Critical Role Critical Role's Kickstarter Breaks $1,000,000 In About An Hour!

Parmandur · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
Looking at the reward levels and the cost of each - the swag is worth nowhere near the requested pledge at each level. Otherwise I'd back it. It looks more like raising the money to pay the respective parties for their efforts to produce the cartoon - which will be intellectual property with all the associated exploitation rights assigned to the owner of that IP.

Which begs the moral question of who should own the rights, if the person/s creating the IP are effectively being paid to create it by hundreds of thousands of KS backers.

But hey, not my problem! Has there been a precedent of this sort of thing on KS?

No, there is no precedent like that, as Kickstarter is not an investment platform. Yes, they are charging more than the swag is strictly worth to make a profit to make a show. They also charge for t-shirts to make a profit on their regular store.

$5.865 million with nearly 43,000 backers now. Biggest film KS ever, and the next goal is at $7.5 million for more Briarwood storyarc episodes.

sim-h · Mar 7, 2019

To me KS is the wrong platform for this.

Asgorath · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
To me KS is the wrong platform for this.

They explain why they went with KS on the page itself:

Travis & Sam went on dozens of Hollywood pitch meetings, and found some interest — but we ultimately decided to create our first animated special on our own. By doing so, we can continue to stay true to our beloved characters and tell the stories you want to see. With an ever-burning desire to bring a Vox Machina animation to the masses, we decided to give the power back to our amazing community, roll up our sleeves, and make this special with YOU instead.

How else would they raise money to fund it themselves so that they can maintain full creative control over the whole thing? It seems like KS is exactly the right platform for this, because it was either that or it doesn't get made.

Parmandur · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
To me KS is the wrong platform for this.

Which platform where they ask people to buy swag at a generous profit margin in order to make a cartoon show are you aware of...?

This is pretty much exactly like previous KS I have been involved in.

sim-h · Mar 7, 2019

Most kickstarters are for a product, which you get a copy of, i.e. you own what you backed plus some extras.

In this case, the product being created is entirely separate from the rewards. You only get the extras. You don't own the cartoon. Unless I miss something.

I'm just bringing it up - of course I don't mind how people spend their money. An investment platform that allowed for extra goodies would have been a less questionable means of raising the funds. Something like Fig - although from what I can see that platform has a terrible rep. I nearly invested in Pillars of Eternity 2 on there - luckily I stopped myself and just backed the game normally instead.

And yes, I am 100% behind them having total creative freedom and not being restricted by some studio's demands. Let the fans create this, sure - but reward them for their loyalty after the massive success I predict this will be.

AndrÃ© Soares · Mar 7, 2019

The swag is a REWARD for helping. The primary goal is to fund a project, the rewards are a thank you.

jmucchiello · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
Most kickstarters are for a product, which you get a copy of, i.e. you own what you backed plus some extras.

How often do you use Kickstarter? Lots of films and music recordings are funded via kickstarter and the only rights you receive are first viewing rights for backing it, plus maybe some swag.

Veronica Mars Film
MST3K Revival
Enemy of Man film
de la soul album

Nobody who backed those projects received IP rights to those endeavors beyond ownership of a copy for personal use.

sim-h · Mar 7, 2019

jmucchiello said:
How often do you use Kickstarter? Lots of films and music recordings are funded via kickstarter and the only rights you receive are first viewing rights for backing it, plus maybe some swag.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ovie-project?ref=discovery&term=veronica mars
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mst3k/bringbackmst3k?ref=discovery&term=mystery science theater
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...f=discovery_most_funded&term=independent film
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ref=discovery_category_most_funded&term=album

Nobody who backed those projects received IP rights to those endeavors beyond ownership of a copy for personal use.

Sure but the pricing of those Kickstarters reflected much more the cost of the physical end product/s you were getting. It was more like paying a product in advance. As some of the comments above acknowledge, the pledge levels for the CR cartoon do not come close to being 'value for money' in terms of goodies gotten, although that's of course a matter of opinion.

[edit] the campaign already clearly states that 74% of the funds raised are for the animation production. So my issue is, that's too high. Needlessly high given the success of the campaign.

Asgorath · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
Sure but the pricing of those Kickstarters reflected much more the cost of the physical end product/s you were getting. It was more like paying a product in advance. As some of the comments above acknowledge, the pledge levels for the CR cartoon do not come close to being 'value for money' in terms of goodies gotten, although that's of course a matter of opinion.

[edit] the campaign already clearly states that 74% of the funds raised are for the animation production. So my issue is, that's too high. Needlessly high given the success of the campaign.

The campaign has been massively more successful than they predicted. Do you really think people would back a project that was 75% on beanies and 25% on the actual animation itself? I sure wouldn't have backed that project. They've been very clear that all the extra money they're raising past their original goals are going to additional animation, which is great. This could easily end up being a 10 or 12 episode series, when they were originally planning for literally one 22-minute special episode.

Parmandur · Mar 7, 2019

sim-h said:
Sure but the pricing of those Kickstarters reflected much more the cost of the physical end product/s you were getting. It was more like paying a product in advance. As some of the comments above acknowledge, the pledge levels for the CR cartoon do not come close to being 'value for money' in terms of goodies gotten, although that's of course a matter of opinion.

[edit] the campaign already clearly states that 74% of the funds raised are for the animation production. So my issue is, that's too high. Needlessly high given the success of the campaign.

Not really: all of those KS were devoting most of what they made to the production costs, very similar to this. Critical Role already charges a bit of a premium for their merchandise (though they do use quality sources), so this isn't unusual for limited run exclusive merch.

$5.9 Million and counting, with 43,000+ backers. 42 days of pledging to go...

Critical Role Critical Role's Kickstarter Breaks $1,000,000 In About An Hour!

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