A Voice for The Gamers: Crowdfunding and The Gaming Industry
Author: Jonathan R. Costa
The gaming industry is constantly changing, and we, the gamers, are forced to continuously change and adapt to it. Remember the good old times when hundreds and hundreds of games were being developed to satisfy all of our different tastes, personalities and skills? Remember when companies began realizing that “there is money in this games business”, and began acquiring and dominating the video game development field? Remember when your voice was heard and the game you’ve longed for was then promptly assessed and considered for development? You probably answered no to this last question, unless you are the son of the president of the United States, or even better, the son of a major video game developer (one can only dream). With the economic model and the glut for indistinguishable games installed in today’s gaming industry, a gamer is not seen or treated as an individual anymore, with our different opinions, tastes, skills, feedback. We are simply members of the only group they seem to care about: buyers. Yet, the industry seems to be undergoing yet another revolution. And this time, it is in our favour and we, gamers, are in the driver’s seat.
With the cultural and social assertion of the internet, and the technological revolution our modern society is currently undergoing, the world has become a much smaller place. Globalization has allowed us to be better informed and to become a tighter community, providing us with a magical place where all of our voices and opinions can be heard: the internet. This is definitely true for the gaming industry as well, which is becoming increasingly more dependent on positive online reviews, blogs and features for success in their releases and sales. Along with the internet came this wonderful tool unknown when it first appeared, considered a scam and tool for extortion by most, but now widely respected and largely used for almost everything: crowdfunding. Crowdfunding has allowed gamers to back the development of the games they truly desire to play, finding an alternate investment route for the video game development industry, monopolized and dominated by large publishing companies. Crowdfunding has given a voice to every gamer once again, and although it won’t fully guarantee the production of the game you truly desire, it at least gives it a fighting chance and an opportunity for you to state your case and convince hundreds or thousands of fellow fans to contribute alongside with you, to make your shared desire become reality.
Crowdfunding left its mark on the gaming industry in February of 2012, when thousands and thousands were calling for the development of a certain point-and-click adventure game that developers were refusing to fund and develop, despite the large demand. So a Kickstarter service was created, with the goal of raising $400,000 to begin production and make it a reality. Except that $400,000 was not the amount raised; the total amount was actually $3 million, and production was indeed concluded, bringing to life the much awaited Double Fine Adventure, later renamed Broken Age of course, satisfying the goal and aspirations of thousands and thousands of gamers all over the world.
The company that’s changing the gaming world slowly.
Another example was in July of 2012, when the Ouya, the low-cost video game to be built on the open Android system surpassed a wopping $8 million in crowdfunding. These values are allowing not only games that gamers actually want to play to be built, but are also raising eyebrows in the gaming industry, helping them realize that the secret to the business’ success is every single one of us gamers. The ones who work long hours to afford the games and consoles, the ones who passionately enjoy the products and discuss them within our community with passion, with drive, with dedication. So thank you crowdfunding, for giving us a fighting chance to not only see the games we truly want come to life, but for our voices to be heard by the capitalist aristocrats who dominate this business we love so much.
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