Crowdsourcing is the art of taking your message to the people, and giving people a way to return the favor. The power of crowds has been used to hunt for aliens, untangle the secrets of protein folding, and fund strange adventure games. Kickstarter is an example of crowdsourcing, and probably the most popular at the moment. So, if this thing is so cool, why do all the crowdsourcing options out there suck? Rock, Paper, Shotgun has the story.
Sturgeon’s revelation.
Our esteemed columnist is right in the sense that companies are still very clumsy at managing their communities to get the most from the crowd. Many companies in gaming see their customers as some kind of demon that must be caged and controlled until it comes time to draw from it the green demon-blood that funds new executive mansions.
I don’t get why he thinks Penny Arcade is some megagiant gaming behemoth, though, or why their own Kickstarter effort is so pompus. After all, Penny Arcade was built by fan donations, back in the day, and it’s not the only webcomic to follow that model. A Kickstarter to free them from the ad feed doesn’t seem very different, just more organized.