By Andrew Dodson on June 16, 2014 at 11:43am
"Star Citizen" is the next-gen space simulator game that has been in the making for the past year and a half. Promising revolutionary gameplay and graphics, what is really extraordinary about this game by Chris Roberts is how it was funded completely by the people. It started out as a Kickstarter in the Fall 2012 and raised over two millions dollars. Since then, the developers have allowed interested players to invest in the game for ships and other in-game rewards directly through their website, and as of this article, they have raised a total of 46.5 million dollars.
And in his latest letter to the universe, he seems to think that its enough:
This brings me to the topic of stretch goals. When we started the "Star Citizen" campaign, the purpose of the stretch goals was to make things we had imagined but didn’t think we could afford possible: adding capital ship systems, studying procedural generation, hiring additional artists to build more ships at once and the like. The additional funding continues to expand the scope of the game and make what we’re doing possible, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to quantify that with more stretch goals (and to explain that to the rest of the world, which likes to focus only on how much money we’ve made.) Chris Roberts
"Star Citizen" has grown way beyond what was originally advertised, and that's mostly a good thing. If you've followed the game since the original Kickstarter, you will have noticed all the little things they've added that were never originally part of the plan - from little technical things to entire new ships and planets. There comes a time when a developer has to stop taking in money and building on ideas and actually release a product to the eager masses.
Roberts promised to continue releasing his letters to the game's backers as they hit more milestones, though these may be based more on scheduling than funding milestones in the future.
Roberts concludes the latest letter for the 46 million dollar funding milestone with a poll: Should we continue to offer stretch goals? This essentially asks the question: "Do you, the backers, want us to focus more on developing a finished product, or will you keep giving us money if we keep offering to add more and more things to the final version of the game?"
As of this afternoon, 54 percent of polled backers have said "Yes."
