Over $100 Million Pledged to Games on Kickstarter

On Kickstarter, Michael McGregor  writes this on March 21, 2012:

…. we would share an exciting stat: more than $100 million has been pledged to Games projects on Kickstarter, giving 1,476 new games the green light!

Games Category Stats

• Total Dollars: $107.6 Million
• Successful projects: 1,476
• Total Backers: 633,242

In the past four years, more than 633,242 backers have pledged to more than 4,500 Games projects, nearly 1,000 of them in the past year alone. After the launch of Double Fine Adventure in February 2012, things really took off:

Dollars Pledged to Games

• 2009: $60,601
• 2010: $546,362
• 2011: $3,855,692 
• 2012: $83,144,565
• 2013: $22,423,264 (to date)

For a good illustration of how times have changed, look at creator Adam Poots, who raised $1,741 from 28 backers for his Kingdom Death miniatures project in 2009, becoming one of the first successful projects on Kickstarter. In 2012, Adam launched another set of Kingdom Death miniatures, raising more than $2 million.

Even better than the amazing sums projects are raising? The games they’re producing. To celebrate this $100 million milestone, we polled the Kickstarter staff to come up with the ten favorite Kickstarter-funded video games and tabletop games we’ve been playing over the past few years, along with links for where to play or buy. We hope you enjoy!

10 Kickstarter-funded Video Games you can play right now (in no particular order)

• FTL (Faster than Light) (2013 IGF Finalist), a space simulator aimed at recreating the feeling of cruising through the galaxy in a spaceship.                             
• Kentucky Route Zero (2013 IGF Finalist), a magical realist adventure game set on a secret highway in Kentucky.                                                                                                          
• Organ Trail (at PAX in the Indie Megabooth), a zombie apocalypse parody of the classic Oregon Trail.                                                                                              
• Blindside (2012 IndieCade Finalist), a survival/horror adventure game with no graphics at all.
• Guns of Icarus (at PAX in the Indie Megabooth). You are the captain of a steampunk airship in this post-apocalyptic MMO.
• God of Blades (at Kickstarter Arcade), a sword-and-sorcery saga RPG for iOS.
• Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, the 25th anniversary edition of this classic where you jump, dash and twist through a warped dimension. 
• Strike Suit Zero (at Kickstarter Arcade), a fast and frantic space combat game for PC.
• Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller,  a supernatural adventure game where you play an FBI agent on the hunt for a serial killer.
• Zombies Run, an immersive mobile game where you help rebuild civilization after a zombie apocalypse.
• Sidius Nova, a combination of turn-based and real-time space strategy.

10 Kickstarter-funded Tabletop Games you can play right now (in no particular order)

• Miskatonic School for Girls, the first deck-building game where you get to build your opponent’s deck.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse, an award-winning cooperative comic-book-themed card game.
• Mobile Frame Zero, Lego mechs battling for control of your table.
• Cards Against Humanity (at Kickstarter Arcade), a party game for horrible people.
• Everything is Dolphins, an old-school RPG clone in which you play a dolphin instead of a dwarf, elf or human.
• Zombicide, a zombie survival game featuring 71 amazing miniatures.
• Tammany Hall, determine who really rules New York City in this boardgame about 19th century politics.
• Unexploded Cow, a new board game by Cheap Ass Games creator James Earnest.
• Gunship, dice, cards and boards collide in this tactical space combat game.
• Ghost Pirates (at Kickstarter Arcade), a board game of ship-to-ship tactical action.

Thanks so much to all of the creators and backers and the incredible gaming community that has made these projects happen. We hope to see many of you this weekend at PAX East!