In the first of a series of posts we’re examining the viral actions employed by some of the most important social games.

In this post we’re looking at EA’s Sim City Social. The gaming giant’s ‘Sim City’ brand used to be the biggest name in city building sims, until Zynga arrived on the scene. Now EA hopes to open Sim City up to a new market and bring existing Sim City players into social gaming.
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What does it cost to make a top selling video game? For Modern Warfare 3, over $45m. Gears of War 3, in excess $10m. Skyrim cost over $85m including marketing! And what do ten of the top selling video games have in common? In 2011, they were all sequels.

With some games having development and marketing budgets which exceed $100m (Star Wars The Old Republic cost $130), it’s no surprise that game developers don’t want to take risks on new concepts and new brands. And so every year we get the same tried and tested game mechanics repackaged with a shiny new veneer. But there are solutions to this, and many people believe Kickstarter is one of the best.

If you’ve missed the hype, Kickstarter the three year old crowd-funding site where every week tens of thousands of people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, games, fashion, food, and publishing. Of course, we’re mostly interested in games, and the best thing for game developers: They don’t have to answer to a pointy haired marketing manager they can make their game true to their vision.

To date, Kickstarter has funded some truly original games. To celebrate this uniqueness we’ve compiled a list of the nine most interesting games funded by Kickstarter. Why nine? Because we’re being different and Kickstarter is all about being different.
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