Go Fund Yourself

1. DEFINITIONS OF SUCCESS

1.1. Definition of success of Crowdfunding Campaign - Ziele im Zeitraum während der Kampagne, direkt Verbunden mit der Kampagne - Definiertes Ziels: Sammeln von Ressourcen - Verschiedene Möglichkeiten Erfolg zu erzielen, Branchenabhängig? z.B.: Kommunikation durch Netzwerke, Präsents in den Medien, Werbung, Grafische Darstellungen (Optik), .. usw. - Klarer Erfolg: durch Erfolg von genug Ansammlung von Ressourcen oder nicht 1.2. Definition of success of Crowdfunding Project - Ziel kann nach der Kampagne entstehen/geschehen, nicht direkt Verbunden mit der Kampagne - Durch Kampagne nicht immer ersichtliches Ziel, z.B.: Werbung, Aufmerksamkeit/Nachdenklichkeit wecken, schockieren, Investoren begeistern usw. - Erfolg ist nicht so sehr gebunden an Kampagne Eine Kampagne kann Erfolgreich sein, dieser Erfolg muss jedoch nicht mit dem Erfolg des Projekts an sich zusammenhängen. Interessant wird die Analyse in den Beispielen, in welchen der Erfolg der Crowd Founding Kampagne nicht gleich auch den Erfolg des Projekts bedeutet und umgekehrt.

2. STATISTICS PER CATEGORY

A variety of factors influence the end result of a Crowd funding campaign, such as: the platform being used, seriousness in approach to the project, proper social networking, use of media in explanation of the project, realistic projection of funding goals, research of the best suitable rewards, and so on . However, success of the project can also have something to do with the category it belongs to. Some categories are more interesting for potential donors and more popular than others. 'Market' saturation is another element that influences potential success in a way that the large number of project in a category will result in a lower success rate. That is why it is important to analyze and compare categories based on the current number of projects and success rates, and to see if the link between success of the campaign and the category it belongs to can be made. The overall success rate for projects hosted on the biggest and most successful platform -('Kickstarter') is approximately 44% (as of January 2014), which means that more than half of the crowdfunding campaigns do not reach their ultimate funding goals. Nevertheless, some categories have better rates than others do. While these statistics are based on Kickstarter projects, they can apply to all of the crowdfunding industry. Dance and Theatre with their 71% and 64% success rates are the most successful categories on this platform. The most unsuccessful categories are Publishing and Fashion with 32% and 30% success rates. Astonishingly, Games and Technology are one of the categories with the lowest rates of success (both have only 35%), being that games and technology projects were responsible for the blooming of the crowdfunding platforms. With its 40% and 48% rates, Film and Art stand in the middle of the Success Rate Graph. Another important parameter in analyzing statistical data is the number of the projects, where it can be seen that the most popular categories are Film and Video (with a total number of 29624 projects) and Music (with a total number of 24707 projects). Games has 6841, Technology 2887, Art 10374, whilst Dance has only 1517 projects. The statistics also show that when it comes to average funding per Campaign, category Games is on the second place with 36,162.84 $. Technology, which is one of most unsuccessful categories, is on the first place with 40,095.29 $, while Dance has only 10,572.08$, whilst Art has only an average of a 4895,00 $ per campaign. Even though category Games is one of the least successful, it has also in total the highest gross of 160 Million Dollars. It is somewhat a paradox, and it has to do with the fact that a successful game a lot of times gets overfunded and exceeds its funding goal (Game Broken age had exceeded the $400,000 goal with more than $3.3 million from over 87,000 backers). What the data shows is that a link between the rate of success and the average funding per campaign can be found. Two of the most successful categories, Dance and Theater, have also one of the lowest funding goals. Furthermore, Games and Technology, one of the least successful categories have also the highest funding goals. A grate success of the Dance has probably a lot to do with the low funding goals and the fact that there are 1,3 % of the dance crowdfunding campaigns. Another aspect that should be analyzed is sociological, where the dance and art 'offline' society is a rather stronger connected, as appose to 'games' society. With a small funding goals and with the first ring of the donations that are based on the friends and family pledges, it is simpler for an artist or a dances to come to it's goal. However, majority of the campaigns don't even surpass the first step of the funding, and near 80% of them never raised more than 20 % of their goal.

