10,000 games have been funded on Kickstarter

Kickstarter just revealed that 10,000 game projects have been funded on the site since 2009, when designer Eric Berlin raised $2,265 to create a new series of crossword puzzles.

In total, Kickstarter games have received $613 million in crowdfunding from 2.46 million backers. The most successful project to date is the horror board game Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5, which raised $12.3 million, followed by the Oatmeal’s card game Exploding Kittens at $8.7 million. The most-funded video game is the still in-development Shenmue 3, which raised $6.3 million. According to Kickstarter, of those who have backed a game, more than half — 1.45 million — have pledged to multiple projects.

Some of the sheen of crowdfunding for games has worn off since the record-breaking days of Double Fine Adventure — later dubbed Broken Age — in 2009, after a number of titles either disappointed or were outright canceled. Since then, the market for Kickstarter games has matured somewhat, with recognizable names and established studios dominating the most-funded charts. “I think that backers are more discerning now, since unfortunately a number of crowdfunded games did not come out, or did not deliver on all of their promises,” Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Pillars of Eternity developer Obsidian, told The Verge last month.

And while Kickstarter may not seem like the force that it once was, a number of notable upcoming releases used the service to help fund development. That includes Ron Gilbert’s upcoming adventure game Thimbleweed Park, the N64-style platformer Yooka-Laylee, and industrial survival game Rain World.