A new site called Simfunding has popped up, promising a dedicated space for individuals/groups looking for crowdsourcing of their sim racing projects. The site functions much like any other crowdsourcing sight – Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Indiegogo – in that creators will post projects with a dollar goal and supporters will be able to donate money to reach their goal (with usually some sort of incentive attached). If the project doesn’t reach its goal, all money is returned (cause it was never spent through PayPal to begin with).
While the site is now live, the primary functionality of the site, crowdsourcing, isn’t yet. You can submit creation ideas though.
Simfunding is an interesting concept. I think the site could go one of two ways. I believe the ideal situation is teams will come together (maybe all-star teams motivated by the cash incentive) and create large projects/titles that will fill a need not currently met in the sim racing world. On the other hand, the site could turn into a onezy, twozy payware content site, which would be less than ideal. While I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with charging for quality mods, I don’t think the goal of the site is to monetize the predominantly free mod world.
In the end, the success of Simfunding will be reliant on the free market. Creators will not only need to come up with attractive ideas but ideas that can be completed and justify the investment from fans. I do like the ideology behind the site – having a single home for sim racing related crowdsourcing – but only time will tell if the execution will be successful.
What do you think of Simfunding’s ambitious plan?
This sounds like a good idea. But, I’ve already put a bunch of my money into Sector 3. 😉
Now this is great news. Just opening new business in UK and this will be a great help. Thanks for the heads up Darin. Hope your skying went well.
I have poured money into Simraceway, Sector 3, iRacing and too a lesser degree Assetto Corsa and now Project Cars. I understand that folks that create, or modify, a car or a track and they would like some positive pay off for their time and effort and most modders have pay buttons where you can donate. I have done that as well. I want to see the genre expand so I guess that is good.
I just want a really good sim of the great 60’s and 70’s Can-Am and Trans Am series. I would dump money into that.