Before I go on, I want to say that I have no interest in writing anything that can be considered yellow journalism. I'm not intending to stir up controversy, or to start arguments. I'm just expressing what about this event has me feeling weird.

The OUYA kickstarter (found here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console) just recently surpassed the $5 million mark. Think about that for a second, the project that brought kickstarter into the limelight was Tim Schafer's project that netted over $4 million. This might be the largest funded project on the site yet.

So where did the $5 million come from? I haven't done much intensive research on the subject, but I have yet to find any sort of unified group whole-heartedly supporting the OUYA, like I have for the Anita Sarkeesian series of youtube videos (which I imagine got more vocal due to the controversy surrounding it). You could say that the viral coverage the OUYA kickstarter received from a large number of gaming news sites writing articles on it is in large part responsible for its overwhelming success, but if I'm not mistaken part of the reason why this kickstarter became so intriguing was due to how quickly it secured its initial goal. It was like one moment the kickstarter was just there and already gathering funds at a lightning speed.

I plugged in some numbers on my handy-dandy calculator and can say that at the time that I last viewed the page, out of almost 40,000 backers, people have contributed roughly $128 on average, with only 991 paying less than $10, and 33,225 paying between $99 and $224 (With another 2,202 being above the $225 mark). Which, given the estimated price of the OUYA being at $100 and the reward tier for that rank is to receive an OUYA once the console comes out, I can understand. It almost seems like the project has been funded primarily by pre-orders to me.

What I mean to say though, is that something about the success of this project scares me. It is sitting on an incredibly large amount of money, but I still don't have much idea of why they have so much support. I hear a lot of suspicion, and the occasional person saying "Hey this would be cool if it works", but not a large fanatic pull that would settle in my mind how 40,000 people decided that this project was worth a collective $5 million (and potentially more, given that there's still 21 days left on the counter). And that just leaves me with a funny feeling I can't shake.