KICKSTARTER: How To Sell Your Project Successfully

Know What You're Getting Into Before You Start
It's important to have a goal before embarking on a fund raising drive of any kind and its no different with Kickstarter. On the one hand it provides you with an incredible opportunity to realize a project you've always wanted to do but on the other hand also heaps a ton of responsibility on you to make good what you'll deliver your legions of backers or "pledgers" when they invest in your concept. Planning is absolutely essential, ramping up an appeal is in effect a business plan that total strangers are going to invest in and they're only going to invest in something that they have absolute faith or respect for. Cost your project out down to the penny and know what your break even point is, consider the resources and time you'll need to invest and above all network with people who may have the skills you'll need to rely on. People don't part with money easily these days and in order to get commitment from them you're going to have show some commitment yourself which is why coming up with a watertight plan is important. Be sure to explain clearly what the project is you are seeking pledges for, why you are seeking funding and the efforts you'll be making to ensure the project comes together.
Backers are ultimately looking for cool projects to be a part of, to be inspired and to be able to say "I helped fund that" empowering people to act and make a difference gives them an amazing feeling. Indie projects are always held in high regard, ones not hindered by executive chains of command preaching down through the ranks of Monday morning board meetings and corporate greed. Backers are looking for trend setters, for projects that appeal to them because it's something they've not seen before or that innovate in some way. Above all though backers are looking for a decent ROI (Return On Investment), there has to be a decent incentive to offer your backers to become involved in funding your project. A favourable mention in the back of your book for $5 pledged might be fine but don't expect that to have the same appeal at $10 Pledged. What you offer in return will ultimately dictate if your project gets off the ground.
Above all remember that you're also going to have consider what resources you have available in order to fulfil all your pledgers incentives, the logistics and all "the smaller nitty gritty stuff" are going to take up time and man power to honour so make sure you plan for it.

Avoid Talking Negatively - Remember your ABC (Always Be Confident)
No one wants to hear how your other attempts at funding have failed or how the bank manager broke his promise to lend you cash or how previous business partners let you down. Talking negatively or including any other type of sob story is just burning up crucial air time on how awesome you can make your project sound. Have something to say that keeps the tone positive and on the up, inspire people to believe in your project as well as yourself so be sure to present the product in a positive but relaxed tone and absolutely do not beg.
People are a lot more receptive to an idea if you can sell it with confidence, that means being able to make them just as enthusiastic about the project as you are. A well edited video of you talking about your project edited in with the ideas, sketches,prototype,blueprint,script,story or whatever it is you have will help sell your concept for someone to pledge in.You are the storyteller, tell a story that people cannot afford to ignore.Do your homework and check out other Kickstarter videos to get an idea of the sort of content people are including but more importantly how they are connecting with potential Pledgers.
How you inspire people with your concept is entirely up to you but remember you are selling the idea as well as yourself to people you'll probably never meet.
A positive attitude sprinkled with some insightful information or humour will pay off massively.
Two fantastic examples of this are Jeff McComseys Kickstarter  project, a Zombie Graphic Novel FUBAR:Empire of the Rising Dead and Tim Schafers super slick and humour filled pitch for his Kickstarter funded Adventure game which reached a staggering $3.3 Million in funding to the tune of some 87,000 backers and achieved 100% funding in just over 8 hours.
While both projects are vastly different they both give the reasons they are seeking Kickstarter funding and are openly honest about the whole process and this really helps the projects connect with potential backers.

Deliver What You Promise
If you're going to offer to deliver a signed lithographic print, guess what - you're actually going to have to deliver a signed lithographic print, once you've made that offer there's no turning back so carefully configure your backer incentives as being ones you can comfortably deliver. Resources are important, not only from a fulfilment perspective but also from a time perspective. You want to be able to dedicate as much time and manpower to your project as possible rather than have key personnel or team members running around trying to process the Kickstarter fulfilment of wrapping mugs, mousemats or leather bound art books or whatever gifts you are using for incentives for posting to pledgers. If you can't deliver it, don't promise it.

