In the planning stages of creating an indie project, but need to get some cash together without resorting to self-prostitution (whether literal or figurative)? Kickstarter may be for you.
It works like this: a person or group dictates the amount of money they need for their new album/viral video/indie game. Users then pledge however much money they want to that particular project. If the project surpasses its initial fundraising estimate, then the payments go through and they get their pledged funding; if they fall short of their original goal, your pledge immediately comes back to you, and you haven’t spent a dime.
GameSetWatch relays the story of a project to translate a Miles Davis album into 8-bit noises earning $2000 in a single day, proving that Kickstarter does, indeed, work as intended.
Perhaps even more importantly, we were sent this tip by Pixelpunx, whose own indie game project High Strangeness is just a few hundred bucks short of reaching its funding goal. Described as a “12-bit” adventure, it…well, you can just click the previous link and check out a trailer.
Anyway, this sounds like a pretty cool way to both finance stuff you’re interested in, and get financing for a project of yours you’ve got a lot of faith in. I dig the fact that the funding only goes through if a certain goal is reached — it makes it much easier to pledge cash in the first place if you know there’s a chance that you, you know, won’t have to actually end up paying.
