Kickstarter, if you're not familiar with it, is an online tool used to crowdsource funding for various creative or innovative projects. Over the past couple of years years, digital media including video games have become popular additions to the site as it gives smaller studios with a quality product a faster line to funding.
Heavy Water Studios, whose work has appeared in over 100 games including big name projects like
EverQuest,, has launched the
Axis Game Studio funding project, which is said to be a fully functioning game design platform built on the Unity engine. While you can't go out and just make a new MMO (that is seen as a "stretch" goal by the Heavy Water folks), Supposedly, the deluxe mode, which is what gives builders the ability to make a functioning game doesn't yet allow a professional (meaning for sale) game to be generated, as the games created cannot be distributed outside the Axis Game Factory platform at this time. However, that is a planned next step (once Heavy Water figures out how the distribution model would best benefit them).
For gamers like myself who have always fancied the idea of creating games but lack the graphics ability to make those games a reality, a tool like this could be that true first step that we've been looking for. Plus, unlike a lot of Kickstarter projects, the backing to enjoy full use of Axis is pretty low, which makes investing a much lower risk venture than several others I've looked at.