Be Clear On What You Are Offering
Keep things clear and simple, don't stuff your offerings with paragraph after paragraph of text, a snapshot or a brief overview of what you are offering backers per amount pledged is easy enough to advertise with a simple graphic, photo or image. These are sometimes labelled as "packages", a package is the deal you are offering your backers and will be broken down by monetary pledge. For example for $65 you might offer a Premium package which contains whatever it is you're going to offer, for $90 or more though they'll get the Collectors package which is made up of the same content as the Premium package but perhaps with something extra thrown in as a bonus.
An amazing example of beautifully realised packages is shown on  the Creatue Box Kickstarter page here.


Don't Get Sunk by Hidden Costs
There are some fantastic success stories on Kickstarter of late, there are literally hundreds of creative projects that have seen the light of day because they got the funding they deserved and became a reality.However, there are also some Kickstarter projects that became a reality but at a much larger cost than anticipated like the guys at War Balloon Games who detailed their painful expenditure here. The Hidden costs of Kickstarter can literally make or break your project, Kickstarter themselves take a 5% cut of your fees when the project reaches its funded target, Amazon takes between a 3-5% fee for credit card processing. Other cost you need to consider are things like manufacturing and delivery charges for backers incentives which can all quickly add up if you've failed to cost things out beforehand. Those t-shirts you're thinking about offering, have you costed the design, t-shirt stock, printing and delivery outside of the US?
What about third party fulfilment houses, if you haven't got the manpower to pick,pack and ship 3000 t-shirts you're going to need to pay someone who can.
Offering up posters, folded flat? because if you're using cardboard tubes those aren't cheap to post.
The best example I've seen on Kickstarter of calculating postage costs is the global map by the guys at Creature Box on their Kickstarter page, a colour coded map and Fed Ex costs are added per colour zone, these guys have clearly done their homework.
Another fee to consider is the legal fees for sorting out the necessary trademarks,copyrights and other protective measures to your I.P. This may be the digital age but your project is going to need some form of protection when it makes it to the big bad world.

Good Luck!

No one pays $60 to go to a funeral.

Just how real is "realistic" and more importantly how realistic do you want it, If video games are a form of entertainment then shouldn't their primary purpose be to entertain?
Specifically I'm talking about military based FPS titles, Gamespot writer Tom McShea penned an 800 word article based on his findings at E3 for Electronic Arts upcoming shooter Medal of Honor:Warfighter, McShea clearly wasn't happy about the level of realism and stated that regenerating health and respawning teammates trivialised the sacrifices that the game professes to honor. Producer Greg Goodrich to his credit pointed out that Medal of Honor: Warfighter makes no "realistic" claim—it is simply "authentic" in terms of the tools, weapons, uniforms, dialogue and other supporting features depicted.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter will come with a "hardcore" mode that strips out the regenerating health but I for one would not want to see this as a default option as suggested by McShea. How realistic do we really want military FPS titles to be, do we continue to acknowledge that the taking of another life is indeed horrific and profound but remove that shocking emotional effect from video game entertainment to protect the viability of the product or do we include it at the expense of taste and economic success?

