Internet users donate at least $1.2m to game development

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Internet donations to an online game that hasn't even been created yet reached $1 million in a single day, U.S. "crowd funding" entity Kickstarter said.

The game, called Double Fine Adventure, had raised $1.2 million by Friday morning, CNN reported.

"With this project, we're taking that door off its hinges and inviting you into the world of Double Fine Productions, the first major studio to fully finance their next game with a Kickstarter campaign and develop it in the public eye," the game developer said on the Kickstarter Web site.

"Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community," Double Fine Productions said. "They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision."

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb said by asking the Internet to support the game and give users a chance to take a small part in something "epic," the game creators have tapped into something new.

"Put all that within the context of a known brand (the game makers themselves), the well-executed but still-fresh infrastructure of Kickstarter and the end result of a game that is easy to afford ($15 gets you a download on Steam when it's done), and you've got a recipe for some gamified game creation," he wrote.