Star Citizen Has Raised $100 Million For A Great Game Idea

More than 1 million Star Citizen fans have helped raise enough capital to surpass the GDP of Tuvalu for one video game concept.

Cloud Imperium Games is known for producing one major thing so far in its existence; a crowdfunding campaign to fulfill Chris Roberts’ wildest dreams of creating a space simulation MMO game. The rest is currently in development, as Star Citizen has reached an unlikely goal; it has raised more than $100 million in crowdfunding to create a video game to follow suit (and evolve beyond that) of Wing Commander.

Oddly enough, people keep chucking their money at Chris Roberts and company despite the last publicly-listed stretch goal, enhanced ship modularity, met its whopping $65 million about a year ago. It may have to do with the notion that Roberts Space Industries continues to use the capital acquired from its fans to develop further content for its fans. As such, Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 has now officially launched, with RSI posting a gameplay trailer to show off to fans of the game.

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While it’s great to see gaming fans show excitement and praise for a classic genre piece in development, Star Citizen is setting itself up for an overall monumental disappointment. This is the first venture for Cloud Imperium Games, even if Chris Roberts bringing years’ worth of experience to the project.

The scope of what they hope to accomplish is a lot more complicated than a game that takes basic blueprints and rendered on the fly using algorithms (like No Man’s Sky); the space of Star Citizen seems to be particularly finite, filled with particularly planned objects to render. Plus, with $100 million in the bank (minus fees) and money continuing to pour in after years of asking for it, the incentive to meet much-needed deadlines makes less sense as each million is added.

Regardless of how great the game concept turns into a completed game, Star Citizen should be remembered as a brilliant case study of the reach of crowdfunding and appealing to a user base of gaming fans looking for something new out of a favorite, old gameplay concept.