Kickstarter revealed that Reaper Miniature Bones and Planetary Annihilation became projects number 10 and 11 on Kickstarter to cross $1 million in funding and that seven of the 11 projects that have crossed $1 million this year are games, with the eighth being Order of the Stick, a comic gaming. This has led the company conclude that this is the year of the game on Kickstarter.

Additionally, Kickstarter said that more dollars have been pledged to Games projects than to any other category, giving a list of money pledged through August 31:

1. Games — $50 million
2. Film — $42 million
3. Design — $40 million
4. Music — $25 million
5. Technology — $16 million

Games has gone from the eighth most-funded category in Kickstarter history to the second most-funded just in 2012:

2009 — $48,190
2010 — $519,885
2011 — $3,615,841
2012 — $50,330,275

Compared to last year when 3.6 percent of the pledges were to games, this year it is 23 percent. 20 of the 36 projects that have raised more than $500,000 this year have been games.

“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,” posted Yancey Strickler and Fred Benenson. “The gaming world hasn’t looked at Kickstarter the same way since. 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.”

Kickstarter also said that people who first back a games project have backed 2.43 projects on average, compared to 1.78 projects for all other backers. This makes them Kickstarter’s most frequent backers and they’ve inspired more game projects that have brought even more backers, and so on.

“Games give players the power to take control and decide what happens. Kickstarter gives backers the power to take control and decide what happens. The combination of the two has produced some memorable events. Incredibly, all of this has happened in the six months since the launch of Double Fine Adventure,” concluded Yancey Strickler and Fred Benenson. “While it’s still too early to understand the full impact, it’s clear that big changes are happening in the world of games.”

Source: Kickstarter