3.1. BROKEN AGE

Broken Age is an episodic point-and-click adventure video game, Tim Schafer’s first return to the genre since 1998’s Grim Fandango.

Broken Age began under the working title Double Fine Adventure as a Kickstarter crowdfunded project promoted by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions in February 2012. Originally a goal of $400,000 was set to cover the costs of development and documentary filming, it became the largest crowdfunded video game project at the time, raising over $3.45 million from more than 87,000 backers within the month. It remains one of the highest-backed crowdfunded projects of any type, and its success helped to establish Kickstarter and other crowdfunding mechanisms as a viable alternative to traditional venture capital and publisher funding for niche video game titles.

The adventure game genre was selected to offer the public a product that would not have existed without their support, and help to distinguish the project from the developer’s publisher-financed work. Schafer, a veteran of LucasArts, has long been associated with adventure games, a genre that has long been stigmatized as commercially niche, particularly since the release of Schafer’s own Grim Fandango. Schafer explained that the game will not be “museum” or “nostalgia” work, but instead “It’s going to be fresh and feel modern and feel like what the next game would have been if I’d made one straight after Grim Fandango”.

Double Fine set the goal for the project at $400,000, with $100,000 allocated to the film production and $300,000 for the game. Although this was the largest goal of any gaming project yet on Kickstarter, it was the lowest budget the company had worked with, and a small fraction of the budget of the company’s previous downloadable games, which cost around $2 million. Schafer admitted that a game made for this budget would be “hobbled,” and that the budget was chosen because it was the absolute minimum he thought he could make an adventure game for. The two had originally envisioned a total $200,000 budget, a typical cost for an iOS game, but Schafer had doubts about whether Double Fine could deliver a game for such a low cost.

Various incentives were given to those that pledged $15 or more, including the game itself, early beta access to the game, access to private community areas to discuss the game, prints, and invitations to meet with the Double Fine staff. Further rewards were added through a second update two weeks into the effort, including digital soundtracks, physical copies of the game and documentary, and an art book.In launching the Kickstarter project, Double Fine claimed it was the first major studio to use the model for the funding of a game.

Within nine hours, the Kickstarter project had exceeded the $400,000 goal. Within 24 hours, it had surpassed $1 million. Kickstarter stated on the day after its start that the Double Fine effort is the most successful to date, having attracted more backers than any prior effort in the site’s history while others have noted it is the second project – the Elevation Dock project being the first – to achieve more than $1 million in funding through Kickstarter. The Double Fine project passed the $2 million mark on February 20, 2012, twelve days after fund raising began. The Kickstarter closed on March 13 with more than $3.3 million from over 87,000 backers, and with another $110,000 promised by premium backers. Schafer stated that the total funding was nearly the same as the budget for their previous downloadable titles.

The success of the fundraising campaign established crowd-sourcing as a challenge to publisher funding (and control) for multi-million dollar projects. John Walker from Rock, Paper, Shotgun was quick to point out that this doesn’t pose a major threat to publishers on a large scale, but added that it would force publishers to ask themselves questions such as “Are we really in touch with our audience’s desires?”. Johnny Cullen of VG247 compared the Double Fine Kickstarter to the release of Radiohead’s album In Rainbows, which the band had sold through their website in a pay-what-you-want model prior to a physical printing, without the interference of a music publisher. Cullen noted the model of crowd-sourcing has previously not worked for some game developers, and does not expect it to be a guaranteed success for future efforts, as he believes Double Fine is a unique studio with a dedicated fan base, aspects that are not shared by all developers.

