Since crowd-funding website and service Kickstarter launched in 2009, a staggering $108.52 million (£71.45 million) has been pledged to games projects, both video and tabletop. And of that, $90.83 million went towards successful projects - projects that met their funding goal and are either already on general release or in development.

On the technology side, $47.99 million has been raised by pledges for projects, while £38.33 million of that sum went to successful ventures. The shortfalls in both cases were not claimed by Kickstarter.

What do these figures tell us? Well, for a start, Kickstarter does rather well as it claims a percentage of each pledge. But more importantly that crowd funding is a very good means to raise capital for a good project.

Some of the games that have been backed and are now available to buy include Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, which is available on PS3, Xbox 360 (through PSN and Xbox Live respectively) and PC. There's also the brilliant retro gaming sensation that is Organ Trail for iOS, Android, PC (via Steam and Windows), Mac and Linux. And we're particularly fond of FTL: Faster Than Light for the PC, which you can currently get for just $4.99.

Of course, there have been other major success stories in Kickstarter's four years. The OUYA Android games console - which should soon start shipping - raised a staggering $8.5 million (£5.59 million) when it was just looking for $950,000. And the Pebble e-paper smart watch raised over $10 million.

Sadly, there are also losers on Kickstarter. Dizzy Returns by The Oliver Twins, which we featured in Pocket-lint's look at the revival hopes for some of our favourite games of the past, only made £25,000 of its £350,000 goal.

Thankfully, both Elite: Dangerous and Peter Molyneux's Godus, which we also featured, were both funded successfully. Two out of three ain't bad.