Not a week goes by when we don't hear on the news that another soldier has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, the Taliban's current preferred weapon of choice but my question for Mr McShea is does he want the horrific realism of injuries caused in combat to be reflected in entertainment products like military genre  video games. Will the inclusion of seeing a young soldier screaming in incredible pain with both legs missing below the knee whilst his uniform is on fire bring anything new or do anything more to reflect the realism in war. I know for a fact I don't want that level of realism in my games, that doesn't mean I'm not aware of the sacrifices our soldiers are making or even makes light of the life changing injuries that have a devastating effect on the physical and mental state of our veterans.
If I get shot two or three times in one instance on a real battlefield, chances are I'm either going to be dead or seriously injured, maybe even paralysed. I really don't believe that including the realism of life changing wounds in a battlefield situation is going to do anything for FPS games. So what are we talking about here?, we get shot in the game, fall to the ground bleeding from three 7.62mm rounds that ripped into us from a compound seventy metres away, then we wait for a team player posing as a medic to come over because we're mashing the call for help button like crazy. 3 mins later he arrives having taken the long way round from the construction site(Battlefield 3), my game is now on hold as I'm still on the floor, my joypad is vibrating and I'm still bleeding. Okay so now we've called for a medevac from the aircraft carrier and one of my team mates (who I don't know) needs to run out into the open and pop smoke for the chopper to find us in the Gulf of Oman map somewhere by veterans retreat, that's another 5 mins before the chopper can safely  land and still I'm on the floor and can't get back into the game. Turns out that my main artery is ripped and I'm bleeding internally, medic's got to cut me open and clamp it but I need to stay conscious that's another 2 mins spent on a bloody floor with med packs, plasma and crap everywhere. All the while I'm using up one medic, one guy popping the smoke and probably another three team mates to secure the landing zone. Is this the realism we're talking about? because so far I've been in the game 9 mins and on the floor 8 mins unable to play.
Video games are as stated at the top of this article entertainment but they are also a business, there are investors, there is a product, there is a consumer and there is a profit to be made.
Under no circumstmances am I remotely trivialising the sacrifices made by serving soldiers when I say that, but that is the fact, a brand and a product has to have appeal in order for people to buy it. EA's Medal of Honor reboot in 2010 was heavily criticised as being too realistic with the military jargon that it went against the product, that also calling the enemy "the Taliban" was also wrong, but hang on, I thought you guys wanted realism, I thought you wanted to follow proper radio protocol and all the glossy tier one chatter didn't you?
In the single player campaign for Battlefield 3 you experience in first person view your own execution at the hands of muslim extremists, they toy with you in front of a camera set up to film the act which in this case is your throat being cut. I did feel uncomfortable while playing it, it made me slightly uneasy but its because I'd seen the 2004 Ken Bigley video, a barbaric and inhumane act as you can imagine, an innocent man having his head cut off on video for all to see.
God I wish health regeneration did exist in our daily lives, perhaps then those four hollow point bullets fired by Mark David Chapman into John Lennon's back wouldn't have been felt for generations since. Do we really need to understand the complexities of soft tissue trauma caused by hollow point rounds in order to appreciate the dangers of firefights while playing a game on xbox Live on a Saturday night?

Developers have a huge responsibility for product content, finding a perfect balance and doing so with a  level of taste that does not offend is no easy task.If I play Battlefield 3 it really doesn't bother me that when I destroy a tank the opposing player / occupant doesn't tumble out of the hatch with his uniform on fire with the skin melting from his face, I don't necessarily require that specific level of detail to realise in real life that is what does happen. I'm more than happy to have in-game characters with the same level of speech and expression as LA Noire, I'm quite happy to have 5 times more collateral damage to objects in games and I'm as happy as Larry to have an unrivalled selection of firearms and attachments and medals to obtain. Give me an Osprey I can fly with the whole multiplayer team on-board, give me access to each and every floor and building in the multiplayer map and all at the sacrifice of experiencing what real bullets do to real bodies, that is more than fine with me.Game play and the complexities of game design mean that there needs to be a degree of flow to how games are played, sometimes this is done at the creative expense of what reality actually proves otherwise. This balance is a paper thin line that developers are challenged with staying within, not just for the sake of game play but as an entertainment product that won't offend because its being seen to trivialise active duty soldiers in combat situations.I'd very much like to know where Tom McShea was when EA released Medal of Honor Allied Assault, did the lack of combat realism and the fact we weren't exposed to seeing 19 year old American boys screaming for their mothers with their lower intestines on their lap on Omaha Beach make this product a poor one?, depicting a place where over two thousand soldiers were gunned down in the surf in an attempt to storm 600 yards of beach, did that mock the actual veterans that went through it all? Did Mr McShea criticise Mr Speilberg for Saving Private Ryan, I mean, that's a movie right?, another entertainment product where Tom Hanks probably had a personal assistant bring him hot coffee between takes of storming up that bloody beach for the fifth time in a morning. That doesn't mean Tom Hanks didn't understand or appreciate any less the magnitude of the horror one morning in June 1944.
Tom McShea's article does raise some interesting points, unfortunately without actually suggesting any alternatives. Real soldiers don't regenerate health over time, yes we all get that Mr McShea but what is it you really want, what level of realism do you want because no one pays $60 to go to a funeral?

