Last year Indie Fund voted to support Dear Esther, a rebuild of the popular Half-Life 2 mod, and it gave developer thechineseroom $55,000 in one lump sum. Indie Fund had its reservations: In an email to thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck before handing over the money, Indie Fund said the Steam audience may not understand Dear Esther and it proposed a release on PSN instead. This didn't happen, and thankfully so.

Dear Esther recouped Indie Fund's $55,000 investment yesterday in just 5 hours and 30 minutes, selling 16,000 copies and becoming the top-selling title on Steam for the entire day. This means all the sales now are going directly to thechineseroom, whether to fund another game, add to this one or take a team-building sky-diving trip, we'll have to wait and see.