Initial commentary largely framed Double Fine as exceptional, citing Double Fine’s reputation, experience with the under-serviced genre, and history of difficulty with publisher funding as reasons why Double Fine’s case was unique. Initially, many remained skeptical that such a level of success could be replicated. Schafer further agreed that the success of the Double Fine Kickstarter would be somewhat difficult to replicate for other games, even for Double Fine, as it would require the project to be “a good story for people to get behind”.

Initial fears that this success would be isolated were allayed as new projects emerged. As the Double Fine Adventure campaign closed, Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment launched a Kickstarter to fund development of the sequel Wasteland 2, which met its target of $900,000 in funding within two days,and eventually raised more than $2.9 million. Double Fine Adventure brought in 61,692 new users to Kickstarter, and greatly increased the platform’s visibility and viability for funding of games projects. Within the six weeks following the launch of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter, the site raised more than $2.9 million in pledges (outside of the Double Fine project) for video game related projects, compared with $1.7 million total for the category in the prior two years, as well as increasing the amount of funding coming into projects of all categories. In October, Project Eternity surpassed Double Fine’s funding record, further suggesting the crowd-funding model will continue to be a part of the gaming landscape.

The success of Double Fine Adventure has had a particularly visible impact on the adventure genre, inspiring several other established adventure game developers to use Kickstarter as a means to return to the genre. In the months following its release, the creators of Broken Sword, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and Tex Murphy have all managed to raise amounts in excess of Schafer’s original goal of $400,000.

3.2. ILLO: BIRTH OF COOL

Raylight Games, attempted to fund its Illo: Birth of the Cool – via both Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The game is a surreal puzzle adventure, designed for platforms with tilt, touch and microphone inputs, including iOS, Android, PlayStation Move, Kinect, Wii U, PS Vita and 3DS.

The campaing started on Nov 23, 2012. Due to its lack of succes, the campaign was cancelled 10 days before its scheduled December 3 end date.They only managed to collect 2945 $.

The number that they tried to reach was 270 000 $. Both campaigns ultimately failed to generate the funds needed to continue development, but Raylight continued to pitch the game to potential partners and investors, eventually grabbing the attention of a small investor that has allowed them to take the next step.

This example proves that crowdfunding services became not only parameter for “today interests”, but also possible trendsetting area for the things to come. Crowdfunding services have become windows of opportunity for investors that they can use to fund project that did not have first appeal to common backers. This gives also opportunities for inventors. It is almost safe to say that in future, there will be “profesional backers, that see oportunities other backers do not see.

Leading to conclusion, it is possible to notice that crowdfunding campaigns will take in the future much more important rolle in economonical sence. This might lead to completely new course in development of society. At the moment, it is impossible to say to which extend. It todays world much money would be spend on developing the product, getting reactions from consumers and eventually promoting it as starts to produce. With crowdfunding campaigns, it will develop quitte different. Through crowdfunding campaign be already most of those thing visible. Promotion of projects will be accomplished with reactions of possible backers which will show the nessesity of product its self. Prior to all knowledges collected during the capaign, products will have much lesser procent of risk.

Crowdfunding campaigns have not only opportunity factor, but they can provide much bigger picture of the thing to come in future for investors because they provide strong picture of the current situation on the market. Chances that the investor will get in risky situations are significentaly smaller after the have been filtered trough crowdfunding campaingns. On the other side crowdfunding platforms make inventros much more vissible on the market and they do it for free at the begining. Eventually they charge certain procent of collected money, but that happens only if the campaign had success.

3.2 MARINA ABRAMOVIC INSTITUTE

25 August 2014., the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) Kickstarter campaign successfully surpassed its $600,000 its funding goal with 4,765 backers contributing a grand total of $661,452.