Tom McShea's original article can be read here

Black Ops 2: A franchise leaps too far.

It had a child actor completely in over his head, a creature with a voice that just made you want to stab yourself in the eyes with a rusty fork and story arcs which proved all along that the director had been making it all up as he went along. Episode One of the Star Wars franchise was something I had waited 16 years for. I remember feeling quite excited that ol George Lucas, he of chequered shirt collection had devised for us all this time round, eager I was to see what had gone before and what new avenues of storytelling could enrich my most favorite of all franchises.
Enrich it did not, not in the slightest, I had merely matured over the 16 years it took to re-visit Tatooine not completely taken leave of my senses George. Needless to say the Episode One cinema outing with my closest family had been about as entertaining as a tax return.
Betrayal befalls the loyal, when you trust something enough to place an almost religious like devotion it hurts all the more when someone who should be guardian of it starts messing around with it. As Kyle Reese once said, "it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with and it absolutely will not stop until you are dead. " Franchises endure for the most part, either through social appreciation, cult following or retro appeal, even Hollywood will go back to re-starting a franchise that really doesn't actually need it (Spiderman) and extending others that probably should be left alone (Terminator). Invariably though franchises mean cash and lots of it, Bobby Kotick knows all about cash and as Activision's CEO,President and Pearl of Wisdom he sits at the top of the juggernaut that has been the Call of Duty franchise. In 2010 34% of Activisions revenue was generated by Call of Duty, overall the franchise makes up one third of the company's annual $4 Billion revenue. To put that into perspective Call of Duty MW3 sold 6.5 Million units in its first 24 hours on sale generating close to half a billion dollars, It took competitor Electornic Arts nearly two and a half weeks to acheive the same figure with Battlefield 3 (despite the fact I think that its single player product is more entertaining and its multiplayer far more superior.)
It's not all been plain sailing as the brand has developed of course, the messy court action by Activision against Infinity Wards Vince Zampella and Jason West which saw the Modern Warfare creators kicked out of a job under a cloud of allegations of I.P ownership rights, unpaid bonuses and 'creative differences' had the potential to rock the integrity of the brand and potentially land a $1 Billion damages bill for Activision if the jury went in Zampella and West's favor.

In the court filing which has all the ingredients of a Watergate scandal for the videogame industry, West and Zampella's legal team had stated that evidence existed that Activision's chief legal officer, George Rose, wanted to break into West's and Zampella's computers and e-mail accounts to dig up dirt on them.

