Kickstarter has become a great source of board games in recent years. Nowadays I get almost all my games there. It's nice not only to get those games way before they hit the shelves of retailers but also being part of making those games happen in the first place.
The boardgame industry might not be the most lucrative. Especially going beyond the mass market games it might be hard to get your game published. Until now. Kickstarter has enabled game developers to try put the waters with more fringe designs. And this has lead to some great games that might have never happened without it.
Sure, there are big (relatively) publishers using kickstarter mostly for a marketing platform for their upcoming games. But there are also good independent game designers that get a chance to make their game a reality.
Like for example the Isle of Cats by Frank West which we just had a chance to try out the first time. It's relatively light weight to my standards, but it does offer some strategic depth while having a light game session also with people who are not necessary that deep into more heavy games.