Entertainment execs continue to pull their hair out over piracy. With new tools available to the common consumer, the same old business model just doesn’t work. It’s understandable why changing the old way they’ve done business for decades would not be attractive to them. The numbers on the other hand cannot be ignored. Certain methods are already in motion that are proven successes. Take for instance the movie rental business moving over to subscription based content providing. Netflix stock was booming at start up. Now Kickstarter stands to put these former attempts to shame.
Kickstarter is a website that allows people the ability to pitch their products directly to their consumers rather than an investor. Consumers are interested in making a quality product where most investors are interested in making money. It is because of this that projects that end up getting enough funding to go into production usually do well with sales. On the flip side, projects that don’t get enough funding don’t lose anything either. You either have a big enough following to see it happen, or it just goes away without owing money back from a loan. It is the ultimate tool for new age entrepreneurs.
How does this fight piracy? The audience is involved from the beginning. A video game start up will often allow for beta testing for those who donate a certain amount. You have to give enough money to make sure it will even exist for pirating.
This method for production is more for independent developers. There isn’t much of a reason for big companies to ask for funding. Big name games and movies alike aren’t strapped for cash, but they still make public complaints about losing money to internet downloading. They may start complaining about Kickstarter soon once they start to see a certain psyhcographic of gamer migrating toward better made games.