Kickstarter

Kickstarter is probably the most well known crowd funding website in existence. Basically, here you can obtain money for any creative project you have by submitting a description of your project (usually alongside a shot video) and promising rewards to people who "pledge" different amounts.

While the site has enjoyed a reasonable success beforehand, in February 2012 everything changed: not only did an iPhone dock become the first project to raise a million dollars, but legendary game developer Tim Schafer announced he was going to raise money for a new adventure game. Said project ended up raising over 3 million, with 1 million raised in a single day. The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive also joined the +1 million club the same month.

Schaefer's success then caused a large number of game developers to turn to Kickstarter. Said developers included Brian Fargo, who raised over 2.7 million for Wasteland 2; Al Lowe who is seeking to remake Leisure Suit Larry in HD; Jane Jensen, seeking funding for her adventure game studio and others.

Notable Kickstarter projects include:

 * Carmageddon: Reincarnation
 * Double Fine Adventures
 * Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded
 * Manos: The Hands of Fate HD Restoration
 * The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive
 * Shadowrun Returns
 * Tropes vs. Women in Videogames
 * Thankskilling 2
 * Wasteland 2
 * Xenonauts
 * Yogventures
 * Zombies Run
 * Dick Figures: The Movie

This website includes examples of:

 * Follow the Leader: While Kickstarter had hosted hundreds of gaming projects before Tim Schafer, Double Fine Adventure caused several high profile developers to join in. It also paved the way for much more expensive projects: before DFA getting over 100k on Kickstarter was a bit of a stretch, now several projects have tried and succeeded getting money around and over the 500k range.