Kickstarter campaign for Star Citizen raises funds beyond target

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   October 25th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

Funding through Kickstarter has proven to be quite successful for many developers in recent times, with Chris Roberts getting his name added to the list.

The creator of critically acclaimed Wing Commander and Freelancer recently had recently come out of retirement from the gaming industry to start working on his latest space combat simulator Star Citizen, which has been in development at Cloud Imperium Games for the past 12 months.

Instead of turning towards the renowned publishers such as Activision and Electronic Arts (EA), Roberts had opted for private funding, which included raising money for the project through the support of public.

The Kickstarter campaign for the latest space combat simulator was aimed to raise $500,000 for the project, but the public has responded to the call with strong enthusiasm and over 11,000 backers have already taken the funds to a figure of $521,860.

Roberts has plenty of reason to beam with joy because the Kickstarter campaign is the second crowd-funding source, with the first source being the donor page at Roberts Space Industries website.

The website has already helped him to raise $1.35 million from around 15,000 backers.

Aiming for a total fund target of $2 million for the Star Citizen, the developer has already touch the figure of $1.87 million in total from both its sources, with plenty of donations expected to flow in over the coming days.

So far, it seems that the decision taken by Roberts to fund his latest project without seeking the help of an established publisher is working in his favour.

Funds is without any doubt one of the most important factors when it comes to the development of a game and therefore studios find themselves compelled to turn towards publishers for help, sacrificing a certain amount of freedom in the process.

By doing everything on his own, Roberts has ensured that he will have a freehand in handling the space combat simulation and therefore will be able to bring his ideas to life more effectively.

During his time away from the gaming industry and taking care of his Hollywood commitments, the PC gamers were beginning to feel his absence because he was one of the few developers who seemed to be well aware of the gaming needs and desires of the hardcore PC gamers.

Other developers had begun to focus a bit more on the console and thus less and less effort was being put into unleashing the true potential of what the high-end computers.

With the return of Roberts and his declaration of ensuring that Star Citizen will really do justice to the powerful PCs, it is the least bit surprising to find the gamers so excited about the latest space combat simulation that will be coming out in about a couple of years’ time.