In surprising but amazing news, gamers have pledged over $1 billion to video games on Kickstarter. The platform, launching back in 2009, is the reason for titles like Shovel Knight, The Banner Saga, and many more. Since then, there have been over 17,000 funded projects in the Games category.
This should come as little surprise considering 2018 was a record-breaking year for gaming on Kickstarter. Last year alone, gamers brought in $200.9 million to video games, up more than 18% from 2017. The enthusiasm saw Kickstarter introduce new projects like their weekly emails, “Projects We Love,” and even a podcast. Overall, over 3.2 million people donated to the Games category.
“With $1 billion in pledges under our belt, we can’t wait to continue to grow Kickstarter games,” reads the post. It then goes into the team’s favorite upcoming projects, Firmament, Calico, Roam, Oceans, and Blood on the Clocktower.
No matter the industry, $1 billion is a lot to throw at something. In the world of games, this is especially impressive considering these are crowdfunded experiences here. Most of them are smaller indie titles rather than big-budget AAA games. This amount of money is a testament to industry enthusiasts who will put their money where their mouth is and back the projects they want to see.
Kickstarter was founded back in 2009 by Perry Chen. It has since spread to a worldwide platform for anyone to pitch their project and bring it to reality. It was one of the first big crowdfunding spaces to affect the games industry, which is now full of them, from Fig to Indiegogo. Of course, Kickstarter has other funding avenues too, for things like comics, design, film, music, and publishing.
If you remember the Ouya video game console, that came from Kickstarter. The project asked for $950,000 but ended up with $8,596,474. Unfortunately, the hardware was more than a disappointment for many, but the project did bring more awareness to Kickstarter within the games industry.
