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Asking players to fund your game before it exists and hoping you can deliver.
Game crowdfunding on platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo lets developers pitch a concept directly to potential players and collect funding before development. The model created a golden age of niche games that publishers would never have funded: spiritual successors, retro revivals, and experimental concepts. It also created spectacular failures when developers underestimated costs, overpromised features, or simply took the money and disappeared. The crowdfunding bubble has deflated from its peak, but it remains a viable path for established developers with proven track records.
Example
Shovel Knight raised $311,000 on Kickstarter in 2013 and became one of the most acclaimed indie games of the decade, over-delivering on every promise. On the other end, Mighty No. 9 raised $3.8 million, generated enormous hype as a spiritual successor to Mega Man, and delivered a critically panned disappointment that became synonymous with crowdfunding risk.
Why it matters
Crowdfunding proved that players would directly fund the games they wanted, bypassing the traditional publisher gatekeeping system. It launched entire studios and genres that would not exist otherwise. But the cautionary tales also taught players to be skeptical of promises and taught developers that community management is as important as game development.
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