It's been a good year for video games - ok, maybe not so much for the commercial gaming industry but for independent developers and gamers that have come together on crowd funding site Kickstarter. The gaming category has gone from the eighth most-funded type of project in the site's history to the second most popular, raking in more than $50 million so far this year.

The $50 million tote is a hefty increase over last year's $3.6 million haul. In 2010, just over half a million was pledged in the category and in 2009, the total didn't even surpass $50,000.

More money has been pledged to video game projects than any other category in 2012. In fact, seven titles have already surpassed the $1 million funding mark this year and the eighth is a comic about video games. Kickstarter says 23 percent of all money pledged has been to games in 2012.

The Film category has earned $42 million in donations with Design, Music and Technology rounding out the top five with $40 million, $25 million and $16 million in pledges, respectively.

It's an impressive amount, but what caused the gaming category to seemingly grow by leaps and bounds overnight? The answer is a single project - Double Fine Adventure - that launched in February. This game project managed to raise over $1 million in the first 24 hours, ultimately collecting $3.3 million in donations by the end of the campaign. As Yancey Strickler and Fred Benenson of Kickstarter said in a recent blog post, the gaming world hasn't looked at Kickstarter the same way since.