That initiative, called "Project Icebreaker" in court filings, took place in 2009, one year after West and Zampella extended their contracts and only a matter of months prior to the release of Modern Warfare 2. Activision in it's wisdom decided to throw the towel in on the impending LA county superior court trial and settled out of court knowing full well it was going to be way out of its depth as soon as the incriminating emails surfaced during trial showing its own form of business 'Black Ops'. Why it took Activision so long to work out that a $36 Million lawsuit was mere pennies against $1 Billion damages suit which would effectively wipe out the profit made by Activision is anybody's guess.
From a branding stand point it could have been extremely harmful, not just for Activision as a publisher but specifically for the Call of Duty brand. Dragging ex employees through court in pursuit for damages when you've made a Billion Dollars from their work and expertise is a journalists dream story - the sheer scale of the court case and information to be made available is one too many fires for Activision to fight in national and specialist press. The last thing you need affecting your brand is bad PR and the risk of consumers defecting to competitor product out of principle because your legal staff decided to break privacy laws.
Court documents lay out Infinity Ward's agreement with Activision, which purportedly gives the developer rights to creative authority over "any Call of Duty game set in the post-Vietnam era, the near future or the distant future" and any title under the Modern Warfare brand. This is why in order to do anything else with the Call of Duty franchise beyond what has already gone before in Black Ops we see the series really jumping the shark and introducing the sci-fi element under the Call of Duty brand not the Modern Warfare brand. Although the series is not quite ray guns and spacesuits it's certainly a little too far forward for most fans liking with tech and hardware that treads on ground that EA tried to cover with the Battlefield series in Battlefield 2142. Gamerankings scored BF 2142 in the 80% mark, not a PR horror story but it also didn't set the world on fire (despite an awesome Titan capture and control multiplayer dynamic) and the fact the series had jumped so far forward basing its story around a global ice age in the 22nd century there was no real relevance to the title within the franchise, it wasn't a natural progression which has seen more proven success for the Battlefield franchise set within the current era of modern warfare.
It's fair to say that MW3 has been fully farmed as has its predecessor, countless map packs have scored Activision a few more zero's on the dollar as a multimillion money maker and the launch of the Elite service for MW3 although a risky gamble appears to have paid off making yet more cash.
However, I really don't agree that the next natural progression for the series is some kind of futuristic FPS "future soldier" theme. Personally I think this is a major mistake for the Black Ops brand but could be a clear sign that the publisher has exhausted all its ideas and wants more creative license to make stuff up.Ghost Recon already caters for the futuristic soldier element and does very well with it because its already ingrained in the franchise from the beginning. The brand does introduce some extreme futuristic elements of late(going invisible) but because it planted this seed early on in its franchise it's been able to market it very well because its evolved with the series.
Black Ops 2 on the other hand looks inferior, A.I looks absolutely awful, graphics look substandard and nothing like the detailed MW2 visuals. Fans flocked to the Modern Warfare and Black Ops franchises because the content was authentic, real life locations and stunning weapon realisation and customization. Never since have I played an FPS with the same amount of tension and excitement as the sniper mission "All Ghillied Up" in Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. It was a party talking point, an absolute on the money concept of quality mission design because for over half the mission it went against the fast flow non stop aspect of traditional FPS play. While agree with many that more of the same Black Ops story formula set in Cuba, Vietnam or a science lab would also be a mistake jumping the series forward several decades from the cold war to an age where AT AT like Star Wars tech graces the battlefield seem like it was done to avoid legal issues and still deliver an FPS rather than evolve the brand.  Halo already provides our sci-fi FPS fix, Halo 4 will continue to provide it and rather than refresh the franchise Black Ops 2 runs the real risk of alienating a large contingent of its fans who have loved the real world 20th century conflicts and military organisations. I was blown away with the marketing for Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, its perk system revolutionized FPS classes in games, it had fantastic realism for modern day assault weapons and Special Forces groups. The game was THE FPS game to beat, it was immersive and intense, multiplayer was balanced and engaging. Extending the brand, Activision released The Variety Map Pack which was downloaded by over one million people in its first nine days of release, a record for paid Xbox Live downloadable content, valued at $10 million.
If we put that into perspectibe there are free to play multiplayer PC products with that dollar amount as a total development budget currently in the works.
A videogame brand evolves with its audience, it looks at trends, wants and needs from its consumers and positions the product to answer those needs, I'm pretty sure that the decision to move the genre so far forward to 2025 wasn't taken lightly although I can't help thinking that the development teams and Activision's own marketing teams haven't entirely seen eye to ey on that jump forward.Black Ops 2 is looking more like Red Faction than its gritty predecessor, is that what the COD forums have been calling for?, is it the next natural evolution of Activision's FPS brand before the death of the Xbox360 and PS3 console cycle?, who knows, but for me as a massive FPS and COD fan its just a jump too far.