Marina is setting up an experience performance center inspired by her own latest project. Abramovic aims to put art, science, technology and spirituality together in the "Marina Abramovic Institute," a dynamic museum which displays what she calls "long durational work." All visitors will become active participants in the art. This champagne is a proof that large and expensive projects can be crowdfunded. The costs of the project are expected at 20.000.000 dollars. Marina funded the first phase herself. She purchased the building for $950,000 and donated it to the institute. She funded the budget of the MAI office for six months and commissioned the architectural concept (Shohei Shigematsu, Rem Koolhaas). Marina has paid $1.5 million out of pocket towards the early stages of MAI. The reason why she chose to fund the institute through Kickstarter as opposed to private investors was that MAI hoped to gain not only seed money, but to create a community of people around the institute. Marina personally thanked all those who contributed to the creation of MAI by hugging every backer of this Kickstarter at a live event called “The Eembrace”. This event took place in two locations, one in New York City and one in London.

Status on Marina Abramovic facebook profile (6.10.2014.):

“We would like to extend our gratitude to all of the MAI Founders who joined Marina Abramovic and the MAI team at The Embrace this past Saturday at Kickstarter HQ in New York and on September 22nd at Serpentine Galleries in London. We'd also like to thank those who participated in the events via live stream.”

From this point of view, after the champagne ended, Marinas financial supporting was very important for a first phase. People realized that she strongly believes in her idea and backed the project. She is also celebrated artist who made many successful performance art projects. She has a background in a field of performance art and many supporters in art community. She had also support from celebrity (Lady Gaga and Jay-Z).

3.3 NEW YORK CITY OPERA

The People’s Opera – New York City Opera – has focused on producing unique works, showcasing emerging young artists, and educating the next generation of performing arts lovers. Throughout its history as The People's Opera, NYC Opera has made opera accessible and affordable. People opera exists to give everyone an alternative artistic experience, unique and accessible to all. And now NYC Opera needed help to produce its upcoming season. The New York City Opera has raised only $301,019 and the goal was 1 million dollars. Funding for this project was canceled by the project creator on September 30, 2013. The 'People's Opera' has struggled in recent years. It closed its doors in 2008 for a refurbishment that coincided with the Financial Crisis, and has struggled to make ends meet since then. Organizers describe the crowdfunding campaign as 'urgent', but it is only a slice of a larger call for $7 million by the end of September. New York City Opera did not achieve the goal on Kickstarter but they have raised $1.5 million outside of Kickstarter, but they still have not reached the goal. Even in an urgent situation, $1 million is a big ask for an arts project. We can compare the NYC Opera’s campaign with the most successful arts campaign to date, The Marina Abramovic Institute. It’s a useful comparison for a few reasons: both campaigns are by well-known arts brands located in New York City, fundraising within a few weeks of each other. Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist who has been active for three decades; The NYC Opera has been operating for 70 years. Of course, Abramovic was asking for $600,000 rather than $1 million. But with the NYC Opera seeming unlikely to raise even a fraction of Abramovic’s total, we need to look beyond the target amount. The average pledge to the campaigns is similar - the mean pledge for the Abramovic campaign was $139 compared with a current mean of $125 for the NY Opera. But that’s where the similarity in pledging activity ends. Rewards for the pledgers of NYC Opera are moustly the tickets for the performances. But the problem with theater tickets is that they are in-person rewards. If a backer isn’t based in New York or willing to travel there, they’re essentially useless. If the backers are outside the NY, NYC Opera is offering only a choice of a tote bag, desktop wallpaper, an mp3 playlist curated by the Opera’s artistic director and a CD or DVD. Marina Abramovic offered: For $25, “Marina will teach the Abramovic Method SLOW MOTION WALK exercise via live stream. Receive exclusive access to this event. You, Marina, and the other backers at this level will then perform your exercise SIMULTANEOUSLY, creating a large public performance that occurs at the same time in different locations all over the world.” For $100, “You will receive a set of never-before-seen video materials.” For $1,000 “Marina will perform the Abramovic Method eye gazing exercise with you via webcam. You may document this experience in any way you’d like and opt to include it in MAI digital archives.”