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While most of us were asleep last night, and his Double Fine crew were making hundreds of thousands of dollars, fifteen and thirty dollars at a time. Instead of pitching their next game to publisher after publisher in hopes of getting funded, Double Fine used Kickstarter to pitch their classic adventure title to those masses who would eventually want to play the release. Less than eight hours after launching their page they had already met their $400,000 goal, and had broken Kickstarter records for most funds raised in the first twenty-four hours and most backers of all time. Just under a day later and they’ve crossed the $1,000,000 mark with more than a month to go in the campaign. Needless to say, the experiment into collaborative development has been a success for Double Fine and their latest passion project.

As the news of almost-instant funding broke, the web was quick to declare the end of publishers as we know them; analogous to the stir Radiohead caused years ago with their digital release of “In Rainbows”. Why would devs continue to kill themselves for publisher deals when they could simply post a Kickstarter page and instantly make a million? Why put up with prototyping and focus testing when you could connect directly with the gamers themselves? On the surface these points might make some sense. But we’re also talking about Tim Schafer – one of the development community’s most loved, most enigmatic personalities behind some of gaming’s greatest treasures (Full Throttle and Psychonauts say “hi”) and his Double Fine crew – a shop that’s had a string of gamer-loved entries in recent years that span everything from RTS to Tower Defense to kids’ Kinect experiences. A Tim Schafer game almost sells itself. Fan that fire with the fact that the gaming community – gamers, enthusiast press, developers, industry brethren – is one of the most tight-knit, vocal groups around, and a group that’s pretty forward-thinking regarding concepts like Kickstarter, and Schafer’s million was almost an inevitable conclusion.

So what about those shops who don’t have Schafer at their helm, or Cliff Bleszinski, or Gabe Newell, or Ken Levine, for that matter? At the time of this writing, there are over 130 videogame projects listed for funding on Kickstarter, and yet most of us in the industry have probably only heard of a dozen or less – and only then because we’ve done some digging after putting down our $30 on Double Fine Adventure. And not to downplay Double Fine’s accomplishment in any way, but in that light, it almost becomes the secondary story.

Aside from the inherent awesomeness and excitement that this Kickstarter project has conjured up for so many, I’m even MORE excited for this project’s impact on future games and future development. What other AAA devs are out there with a passion project they just couldn’t get funded to this point? What other OSMness could we see when the fans get to impact the process directly, or even collaborate to bring something to life?

Famed game designer and Carnegie Mellon professor Jesse Schell had his Puzzle Clubhouse project funded last month via Kickstarter with a modest $10,000 goal. Puzzle Clubhouse is all about gamers and game designers truly collaborating to make fun experiences on everything from the artwork to the gameplay design itself. Funding for the project came down to the last week before hitting the $10K goal, and looking back, I wonder how different that number might have been had Puzzle Clubhouse’s Kickstarter page launched after Double Fine Adventures. As that’s the other huge bonus to this whole unraveling adventure we’re all on – Schafer’s million is not only opening the door to other AAA passion projects from other devs, it’s also kicked down the door en masse to the gamers; many newly aware of their own direct impact on bringing a game to life. How many more will be scrolling through Kickstarter pages looking for that next cool project to get behind; enabling that sense of ownership and accomplishment after backing something from the very beginning, being a part of something bigger than just their gaming hobby?

Even despite all the buzz and this amazing success case, Developers still need Publishers, and Publishers still need Developers. More so, gamers need them both constantly evolving and collaborating to ensure they get their full fix of all the awesome gaming experiences out there. Who knows, when we look back years from now, there’s a good chance Double Fine Adventure “the game” may actually pale in comparison to “the Double Fine Adventure Revolution”.