The Sympathy-Based Crowd-Funding Strategy
Aug. 1st, 2013 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen I was off on vacation, I heard that a project I'd been following news of for a while, the "crowd-funding" streaming site Anime Sols, was now under way. Because I was on vacation, though, I didn't have the bandwidth to check out the first episodes of older anime series there before deciding to pledge towards them being released on DVD, and by the time I'd got back from vacation I was starting to notice comments wondering whether any of the series listed on the site would reach their targets. At that point, finding the time to watch new series on the merely streaming site Crunchyroll and discs already in my collection seemed the usual challenge for me, so I just let events take their course and worried a bit as the first pledge times on Anime Sols started expiring well short of their targets.
When it was announced that a new episode of Little Witch Academia was being crowd-funded on Kickstarter itself, I decided to put in money for that; the episode had met its first goal in its first few hours, well before I made my own pledge, and I suppose I meditated a little glumly on the contrast. In what seemed the final days, though, all of a sudden one of the pledge totals on Anime Sols started climbing, and I started noticing comments it just might make the goal. With that, the simple thought that I ought to help out, just to keep this new possibility from a dispiriting oblivion, got strong enough for me to put money down. I still hadn't watched any of Creamy Mami yet, the title being the sort of one you feel embarrassed just to mention (it's apparently an old-fashioned "magical girl" anime, anyway), but it was the closest to meeting its goal.
As it turned out, that first series did reach its goal with time to spare. Just when I was thinking "at least that's something," another series put on a rally and squeaked past, this time without my thinking to contribute. The "glass half empty" perspective might be that these first successes are only for parts of their series, and there's always a dropoff from one volume to the next, but the "glass half full" perspective might argue that the site is a little more known now, and has at least proved it can accomplish something.
When it was announced that a new episode of Little Witch Academia was being crowd-funded on Kickstarter itself, I decided to put in money for that; the episode had met its first goal in its first few hours, well before I made my own pledge, and I suppose I meditated a little glumly on the contrast. In what seemed the final days, though, all of a sudden one of the pledge totals on Anime Sols started climbing, and I started noticing comments it just might make the goal. With that, the simple thought that I ought to help out, just to keep this new possibility from a dispiriting oblivion, got strong enough for me to put money down. I still hadn't watched any of Creamy Mami yet, the title being the sort of one you feel embarrassed just to mention (it's apparently an old-fashioned "magical girl" anime, anyway), but it was the closest to meeting its goal.
As it turned out, that first series did reach its goal with time to spare. Just when I was thinking "at least that's something," another series put on a rally and squeaked past, this time without my thinking to contribute. The "glass half empty" perspective might be that these first successes are only for parts of their series, and there's always a dropoff from one volume to the next, but the "glass half full" perspective might argue that the site is a little more known now, and has at least proved it can accomplish something.