I think it depends on what you're making through it. For board/card/tabletop games, it's quite possibly the most popular way to get initial funding to make your game. But a game is not a business, it's the start of a product — a massive pre-order system if all goes well. Many that get into the game self-publishing game aren't doing it to make money, they're doing it to make a thing and get it into people's hands. Kickstarter is a nice way to raise money and have a central micro-social-network of sorts for your game.
Social media will do its thing, but most of the games that I've kickstarted are ones that I've seen at conventions, I've tried them myself or watched a demo live, found myself interested, signed up for a newsletter at the booth, then got an email about the kickstarter. And lucky me, I'm batting 1.000 with actually getting a game from the things I back.
(Source: I've been working on a tabletop game for a couple years now, and have been doing a lot of board-game-based research on kickstarter.)
Social media will do its thing, but most of the games that I've kickstarted are ones that I've seen at conventions, I've tried them myself or watched a demo live, found myself interested, signed up for a newsletter at the booth, then got an email about the kickstarter. And lucky me, I'm batting 1.000 with actually getting a game from the things I back.
(Source: I've been working on a tabletop game for a couple years now, and have been doing a lot of board-game-based research on kickstarter.)