Crowdfunding as an alternative to bootstrapping or venture capital?

This week, industry veteran Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango), managed to raise $3,336,371 to fund his next game. Crowdfunding is now so popular, especially for games, that there was even a session at GDC 2012.

So far, however, crowdfunding has been mostly a way to fund projects with unclear commercial potential. What we haven’t seen yet is a startup that uses crowdfunding as essentially a “free” series seed. Entrepreneurs could prove there is a market for their product and get customer feedback.

I am sure it will not take too long.

If you never saw the video Tim used to raise funds, here it is: