It’s finally over, and what an epic month it has been, while the crowd funding campaign didn’t make the target to fund the Values of Play survey or PlayCache project, the Deakin and Pozible crowdfunding experiment has been a tremendous success. I’ll explain why, but first, a very big  thank you to all who pledged, messaged and contributed to the campaign.

Thank you to all my wonderful friends, family, peers, colleagues, students and all the new friends, contacts and campaign supporters who put their names to the project for your willingness to fund original research. Thanks to those who tweeted and re-tweeted project messages, and to those who posted, liked and shared the PlayCache Facebook page, which has attracted new friends and followers. I will be continuing the project from there and posting regularly.

A special thank you to Professor Deb Verhoeven, Chair in Media and Communication, whose initiative, direction and leadership has created new opportunities for those of us at Deakin. Thanks must also go to Matthew Benetti and the Pozible crew. I’m already a proud supporter of a number of projects and will continue to be an active Pozible pledger! Thank you to Professor Matthew Allen, Professor of Internet Studies and Head of the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin for backing the crowdfunding initiative and trumpeting the call for support to the School.

We often learn as much from our failures as we do from our successes. One of my favourite definitions of a gamer comes from McKenzie Wark’s book Gamer Theory, in which he defines gamers as “those who come to an understanding through quantifiable failure”. As a games studies scholar with an interest in the ‘indie’ and independent production of games, it’s given me a unique insight into the types of challenges developers are currently wrestling with.

The coverage of the Pozible campaign by journalists and bloggers with an interest in games and the values of play, helping us work past the stereotypes, has been fantastic. It’s also been a great chance to participate in the debates across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit over the implications of crowdfunding research and what it means to the Australian University sector.

The campaign has enabled me to create new networks, contacts and opportunities, such as panel at the Human Rights Commission in Sydney next week, where I’ll be talking about Games and Human Rights (http://www.mcvpacific.com/news/read/australian-human-rights-commission-to-host-panel-on-human-rights-in-videogames/).

The attention from the Pozible experiment has also created a marvelous new opportunity for Media and Communication and Creative Arts students at Deakin and I’ll be working with student filmmakers and bloggers in a collaboration with Invest Victoria, the business and innovations promotions unit of the Victorian government to cover the PAXAustralia games convention in July (http://aus.paxsite.com/).

Please do consider pledging to James McCardles’s ‘Retake Melbourne’ Pozible campaign at http://www.pozible.com/project/22875 and Euan Ritchies ‘Discovering Papua New Guinea’s Mountain Mammals’ project at http://www.pozible.com/project/22847. Two great projects that definitely deserve our support.

Thanks again and play on!