But even the nobles of old wanted at least a painting or a play to their liking out of their deals. To that end, it’s value. I think a lot of people approach Kickstarter with value in mind though. It explains why the $60 tier is the most popular, at least.

I think the whole idea of looking at the “value” of a Kickstarter contribution only makes sense if you’re approaching things from a hard-nosed investment angle, which I don’t think Kickstarter really is all that much.

While there’s generally a recognition that transparency is required, there’s no legal obligation for say, a game development company to hit the same sort of development milestones with deadlines like they would with a publisher; the various backers can’t actually take them to court for breach of contract.

On another level I think at least some backers think of their contributions as charitable donations, or if you want to be more cynical, “patronage” – in the sense that their giving to particular projects is a statement of identity (“supporting the industry” is one you point out, but you could also think of taglines like “bringing back hardcore gaming” or “enjoying well-written works of art”.

I feel identity politics play as big a role as actual cost/benefit analysis when it comes to backers, if not more so.

I know you speak in generalities, but specifically Yuasa’s type of work is really meant for the global arthouse audience. His typical project is the sort of things that aren’t marketable domestically. So as a roundabout way to address your comment, basically, Kickstarter works great for some project, and terribly for others. Hopefully the Japanese know what will work and what will not work.

As for the target audience thing, I don’t see why they could not pitch a for-Japan project on an international KS-like portal. People like what they like, if it doesn’t work, it will fail, as by design.

I’m much more excited about future Japanese audiences kickstarting their own series through a Japanese KS equivalent, and western animation fans kickstarting their own cartoons, but for me, one of the major charms of Anime was always that it is *NOT* aimed at me, and that it will always have these weird foreign rules.

Of course, we live in a globalized world, and just as even now there are some animesque cartoons and cartoonish anime, in a Kickstarter world, we will also have some blurrring of lines, but just as gaming kickstarter presrerved some old-school genres, I hope that future animation crowdfunding will also preserve traditional anime.