Penny Arcade Kickstarter hits 'no-ads' goal in last hours
Front page will be ad free for a year after readers vote with wallets
Penny Arcade's controversial Kickstarter campaign, an experiment to raise enough cash to remove all ads from the site for a year, has closed with a donation total of $528,144 - just enough to remove all front page advertising from the site.
The campaign was launched on July 10, 2012 as a way of discovering whether users would be willing to directly fund Penny Arcade in order to avoid being exposed to advertising.
Despite some controversy, and a number of users who said that they actually actively enjoyed the ads, enough readers have contributed to cover the ad revenue generated by front page skyscraper and banner advertising. In order to completely remove all ads from the site, a goal of $1 million was established, with several other milestones along the way.
Now that the appeal has closed, just $3,000 beyond its cut-off point for no front page ads at all, creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins are expected to make good on their intentions soon, although no official timetable has been made public.