Double Fine has been grabbing all the headlines recently. Their Kickstarter fund now stands at just shy of $2 million dollars and it still has over three weeks left to run. With an initial request for only $400,000, their foray into the world of ‘Crowd Funding' has been incredibly successful.
In response to this, the UK's trade body for the interactive entertainment industry (UKIE) has published this report into ‘Crowd Funding' and its possible application in this country.
The key recommendations are as follows:
"Crowd funding to be permitted generally: Although this report primarily looks at crowd funding for the interactive entertainment industry, the recommended changes can have many benefits for SMEs from other sectors and wider community based projects throughout the UK.
A "light touch" regulatory regime: Allowing for fast moving investment in businesses and projects whilst maintaining an appropriate level of protection for potential investors.
No requirement to issue shares to investors: It should be possible to effect crowd funding projects as collective investment schemes and therefore without the need to issue shares to individual investors.
No limit on what can be raised per project: There should be no limit on the amount that can be generated by crowd funded collective investment schemes, provided that a fund that is seeking to raise over €5 million would have to produce a prospectus (this derives from the Prospectus Directive).
An investment limit per person per project: It is important to have a limit to reduce the possibility of any individual investing too great an amount in a project that is unsuccessful."
UKIE chief executive, Dr Jo Twist said: "Having Double Fine's Kickstarter project raise over $1.8 million has shown the huge potential of crowd funding to benefit games and interactive entertainment businesses."
"We need the UK to be able to take full advantage of crowd funding to allow video games businesses, community projects and SMEs from all sectors to raise much needed investment. We have produced UKIE's Crowd Funding Report as part of our pre-budget submission to government, to outline exactly what needs to be done for this to be possible. We'll be working with government over the next few weeks to push for inclusion of our recommendations in the up-coming Budget."
UKIE deputy chair and chair of UKIE's Games Developer Group, Ian Livingstone said: "Getting access to finance is a major hurdle when trying to develop a video game and grow your business. The proposals in UKIE's Crowd Funding report open up great possibilities for UK games developers to use crowd funding as a significant source of investment."