Kickstarter: More dollars pledged to games than any other category in 2012

Since Double Fine Adventure kick started the Kickstarter craze this year, games have become the funding platform's most popular category.

According to the Kickstarter blog, more money has been pledged to games than any other category this year. Games have pulled in $50 million year to date, well ahead of film ($42 million), design ($40 million), music ($25 million) and technology ($16 million). Of the 36 projects that have raised more than $500,000 this year, 20 have been games.

Seven of the 11 projects which have totted up $1 million in 2012 were gaming efforts, and 22 games have now earned over $1 million through the funding initiative. Over the course of the year, the games category has grown from the eighth most-funded category in Kickstarter history to the second-most funded; this year, 23% of all dollars went to games, as opposed to 2011's 3.6%.

"The catalyst for the category’s growth happened in February, when a video game project called Double Fine Adventure raised $1 million in its first 24 hours. The gaming world hasn’t looked at Kickstarter the same way since," the blog acknowledged.

"Double Fine signaled to game developers that they could use Kickstarter to do something that previously seemed impossible: make the game they wanted without outside interference."

Interestingly, gamers are among Kickstarter's most loyal backers. Those who first back a games project usually go on to back more, with an average of 2.43, as opposed to 1.78 among those who jumped into another category.

Although Kickstarter's recent history is full of high-porfile gaming success stories - Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Tex Murphy, Planetary Annihilation, Oculus Rift, Broken Sword, Showdowrun Returns, and Ouya, off the top of my head - only 23% of video game projects have been successfully funded.

Thanks, GamesIndustry.