Crowdfunding: the democratic revolution in the market of cinema and games

At the end of May, the 30-minute film “Kung Fury” was released online - a comedy action movie with martial arts, motifs from movies and video games of the 80s, Hitler nicknamed Kung Führer and dinosaurs. In less than a week, the video gained more than 10 million views on YouTube. The film attracted attention not only by the nostalgic genre and fascinating plot, but also by the method of financing. The picture was completely withdrawn from the money of Internet users who transferred them through the Kickstarter crowdfunding site.

The author of the film (Swedish director of clips and commercials, David Sandberg, for whom Kung Fury was the first feature film) initially planned to raise $ 200,000 for a short film. To attract attention to the project, Sandberg spent his own five thousand dollars on a trailer , which became a popular viral video. As a result, the project for the month attracted 630 thousand dollars. This was not enough for the full-length film, on the creation of which Sandberg laid a million, but allowed the director to make a better half-hour film.
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Kung Fury is far from the first and not the most successful project on “national financing” of films. At the moment, seven of the paintings have managed to attract more than a million dollars at various crowdfunding sites. Most of the continuation of popular films and TV shows. For example, the full-length sequel of the American teenage detective series Veronica Mars attracted the most money.

In January 2007, after the release of the third season, the CW channel announced that filming of the series stopped due to falling ratings. His place on the air took the reality show "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll." The creator of the series began working on a film script based on the series, but for a long time could not find sources of funding. Then in 2013, it was decided to raise two million dollars on Kickstarter. The project managed to collect 5.7 million, and in the same year began shooting the film. In 2014, he was released on the screens.

In second place in the ranking of the most successful crowdfunding films is the sequel to the popular comedy detective of the beginning of the zero Superpolitseyskie, whose authors and actors are members of the popular US comic group Broken Lizard.
In 2009, they decided to make a sequel to the film, but received rights to it from Fox Searchlight studio only in 2015. The studio refused to finance the sequel, so Broken Lizard launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in order to attract two million dollars. In April, they collected 4.5 million dollars and launched the production of the film.



In third place is comedy drama Zack Braff, "I would like to be here," which was already released in 2014. Formally, it is an independent picture, but many perceived it as a continuation of the 2004 film by the same director “Country of Gardens”.
In 2013, Braff launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise two million dollars. The project has collected 3.1 million, and by the end of the same year the film was already ready. Probably, he attracted such attention, including due to the popularity of Braff as an actor - he played the main role in the cult TV series “Clinic”.



In fourth place - not a sequel, but an independent sci-fi comedy Lazer Team. It should be released in 2015. Just like King Fury, the Lazer Team is a nostalgic film, only in this case it refers the viewer to the classics of sci-fi movies. The authors of the project launched a campaign on Indiegogo in 2014 in order to collect 650 thousand dollars. As a result, they managed to attract 2.4 million.

The creators decided to turn to crowdfunding not only for the sake of funding, but also to promote the film, said screenwriter and lead man Bernie Burns. According to the director Matt Hallum, after the launch of the crowdfunding campaign, numerous film and media companies as well as agencies for the selection of actors began to contact the authors of the film.

In fifth place is the full-length sequel of the American comedy series “Blue Guy State” about the student football team. In 2012, after the release of the third season, the authors of the series announced that the show is closing. In 2014, it was decided to make a sequel in the form of a full-length film using crowdfunding. In April, a campaign was launched to raise $ 1.5 million on Kickstarter. As a result, 400 thousand more were collected. By the end of the year, the film was shot, and in September 2015 should be released on screens.



The seven of the most successful crowdfunding projects also included two separate films - the comedy Road Hard of Adam Carolla and the horror film “The Sweet Blood of Jesus” by Spike Lee. Road Hard collected almost a half million dollars, but did not go into wide release and earned a little more than 100 thousand dollars. Independent director Spike Lee was able to collect 1.4 million dollars for the film "Sweet Blood of Jesus".

Games



But the most successful crowdfunding projects are traditionally video games. The largest public funding campaign on the Internet is fundraising for the Star Citizen game in the space simulator genre. Attracting funds went both on Kickstarter and on the game’s own site, and in total the project attracted $ 83 million. Exit the game is expected in mid-2016.

The top ten most successful crowdfunding projects in the world also include the Oyua game console with open source Android-based software. In 2012, she collected more than 8.5 million at Kickstarter, and in 2013 she was introduced to the market.



In third place among the most successful stories of national financing of games is the space simulator "Elite: Dangerous". The project is a modern continuation of the same game of the 80s and 90s. The developers planned to release it for 13 years, but could not find funding. Publishers demanded the calculation of business risks associated with the game. But it was difficult to make it because there were no ready-made similar games on the market.

When crowdfunding began to develop, the developers decided to raise money with it. In 2013, they launched a Kickstarter campaign. The project attracted 3.7 million pounds, the game came out in 2014. Users received in return for their investments the game itself, the privileges in it and a 50 percent discount on subsequent updates.



Developers also have a forum with several sections: open, in which all users can speak; a section for contributors who can influence specific decisions; section for large investors. The forum discusses development priorities and options for the flow of life in the game.

Will crowdfunding change the movie and gaming market?

Thus, crowdfunding is not only a means of raising funds, but also a way to establish a dialogue with the audience and ask her directly what she wants from the project. This is probably why this method of financing has become very effective for creating such content as movies and games.

Thanks to crowdfunding, investors become not just passive consumers, but active participants in the project. And the degree of their participation depends directly on the contribution. For example, some filmmakers offer users who have invested a large amount a cameo role in a film. And smaller investors - participation in the crowd.

The traditional film and gaming market does not provide such opportunities, and also limits the freedom of creators of projects. And it does not always do it in the best way, because it focuses on an imaginary consumer, while crowdfunding gives creators access to a real audience. So it is quite possible that in 10-20 years we will have a revolution in the film and gaming industry, which will overthrow Hollywood and other traditional foundations of these markets.