Kickstarter today revealed that, when it comes to things getting funded on their site, the absolute best category to be in if you want a completed project is video gaming. On average, more projects go from launched to funded in the video game category than any other, and that has some unexpected implications.
Kickstarter games have earned, between August 31 and the eight months preceding it have brought in $50 million across the category. By comparison, Film earned $42 million, and Design pulled in $40 million. But oddest of all, only last year, Kickstarter's video games category pulled in a comparatively meager $3.6 million. The category sees over 200 titles per month, and pledgers in the games category tend to, overall, pledge to more projects than any other.
Basically, this means one critical fact: gamers are supporting, clearly and tangibly, the games they want to play based on what they're hearing at the outset. Given that game sales have been falling off recently--summer is often a slow time for games, though, with more of the major titles waiting for a Christmas launch--it may well be that gamers in general are getting tired of what the major studios are offering, and are instead looking for titles they'd rather play from the indie developers. Whether this is a function of content, or a function of overall quality brought on by the aging of the consoles--there's only so much users can do with the Xbox 360 or the PS3 that hasn't been done--is unknown, but one thing is quite clear; something very big is going on here.
The implications here are big. Are people simply bored with consoles and turning to the indies for the next big thrill? Or are people finding games in general distasteful and are looking to find their thrills away from consoles of any stripe? In the one case, the indie resurgence will drop when the next generation of consoles emerges in earnest. In the other...in the other the entire landscape changes, potentially permanently. Just which remains to be seen, but we may be looking at one of the biggest sea changes known to gamer.
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