Zazzle is my Affiliate heaven

I read a very inspiring book recently, one that's hopefully firmly set me on the path to doing something constructive with my free time to build additional revenue streams. The book in question is Geoge Marshalls "Get out While you can" a book about affiliate marketing but more importnatly its message to readers is the basic guide to getting out of the rat race and wage slavery of a 9-5 job by getting into affiliate marketing.
Try as I might most of my initial schemesbefore I read the book haven't quite taken off, I signed up to both Cafe Press and Red Bubble to very little success over the last 18 months and even when I did make $27 from Cafe Press I found out my bank wouldn't process the payment because it was under the $50 minimum which hurts even more when you're unemployed. Granted my uploads to both sites have been rather low and I didn't much go for the limits Cafe Press put on sellers so I left it. Red Bubble is very competitive, there are so many talented people on there its hard to cut through the competition to make something work, artists and professional photographers probably do okay with strong content. My novel on Kindle is in double figures, albeit low double figures and with the royalties I could probably buy a pint but not much else. I got into Clickbank but have stalled despite a good Google page ranking but puzzled as to how I move forward or resolve the zero sales situation. Its frustrating to say the least, My strongest and most successful Affiliate revenue stream has been from Zazzle of all places, a place where I'm competing against 42 Billion other products, that's right, 42 Billion!!, I've devoted lots of time to this and now thats paying off as I'm starting to see a good trickle of results and have become a basic Pro Seller, I'm getting low royalty sales admittedly but a steady flow is slowly adding up. What makes this even more surprising is the sheer range of competing products and product quality, no doubt there are people raking in cash from Zazzle from unique designs but to be making sales against these sellers is a good feeling to be had, especially considering how I'm stumbling to make any real headway with revenue from other affiliate revenue streams. I'll still work on improving my Clickbank and Kindle projects for 2012 but for now Zazzle is where the money is.

Is film the Magic wand for book sales?

Sales of Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse have seen a dramatic rise since the release of Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated film version of the story.

It has sold more copies in the UK in a fortnight, than it did worldwide in the 25 years after it was first published.

The book, first published in 1982, has been the number one best-selling book in the UK for two consecutive weeks. A stage version of the show opened in 2007.

War Horse is the story of a farm horse, Joey, who gets separated from his owner and ends up in the trenches of World War I.

Publisher Egmont Press said the chart-topping book had sold more than 30,000 copies in the UK each week over the past fortnight.

By comparison, the book sold 50,000 copies worldwide between 1982 and 2007 - an average of 2,000 per year.

Is film the magic wand for improving book sales?, some would say its pretty obvious because of films broader reach and opportunity to be seen in the event of a promotional campaign is far greater than most book ad campaigns.What puzzles me about the above story is, if the story is good enough and compelling enough for Spielberg to adapt into a full blown movie why didn't word of mouth encourage higher sell through of the book in its own right when it was originally released?

Clearly its not sell through numbers of the book that made Spielberg sit up and take notice because 50,000 books sold is relatively small fry compared to other adapted novels which only really leaves the story as the single most compelling aspect of the project. Spielberg is a master storyteller (not counting Kingdom of Crystal Skulls) and no doubt a strong story that would appeal to a massive audience was important to him in order to get the studio ticket sales. Based on its $66M production budget U.S domestic ticket sales are $77,396,622 since December 25th, add to that another $44 Million international of ticket sales ($21M achieved in the UK alone) and it's pushing positive results. Not including DVD, Bluray, home rental and eventual TV rights War Horse should clean up pretty well. What's also interesting is that other film makers and studios have probably been pitched the story to option since Nick Staffords brilliant adaption from book to War Horse play. A stage production that has seen War Horse playing to 97% capacity audiences in London's West End in 2010.

Obviously there are some pretty big factors to take into consideration here for the massive increase in War Horse book sales. Spielberg for one is a movie juggernaut in terms of Director so immediately the profile of the War Horse book has been increased well beyond normal levels of interest when he signed on the dotted line, that in PR value alone for your book is probably all you need. Another factor is the promotion behind the movie, War Horse benefited greatly from TV advertising for its London West End theatre run in the UK before Christmas which perfectly matched it up to its Dec 25th release and TV ad campaign.

Its not rocket science to understand that an immediate face lift of the books cover to tie in with the War Horse film helped keep the marketing cohesive and this happens for practically all book and film tie ins, get people to see the film = get people to read the book, likewise, get people to the read the book = get people to see the film. Perception, value and quality are massively important to consumers, perception of the product and how they feel about a product or service are important for the appeal it has, value and quality go hand in hand, if you deliver value and quality in equal measure your customer feels good about the decision they made.

