ihatefatkatz said: In my opinion, Sony has to err on the side of caution with the crowdfunding stuff. I have no problem with what they are doing now with these small ventures. It seems pretty harmless. But it might set a precedent for other large companies (particularly in this greedy industry) to use crowdfunding as a financial buffer for larger projects. It will be a real low for the industry, when you see Ubisoft going to kickstarter to fund Beyond Good and Evil and other titles. Large companies should have the knowledge and resources to weigh up risk and reward, and it comes off greedy (well at least to me) if you are asking the consumer to bare the weight. That's my take on the situation. |
But honestly, what is wrong with using crowdfunding to create consumer products.
Innovation is often held back by the fact that projects are hard to gauge true interest for. Even if they get kicked off -- its truly hard to assign a correct budget to a project -- and crowdfunding drasticaly helps this.
It doesn't hurt that you can often relay a cheaper product for the contributor and therefore have a benefit for both parties.