A Bold Proposal

Ten Forward
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A Bold Proposal

Crowd sourcing and crowd funding has revolutionized product development and delivery. Platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo and Crowd Supply have enabled inventors and entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to market and provide the capital needed for them to make their ideas a reality. Why can’t those same principles be extended to 3D content publishing?

Today the 3D content marketplace is dominated by a half-dozen vendors that control the development, marketing, sales, and distribution and with that have an iron fist at controlling what products come to market and what the market even looks like.

In some cases these vendors apply standards that seem to be counter to what the market either wants or will bear.

I am proposing a simple idea:

  1. To provide a process for interested 3D artists and content creators to bid on proposals submitted by the public for new and exclusive 3D content;
  2. To have those proposals be funded by the public through crowd funding channels;
  3. To have any deliverables be the exclusive license of the project backers for a period of time between 90 - 180 days;
  4. After which the crowd funded content would be released publicly, and become freely available to anyone as long as the content isn’t re-packaged or re-sold.

What are everyone’s thoughts? Is this doable? Early feedback on Facebook suggests yes and no.

This is just some ideas I’ve had frankly now for a couple of years. But I really think this is doable, and should be doable.

I think something like this could really open up his hobby to much more people and cut down on piracy even.

1 Like
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You’d be able to commission stuff that can’t be sold on the marketplaces such as celeb likenesses that can’t be sold - but can be created for commissions. With payment this might be incentive for some of the talented artists to create content.

I could see a big market for simple props for fifty to a hundred dollars for the commission. Something a PA could create in a couple hours but wouldn’t normally because its too small/simple a product to sell.

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Question is - how’s that all that different from what Forender currently do?

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To be honest, I’d never heard of FoRender. But it looks interesting.

But it also looks like they specialize in character morphs and for older characters? I see where G3 and G8 are listed but looking at the pages of that site most of the characters appear to be of famous people (or recognizable people) and for older V4 or G2 characters.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But a couple of things do stand out to me.

First, it also appears to be a marketplace where once a figure is commissioned then it’s sold after a period of time. I’m specifically talking about a crowd-funded effort where backers get the figure for a period of time (90-180 days) and then afterwards the figure is released publicly.

So while this doesn’t create a “market” but what it does is create an ecosystem of professionally developed free figures which will inevitably draw more users into the hobby which will hopefully increase the market across the board and cut down on piracy.

I also would like to focus on the less profitable or marketable items. Time and again I hear there’s not as much male clothing or male characters availabe for Studio because there simply isn’t the market for them.

And I’d like to focus on things other than character development. Props. Accessories. Scenes. Sets. Tools. Vehicles. Wardrobe.

But in the general sense I see where Forender is very similar to what I’m proposing.

But I also would like users to submit proposals (an RFP if you will) and let artists respond and submit their proposal, and then funding be raised for that proposal.

For certain there will be a minimum amount someone would have to donate. Can’t have everyone donating $1.00 ane expecting to have the same rewards as someone donating $100, so say the minimum amount to fund is $25. It’s more expensive than what that item would probably cost if sold, but again I’m not suggesting anything is being sold with what I’m proposing.

I don’t know, maybe it’s a stupid hair brain idea but I think it’s worth exploring. And I am grateful that you pointed Forender out to me. You’ve given me some things to think about.

So to close I say the biggest difference between Forender and what I’m proposing is as following:

  1. Not a marketplace.
  2. Items commissioned would be freely released to the public after 180 days. Backers would get exclusivity to the item for a period of time.
  3. A focus on items that are not always popular and therefore not a lot of interest in a PA to create them.
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Sounds interesting especially for those of us trying to do something beyond instagram style shots of girls with … large chest muscles (not that there’s anything wrong with that if its what you’re into). If one got the right artists involved I know I’d be interested in what you’re talking about every so often.

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This all got started because of my crusade against the lack of male characters, decent wardrobe, and footwear. :wink: I’m sick and tired of hearing that PAs don’t produce male products because they “don’t sell”.

Fine! I’ll remove that barrier. :slight_smile:

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There are things I simply would like that no one is making, and if they are made, they aren’t done well.

I would gladly pay in advance or pledge to to so for certain items

For example, an undone realistic bow tie. Blade-like sideburns Male wedding rings

Etc.

I prefer to pledge for small things to see how they go.