Should big publishers jump on the crowd-funding bandwagon?

With the success indie developers are finding through crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter, could companies like EA and Activision be tempted to work the model into their own businesses?  If so, how would it work, and would gamers be receptive to the idea?

Big publishers are often criticized for their lack of risk-taking.  We talk about how protagonists all look the same; how women aren't well represented; how games seem too homogeneous.  If you've ever jokingly referred to a game as "Call of Honor: Brothers in Modern Duty 3" (or similar), you get the idea that AAA games can seem too similar.  But Activision knows that Call of Duty is where the money is, so that's what they're going to make.

But what if rather than scrapping any project that might seem a little too risky, big publishers could present the idea like a Kickstarter project?  And it wouldn't have to be restricted to completely new games, either.  Want a North American release of a game that's exclusive to the Japanese market?  Nintendo could say "if we raise X amount of dollars, we'll do it!"

On the publisher side of the equation, the risk would be removed because they would create the project, or localize the game, or fund the DLC, or do any other of a number of things only if they raised the needed funds.  On the consumer side of things, it would basically work like pre-ordering the game.  But there would also be less risk for the consumer, because a major publisher is more likely to follow through with a project if it succeeds, or to refund the money if the project fails to hit its mark.

However, many crowd-funded projects receive donations that are either in the low range - where people don't actually get a copy of the game, but like the idea enough that they wish to help - or in the high end - where people donate well above the needed amount to get a copy of the game because they love the idea, and want to help out as much as possible.  I can't imagine anyone would make these kind of donations if the project was backed by a big publisher.  I think this would limit the range of donations they could ask for, potentially making it harder to secure the funding they need.

What do you think?  Do you see any potential for the crowd-funding model in the world of big publishers and AAA games?  Is there a project you can think of in which you would gladly give some money to EA?  Perhaps a remake of a favorite game from your childhood?  Let us know in the comments!

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