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Cerebralbore101 on 21 December 2017
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Pemalite said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

Whether or not it is a future maybe title doesn't affect whether it is "crowdfunded" or not.

It makes a massive difference. If you can't see that, then there isn't any point in my explaining that point farther. 

Cerebralbore101 said:

But let's work with your special definition further.  Under your definition of "crowdfunding" Skyrim's expansions were "crowdfunded" with sales of the base game.

No. That is your definition not mine.
Bethesda already had it's funding or accrued funding from a source prior to the starting of a project and didn't require a campaign to get it. - Likely a loan from it's parent company or investor.

Cerebralbore101 said:

According to Pemalite Capital = financial assets from sales.
According to Pemalite Crowdfunding = Any game that gains it's capital through a large number of people. 

There is obviously more to it than that, but nice job oversimplifying things.
The world isn't just black and white you know.

Cerebralbore101 said:

Sales of a game, or previous game in a series, come from a large number of people. Therefore, under Pemalite's definition almost every game on the planet is crowdfunded.

You are missing the key differences.
One is upfront about their funding and tends to run a campaign to accrue said funding... And that funding is to be used for the current title, not some future what-if title that no one knows about or is even a guaranteed game that will ever be developed.

A non-crowd funded game typically comes from an investor of some sort, be it a publisher, organization... Even successful developers like DICE crawl towards EA to accrue funding for a big project.
They don't actually initiate a massive campaign and plea for the public's help.

Before I begin, I’m going to state what it is I’m arguing against, so that there’s no confusion. Revenue from sales of a game that is available for download, does not count as crowdfunding. Therefore CIG has not raised 170 million dollars through crowdfunding. Our key disagreement is whether or not my second sentence in this paragraph is true. I'm arguing that if my second sentence is false, then a great many games should be counted as crowdfunding. But that would be absurd, therefore my second sentence must be true. 

 I know you said it’s obvious that the games that I mentioned shouldn’t count as crowded and I agree. That’s my entire point, because my argument is a reductio ad absurdum. You’ve decided to take the below definition of crowdfunding as far as it can possibly go, in order to claim that CIG’s sales revenue should count as crowdfunding. My argument is that if we want to take the definition as far as it can possibly go, then it leads to absurd things such as the games I mentioned counting as crowdfunded.

 

 Here is Investopedia’s definition of crowdfunding.

 

 What is 'Crowdfunding'

Crowdfunding is the use of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture. Crowdfunding makes use of the easy accessibility of vast networks of people through social media and crowdfunding websites to bring investors and entrepreneurs together. Crowdfunding has the potential to increase entrepreneurship by expanding the pool of investors from whom funds can be raised beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives and venture capitalists.

Could you highlight the part of this definition which would exclude games like Skyrim, WoW, or Super Mario Bros.3? Somebody might want to argue that the keywords excluding those games are “new business venture”. But once a game is for sale it isn’t a new business venture, and that would exclude Star Citizen from being able to claim their sales as crowdfunding too.

 I’d like to point out the last sentence, of their definition. Notice how it says “expanding the pool of investors from whom funds can be raised beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives, and venture capitalists.” This means that (technically, but not actually) a game can get most of it’s funding from traditional investors and still claim to be crowdfunded, so long as it reinvests part of its sales into further development. This part of the definition refutes your previous argument, about how other games get most of their funding from traditional investors, and therefore shouldn’t count.

 

 You provided another argument saying that the games I mentioned have been finished, and therefore shouldn’t count as crowdfunded. But no part of the above definition necessarily excludes games that have been finished, without excluding SC. Remember that the words “new business venture” would exclude CIG’s game as well.

 

 Somebody might be tempted to argue the following. “SC is a new business venture because it hasn’t been officially released yet. The games you mentioned have already had official release dates, and are not new business ventures.” But isn’t the porting of Skyrim to Switch a new business venture? No part of the above definition says “a new business venture is a completely new and unrelated product”. Also, once a game is available for sale/download, the only thing separating an officially released game from an unofficially released game whether or not a company wants to call it officially released.

 

 I couldn’t agree more. MTS are ruining the industry. The problem that I have with CIG is that they were initially funded by regular people wanting to see their project to light. (Remember this argument is over whether or not their sales revenue should be counted as crowdfunding.) But they’ve turned to the dark side. They don’t want people to see that though, because that hurts their company image, so they keep talking about how their game has “crowdfunded” 170 million dollars. A company that charges MTS, while talking about their supposed record breaking “crowdfunding” is downright Orwellian. 

Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - on 21 December 2017