   

From my own dabble with trying to raise book profile and my true life experience of the Thames torso murder of the African boy Ikponmwosa , Martha Feinnes, sister to actors Ralph and Joseph is making a documentary on the murder case this year. My own book based on the events, "Carved" available on Kindle would benefit from the increased coverage that Martha will no doubt add to the case when the documentary airs later this year but I'm not getting my hopes up too much, its a competitive market to say the least but any promotion is good promotion given the current climate.

Afghanistan through an iphone

There was a time when correspondents in particular combat photographers and invstigative journalists had to navigate the daily perils of working in a combat zone while trying to keep their cameras out of harms way as much as themselves. lugging around bulky cameras and fumbling around trying to change a roll of film in the middle of a firefight doesn't go without its problems as no doubt professionals like Tim Paige experienced during Vietnam.
Nowdays of course the emergegence of digital technology  has provided photojournalists and correspondents with the tools to even capture images and record current events with an application on a phone.
With so many camera apps available for the i-Phone only one has really stood out as a gem, the Hipstamatic app that  allows the user to shoot square photographs, to which it applies a number of software filters in order to make the images look as though they were taken with an antique film camera. One such photographer, Balazs Gardi covered the war Afghanistan when he was embedded with US Marines from 1/8 Battalion in Helmand in Sept 2010 using his i-phone and Hipstamatic app to stunning effect in Foreign Policy's web article which you can see here.

EA invokes first amendment for Battlefield 3

Electronic Arts has filed a preemptive lawsuit against aircraft manufacturer Textron, hoping to invoke First Amendment laws and justify the use of real-life helicopters in Battlefield 3.
Three helicopters appear in the game -- the AH-1Z Viper, UH-1Y, and V-22 Osprey -- none of which were licensed by Textron's subsidiary Bell. EA was previously involved in talks with Textron to reach a resolution over the use of the US helicopters, but those talks broke down. EA feels it shouldn't have to seek a license to use the likenesses of the vehicles, citing fair use.
Electronic Arts hopes to exploit last year's official ruling that videogames were protected by free speech laws. It has succeeded in the past, getting away with using college football players likenesses without permission. EA asserts that the appearance of the vehicles do not constitute an endorsement by the maker, and that the helicopters are given no greater prominence than any other in-game vehicle, appearing simply for realism's sake.

I'd hate to see the loss of the Viper, especially since I've just unlocked the guided missile perk which took me an absolute age to get but I think other than some subtle design changes in a patch I don't think there's much panic that the choppers will be yanked from the game. I remember when JVC had started to develop the first of their PS2 catalogue with a follow up to Wingover, a military flight sim. The game featured aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and from countless other manufacturers including Lockheed Martin, two years of development down the line the Japanese publisher stopped all development because it hadn't acquired the licenses to use the aircraft and feared a lawsuit. That was back in 1999.

What's interesting is that not all game developers and publishers acquire licenses for things likes weapons and vehicles and in most cases try to find a workaround by changing the design enough that legally a patent lawsuit couldn't touch.Other industries have been affected such as the Airsoft and paintball industry which has felt the lawcourts breathing down their necks especially in the US where patents and trademarks are agressively protected. As late as June 2009 H&K (Heckler & Koch, German weapon manufacturer famous for the SAS Favourite the MP5 took B&T Paintball Designs and Tippmann Sports two of several Airsoft and Paintball distributors to court for copyright infringment on weapon designs.Magpul, another manufacturer also filed a lawsuit against an Airsoft company using its Masada assault rifle design.

In the videogame industry larger more established dev teams benefit from licensing and legal departments to iron out any possible infringment but it remains one of those problematic areas which could probably do with a lot more guidance and accessible information to help entertainment companies and creative professionals stay within the guidelines. How closely EA works with the military isn't known but these are issues that Activision has managed to avoid primarily because its covered all the neccessary issues with regards to depicting real world designs in its Call of Duty franchise.
Until someone can actively represent developers and entertainment companies and guide them through the licensing and legal processes of using military designs this won't be the last time we hear this sort of news.