whose music I really enjoy, is running a Kickstarter so they can release their next album the way they want. The album is done. There's no reason they couldn't have it on iTunes where people like me could slap down a iTunes gift card and say "Take my money!" Instead, in a very real sense, they are holding their album hostage. None of their fans (who would be very happy to pay for more of their music) will get to hear the album unless together they can raise enough money to meet the stated goal. There's a word for that: ransom. Why aren't there storms of outraged people filling Twitter with complaints?

Richard Garriott had a Kickstarter campaign for a game based loosely on his classic Ultima series. Richard Garriott is also the man who reportedly paid $30 million dollars to fly as a space tourist. Why wasn't he vilified for his Kickstarter campaign?

Here's the thing. I like all three of the people/groups I listed as examples. I supported the Fangamer Kickstarter, missed Richard Garriot's while it was running, and I plan to support Anamanaguchi's.

My point is that people use Kickstarter for a variety of reasons. They use it as a storefront to sell pre-orders for a product, use it for publicity, and use it to mitigate risk so that if a product is a commercial failure, the creator is not on the hook for the expense of production. Very few of these people are receiving any scorn for their use of Kickstarter.

So why not extend that same courtesy to the Penny Arcade guys?

No comments:

Post a Comment