Crowd Funding Essay

How is crowd funding affecting the relationship between institutions and audiences at the publishing, design, marketing and distribution level? Answer with specific reference to Assassin’s Creed and Double Fine Adventure

 
Double Fine Adventures is different from Assassin’s Creed 3 in the publishing of the game, their design, how they are marketed and how they are distributed and these differences have been influenced by crowd funding. Double Fine Adventures has been financed by Kickstarter giving more freedom to the game developers, while Assassin’s Creed 3 has had the backing of Ubisoft that will have influenced the game against the developers wishes. The two games differ greatly and they’re advantages and disadvantages to crowd funding.

 
Publishing is different for Assassin’s Creed 3 (AC3) compared with Double Fine Adventure (DFA). AC3 is a multi-genre game, that covers adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, sandbox and more, which means it appeals to a wide target audience which it has to do to make as much money as possible because the game cost much more to make than to DFA which is able to have a specific genre – point and click – that is becoming less popular of late because the cost to create the game is far less, so it doesn’t need a wide audience. Although the target audience of DFA is limited, it has managed to gain large support – over $3.5 million was donated by 87,000 people. The target amount of $400,000 was raised in 8 hours which shows how popular the genre is. Ubisoft have funded AC3 because it is part of a successful franchise that is growing with this new game while DFA was funded through kickstarter and donations from fans of the game genre in return for rewards and a copy of the game. This makes DFA different form AC3 because Ubisoft will have controlled some of the decisions and the direction the game took compared to DFA, which has been able to design the game how they want along with feedback from the people that donated to improve the game. AC3’s audience have no input to how the game is made and are therefore passive and only receive the final product.

 
Crowd funding also affects how the game is designed and developed. AC3 uses anvil next as its game engine. It is a modern game engine that is incredibly advanced and as well as producing better graphics, it can handle up to 2000 characters on screen, cycle weather patterns and cope with complex physics to make the game as realistic as possible. DFA uses Moai as its game engine and compared to anvil next it is far less advanced. It is 2D and has been chosen so the game developers can concentrate more on the actual game story and other aspects rather than complex programming. It is also far easier, meaning a smaller team can work on the game. Tech director Nathan Martz said, “We wanted to experiment with some 2D games, some mobile games, and as we looked around for solutions Moai jumped out at us as a really simple, lightweight, quick-to-get-into technology.” Crowd funding also has benefits when designing the game because there are less restrictions on the developers. AC3 would have been altered so that its characters, environments and story line are how Ubisoft want them to be. Crowd funding gives individual developers no restrictions and freedom to design the game how they want it to be. Another advantage of crowd funding is that the gamers that have pledged money towards the game have the opportunity to play the game and offer feedback. The consumer has an active role in how the game is made rather than being passive.

 
Crowd funding affects how the game is marketed. Without the backing of a large company such as Ubisoft DFA can’t afford a large marketing campaign. AC3, backed by Ubisoft, does have the financial capabilities for a large marketing campaign. They announced they would spend £4 million on which is the largest amount spent by a developer to market a game. It has to reach out to the widest audience possible to cover the huge costs of the production of the game. This money goes towards advertisements on the TV, magazine, radio and billboards. YouTube videos have also been uploaded that contain exclusive content and gain great interest. Crowd funding has enabled DFA to gain customers before the game was built by encouraging gamers,  that are interested in the point and click genre, to pledge money in return for the game. Another way that DFA has been marketed is by using YouTube and Tim Schafer as the face of the game. Tim himself has attracted interest because of his personality and successful previous games.  Other incentives to buy into DFA are exclusive game art etc.

 
Distribution is different for crowd funded games. AC3 has been distributed across many different platforms including Xbox-360, Playstation 3 and the all new PS Vita. This has enabled the game to be distributed on a much wider scale which allows customers to get hold of the game very easily. Examples of stores where AC3 can be purchased are Game, HMV and most supermarkets such as Asda or Sainsbury’s. The game can also be bought from online companies such as Amazon. AC3 is widely distributed to make as much money as possible to cover all the costs and to sell to the wide target audience. It is also a franchise that is becoming more popular so more stores are willing to stock the game if they have already done the same with previous games in the franchise. It could also be pre-ordered for extra content and be the first in the country to play the game. DFA on the other hand has a narrower distribution. It can be bought as a digital download available on Android, Linux, iOS, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Because it isn’t available on the mainstream consoles it isn’t widely available for audiences.

 
The relationship between the institutions and audiences is greatly affected by crowd funding. In the publishing stage crowd funding can allow target audiences to be more specific and the genre less popular. The game design can actually be influenced by feedback from customers but often the funds mean that there is less money to create complex graphics. Marketing is less varied and costs far less. The distribution is much narrower. In conclusion crowd funding changes the way audiences receive, play and now have a say in designing games.