For example, the first project I contributed some funds towards on Kickstarter.com was a country music album from a female professional wrestler (eclectic, right?). She met her funding goal and is now in the final stages of completing her new album. Due to the level I chose to support her project at, along the way I’ve been given behind-the-scenes updates on the making of the album. I was also a member of a group of backers who qualified for a private online concert where she sang some of her new songs and covered some long-time popular hits. It was pretty cool.

Lately, I’ve been trying to put some money behind small video game developers because let’s be honest – without these small developers, the entire video game industry is doomed. Specifically, I’ve been trying to put money behind some action/adventure games and role playing games. The role playing games are really what I look for whenever I browse around Kickstarter.com. After Square Enix screwed up the entire Final Fantasy series by trying to make it too realistic, I began looking for better gaming experiences and the truth is that they’re really hard to come by.

And it’s not just the video game industry that I’m thinking about. Remember, video games are one of the primary training tools for a lot of our high-end military applications and one of the best hand-eye coordination tools that we have at our disposal. Also, more creative minds building, structuring, and restructuring these software applications can also lead to new breakthroughs in the medical field or in scientific research (like the Folding@Home project). There are a ton of great reasons to support these small, independent developers.

Oh – and I support these developers because video games are fun!

I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the latest projects that I’m helping to fund. I encourage you to check out some of these projects and, if you’re so inclined, why not throw them a few bucks to help them along their way? You can pay directly through PayPal (via Amazon) and you’ll get a great deal on a new video game (it usually just costs between $10 and $15 to qualify for a digital copy of a game). Check it out!

Are you active on Kickstarter.com? If so, are there any projects that you think I should know about? Feel free to leave a link in the comments section below. Thanks!

But Kickstarter is better than just feeling good about what you do with your money – you actually get something in return for your dollars.

The first campaign that I put some money towards was a music project. Believe it or not, there is a woman professional wrestler who is an accomplished country music artist. She’s not half bad, actually! Anyway, this woman was trying to make a second album with funding from Kickstarter and was asking for anyone to contribute $5, $10, $50, $100, and so on towards the costs to develop her album. After the word spread around the internet, she reached her funding goal and is now in the process of making the music. The dollar amount that you contribute to a campaign dictates what you’ll get in return. Personally, I only contribute at a level where I’m going to get something tangible. For this woman’s campaign, I contributed $50 (funded from my website company) which gets me both a physical copy of the new album plus the full MP3 version of the album, my name in the “thank you” section of the album, my CD autographed by the woman, and an invitation-only web concert. Sometimes the rewards are much more extravagant. For example, in this campaign if you donated $10,000, then you received all of these items, a 30-minute in-home concert, a hand-painted t-shirt from the singer, an executive producer listing for the album, and a personalized thank you video.

And each Kickstarter campaign is different. Seriously, check out the link above – I think you’ll enjoy what you find on there.

This entry, though, is about a new video game console that I saw on Kickstarter. Here, watch the video for yourself:

Did you watch the video? It’s a pretty cool concept, right? Some of you might be wondering, “Well, what’s the difference between this OUYA video game system and the Nintendo Wii or the Playstation 3 or something like that?” And that’s a good question. I’ve been doing some research on this OUYA concept and what these folks are trying to do and this is what I think the difference is between this console and the others.

It’s open.

When I say it’s open I mean that you can go in and hack it and it doesn’t void a warranty or become an illegal device or anything like you might imagine. In other words, people can go in and hack the core system’s operating protocols (I’m probably not using the right language) and it’s not a problem at all (assuming, of course, that the hacking doesn’t fry the system). The OUYA system is built on the same software infrastructure as the Droid cell phones out there – it’s an Android-based system. What this means is that anyone who can develop an “app” for a Droid cell phone or an app for a Droid tablet (for example, a NOOK) can have that app operationable on the OUYA system. This creates two immediate outcomes – one interesting and one alarming.

The interesting outcome is that since the console is built on the Android system, there are going to be thousands of apps and mobile games available for download on the first day that this thing is hooked up in your living room. The second, more alarming outcome is that I can’t imagine wanting to play any of the time-wasting games on my cell phone on the big screen of my television.

That second outcome is one of the issues that the OUYA development team is taking very seriously. They are talking to a variety of high-level gaming software companies to ensure that there are blockbuster-level games available for this system as soon as it hits the market. That’s going to be a huge task, but with only one week of starting their Kickstarter campaign these folks have already generated over $5.2 million from over 40,000 backers.

That’s a lot of money to make in a single week!

I admit that I’m not technical enough to know much more about how this thing is going to work, but I do know that if you Bing “OUYA” you’ll find a bunch of positive and negative press for the not-yet-created console. For my part, I like supporting these Kickstarter campaigns and I’ve supported a variety of independent video games on that website already. So I supported the OUYA campaign at the $99 level. This gets me the ability to reserve my username before the console goes live to market, a “Founder” emblem emblazoned next to my username forever, and an OUYA console plus one controller. That’s right – a brand new video game system (expected to be delivered some time in March 2013) for $99 (plus $20 for shipping).

You can’t even buy a used current generation console for $99!

If you’re interested in the OUYA or in at least learning more about it, check out their Kickstarter page. This is a very interesting concept and I’m glad to support it!