More than $200 million has been pledged towards games on Kickstarter

kickstarter-logoWading through the huge number of statistics that Kickstarter makes available through its site, the crowdfunding center’s “Games” category has recently hit a new milestone: The number of pledges towards game projects, including video games and board games, has passed the $200 million mark. This figure does count pledges that were made to unsuccessful projects, but stripping them away reveals that successful campaigns still account for an impressive $178 million.

While Kickstarter allows a vast variety of creative projects, from films and music albums to clothing, jewellery and nifty inventions, the Games category accounts for just over 20% of the $920 million that has so far been fed into the crowdfunding machine. It has now overtaken the Film & Video category as the biggest money maker on the site.

Since Warp Zoned started its monthly Kickstart This! column in 2012, the amount pledged to games has risen from $83 million last year to $112 million this year, with a couple of weeks left to go. That increase of over 25% has gone to funding high quality independent titles such as Knite & the Ghost Lights, Stasis, and Monochroma.

Kickstarter has now been running long enough that the games that have been previously funded through the system are starting to see the light of day. Sadly, not all of them have lived up to the hype. But with high profile titles like Broken Age, Shovel Knight, and many other Kickstarter-funded games set to be released soon, the viability of crowdfunding as a sustainable business model will definitely be put to the test in 2014.

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In addition to being Warp Zoned's UK Correspondent, Andrew Rainnie is a screenwriter and filmmaker. You can email him at andrew AT warpzoned DOT com or you can, if you're inclined, visit his personal website.