Update! Dannychoo has written his own post about this! Read it HERE!
Let me start by telling you a story of a video game company called Double Fine. On 7th February, they started a fund raising project on a website called Kickstarter, one of many so-called “funding platforms”. The idea of these websites is that you come up with an idea you want to realize, but cannot afford, and you let other people donate money to your project. You could say it is a product paid by its customers.
Double Fine had set their pledge amount of money to $400,000, a rather high sum of money. Their aim was to, as they put it, “create a brand-new, downloadable “Point-and-Click” graphic adventure game for the modern age.” Now, this project started on 7th Februrary and will end on 13th March. The amount of money was supposed to be $400,000.
In only eight hours after the project’s start, it was already fully funded. $400,000, just like that. Boom, and a month left to go. Today, 4th March and nine days left, the amount is roughly about $2,400,000. Six times the original amount. To put it bluntly, that is a hell of a lot of money.
But, you might ask, what does anime have to do with this? Excellent question! But before that, let us talk about how much one anime episode cost to produce.
According to an article on Anime News Network from 2009, one episode would cost $110,000 to $220,000 to produce. In addition to that, the companies have to pay a sponsoring fee for the timeslot. It is a hefty amount of money for a single episode, considering that most series are 13 episodes or longer.
For further insight, Crunchyroll has an article from last year which breaks down the different expenses for the creation of a 30 minute TV episode with the total cost of around $145,214. It follows:
Original work – $660
Script – $2,640
Episode Direction – $6,600
Production – $26,402)
Key Animation Supervision – $3,300
Key Animation – $19,801
In-betweening – $14,521
Finishing – $15,841
Art (backgrounds) – $15,841
Photography – $9,240
Sound – $15,841
Materials – $5,280
Editing – $2,640
Printing – $6,600
Let us assume that the cost for one episode is $150,000. In that case, 13 episodes would end up at $1,950,000. Think about it for a while.
Do you understand where I am going here?
If a video game company is able to create a full game without any restrictions by publishers or production costs, is it not possible that an anime company could do the same? Think about the possibilities! In a time where the best choice is to play it safe and create series that are guaranteed to bring profit no matter how unimaginative they are, this could become the new thing.
With the help of funding platforms and donating fans, anime studios, or even amateurs, could create whatever they want to create, without any restriction in the world. It could be a new revolution in media.
After Double Fine’s initial success, other video game developers have shown interest in these types of platforms. If the project goes well, who knows how it will affect the industry. Personally, I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for us.