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Star Citizen has hit an historic $300 million in crowdfunding since the campaign started in 2012 (via GameSpot).
A spiritual successor to the space trading sim Freelancer, Star Citizen is being led by director Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, and developed by Cloud Imperium Games. The collaborative project kicked off its crowdfunding campaign in 2012, and attained $6.2 million in pledges, exceeding all of its stated stretch goals. Then, in mid-2013, the total reached $15 million, securing Star Citizen’s record for the “most-funded crowdfunding project anywhere.” Evidently, the game didn’t slow down, and $150 million had been raised in 2017, with that figure doubling this month.
Eight years have passed, and there is still no official word on a release date for the game, and more and more features creep into the funding goals. However, Roberts expressed that he was happy with the way the project is progressing. “I’m not worried, because even if no money came in, we would have sufficient funds to complete Squadron 42. The revenue from this could in-turn be used for the completion of Star Citizen,” he said in 2017.
Not only is there funding from the star citizens, but there is external investment to Star Citizen, too. In 2018, billionaire Clive Calder purchased a 10 per cent stake in Cloud Imperium Games for $46 million in December 2018, boosting the studio to a $460 million market valuation. Tech publisher TechCrunch had its own view on the transaction: “one may very well question the sanity of such a valuation for a company that has not yet shipped an actual product.” Yikes.
In May of this year, Cloud Imperium Games hosted a free-to-play window for Star Citizen, as well as the periodic releases of bits and pieces of the full game over recent years. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are just around the corner, to be launched in holiday 2020. With all of the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding the next generation, it is hoped that Star Citizen doesn’t get left behind.
