Crowd-sourcing has recently become a way to get free publicity and money, even if something is already built. For example, Roll20.net launched a Kickstarter cam

Crowd-sourcing has recently become a way to get free publicity and money, even if something is already built. For example, Roll20.net launched a Kickstarter campaign [1] with a tiny limit ($5,000) to build an online tabletop RPG. It became quite popular, earning something like $40,000 by the time the Kickstarter was over. Here's the kicker: their Kickstarter video had an already-working demo! They launched the closed-to-backers beta within weeks of the Kickstarter funding closing, and opened it up to everybody within a few more weeks. They already had a working product, they simply used Kickstarter as an advertising platform that cost them NEGATIVE $39,651 and got them hundreds of loyal fans and evangelists (their backers) and millions of eyeballs (through the media covering their ~8x funding). It's actually quite brilliant. [1]: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rileydutton/roll20-virtual-tabletop-gaming-that-tells-a-story http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rileydutton/roll20-virtu...