It was in 2012 that Kickstarter took to the scene with video game funding and an avalanche of games that followed. This included games from giants like Tim Schaefer, but also smaller games like Torment: Tides of Numenera. Big or small, it ushered in an age where gamers could finally have a say in what games were produced.

Though many critics have argued that the trend of crowdfunding games is ending, it would be more accurate to say that it is evolving. Kickstarter is no longer the only vendor in the ring. Fig has recently entered too, a crowdfunding platform founded by Tim Schaefer and Feargus Urquhart, the former being the father of point-and-click games, and the latter being the CEO of Obsidian entertainment. Fig offers crowdfunding but through investment returned as shares in the company. Other companies, like Cloud Imperium Gaming, have simply started doing crowdfunding through their own site in the form of purchasing ships that gamers can use when the game launches.

Whatever the method, gamers are still eagerly donating to see projects come to fruition. And as gamers become increasingly more wary of publishers, something we discussed here, the process of gamer involved publishing will only become more prevalent.

According to EEDAR’s 2016 report, over $340 million has been spent on successful funding of videogames through kickstarter. That translates to over twenty-two thousand successfully funded video games. In case you are wondering, that would make gamers – through crowdfunding – the number one producer of video games about one-hundred times over. And this doesn’t even take into account successful funding from other sources.

Star Citizen has made an estimated $148 million through crowdfunding. Only $2 million of that came from kickstarter. Pillars of Eternity made over $4 million in investment through Fig; Psychonauts 2 made over $3 million.