Star Citizen Reaches $141 Million in Crowdfunding
By AJ Caulfield 11 January 2017
Star Citizen, the upcoming space flight simulation game from Cloud Imperium Games, surpassed an unprecedented $141 million in crowdfunding this weekend.
If people are at all immersed in the video game world, they are likely familiar with Cloud Imperium Games, Foundry 42, and Behaviour Interactive’s most buzzed about upcoming title: Star Citizen. Marketed under developer and designer Chris Roberts’ company, Roberts Space Industries, Star Citizen is a multi-company project developed in a distributed research process. The sci-fi title is centered around space voyage, combat, and exploration.
Star Citizen humbly began development in 2011, creating demo modules on the CryEngine 3 before making the switch to Amazon Lumberyard a few years down the line. In October 2012, Cloud Imperium Games made the wise decision to launch a crowdfunding campaign to back its ambitious game — and to realize a true vision. Through a dual-channel funding process, on both the developer website and on Kickstarter, Star Citizen brought in over $6 million combined by the end of the initial campaign in November 2012. This made Star Citizen the biggest crowdfunded gaming project in history.
Star Citizen has yet again made headlines, as it has surpassed $141 million in crowdfunding this weekend. Just over 1.7 million backers have contributed to the project, with one particularly invested Star Citizen fan admitting to contributing over $30,000.
Cloud Imperium Games founder Chris Roberts issued a “Happy New Year!” statement, thanking those who have supported Star Citizen. Roberts commented on how happy the team is to see such positive feedback on the game’s latest update, Alpha 2.6. Roberts also mentioned the plans for improvements and enhancements in the game, after “digesting both our own and [audience’s] thoughts” on the recent patch. The Star Citizen team also has plans to release a new community forum and new outlets to better communicate with their audience.
“We’ll continue to modify and improve our game engine to better suit Star Citizen’s unique needs. Gameplay will get deeper as new systems come online to provide players the chance to do more than pew-pew. I also expect exciting advancements as we integrate our revolutionary tech, like subsumption and procedural planets, into the game,” Roberts stated.
Roberts closed his statement on a promising note: “We are planning releasing an incremental patch, 2.6.1 with some of the features that slipped out of 2.6, bug fixes for increased stability (although 2.6 was possibly our most stable patch to date) as well as continued balance and gameplay tweaks. Expect to hear more details on timing in the next couple of weeks.”
Unsurprisingly, Star Citizen and its developers, designers, and creators have heightened their goals for the game as funding as increased. The team has promised that Star Citizen will invent and introduce a brand-new genre and have more lethal FPS mechanics than Call of Duty. The Cloud Imperium Games team even boasts Mark Hamill as Star Citizen character Lt. Commander Steve Colton.
After reaching this new height of $141 million in crowdfunding, it seems unlikely that Star Citizen will be slowing down any time in the foreseeable future. However, there could be potential hiccups as time goes on. Fans may lose interest in the title, since an official release date has never been announced in the nearly 5 years since Star Citizen began its development. Additionally, considering the departure of Star Citizen executive producer Alex Mayberry from Cloud Imperium Games in 2015, things could get complicated on the managerial side of development along the way.
As of January 2017, Star Citizen has no set release date. Upon future release, the sci-fi space simulation game will be available for PC and Linux.
