Selling a videogame idea on Kickstarter is a test of any studio’s marketing ability. But once a project is funded, the finished product is most backers’ main concern. UnSubject decided to look through how many videogame Kickstarters have delivered a final game. The answer so far: about a third. 

It’s obviously too soon to tell if this trend holds true for 2012′s titles, but it does point to an issue that backers should think about seriously. Only 5 Kickstarted video game projects have been officially halted, but there are a lot of projects that stop providing updates or make announcements that the developers have “made the difficult decision to start rebuilding. From scratch.” Delays in delivery are exceedingly common – the Kickstarted video games that are delivered are on average about 2 months later than the developers originally predicted.

The crucial test of Kickstarter video game delivery is from now (November 2012) up to March 2013. This period has 65 titles originally scheduled for release, including the Double Fine adventure, Tex Murphy – Project Fedora, Shadowrun Returns and the OUYA launch. If game studios can’t launch their titles within the time period indicated in their Kickstarter pitch, I can’t help but think that backers will become disillusioned and that pledge money will become a lot harder to obtain moving forward.

Depending on how the next few months go, the golden age of Kickstarter may continue or exceed its failure allowance.