Star Citizen Funding Hits $25 Mil, Secures Aussie and EU Servers For Alpha

[Steven Bogos]

Star Citizen Funding Hits $25 Mil, Secures Aussie and EU Servers For Alpha

Star Citizen raised the $1 million needed for its latest stretch goal in just four days.

Can anything stop cool $25 million dollars [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128957-Star-Citizen-Hits-24-Million-With-Hot-New-Trailer]. That's a big wad of cash eager fans have shelled out on a game that hasn't even been released yet. The $1 million needed for its latest stretch goal was reached in just four days, securing Australian and European servers for the game's impending alpha.

"We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen's launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the 'verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!"

I'm sure the people who told Roberts that his "space simulator mmo thing" was far too "niche" to be profitable are feeling quite red in the face about now. If nothing else, he has certainly proved that crowdfunding can be a perfectly viable alternative to the traditional publisher-developer relationship.

Have you put money down on Star Citizen yet? I haven't, but being an Australian, this latest goal might just tempt me into buying in.

Source: Star Citizen [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13345-Letter-From-The-Chairman-25-Million]

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[Amakusa]

And so the star citizen juggernaut rolls on. Wow even aussies will get an alpha server. That's really really cool, especially since i live in australia heheh.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

80 in the whole thing, 5 for the card and 75 for a Hunter with LTI. WingNut for a very long time, and I soooo want to see Roberts' creation!

 

[Entitled]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

 

[Erttheking]

Really wish I could play this game, but alas, I am a filthy mac peasant.

Well, hope the people who do get it enjoy it.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

I contributed hundreds to this, where I contributed tens to Torment. The guy above contributed 600 to this, people just, really.. REALLY want to see this.

Also their rewards are basically given to you directly, you don't buy soundtracks or an extra NPC in an RPG by prepurchasing, you are buying SPACESHIPS TO FLY IN SPACCEEEE (And its fkin Expensive)

Their stretchgoals are always enough to get people to give more again. Like, EU Aussie Alpha, guess who donates. Europeans and Austrlians. They want those servers.

 

[rofltehcat]

I haven't put down anything on this but this is great to hear! I'm looking forward to that game.

 

[Imbechile]

But,but..... Big publishers said that Space sims are a dead genre.

How can this be?

 

[synobal]

For the sake of all the Backers I hope this guy isn't a scam artist, and that the game lives up to it's hype.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

Mainly because there is a huge space sim community that saw games like X-Wing and Wing Commander as household names when they were young, and they now are in a large majority adults with jobs and a much larger income than most crowds targeted by such projects. Then, you have to see that this community remains extremely active in its own network, to the point that last year, a fan-team finally released a game that took litteraly TEN YEARS to produce, and which is better on almost all metrics than anything produced in the genre in those same ten years. And that's one fan-game among others.

We've wanted such a new game for more than a decade, we've been praying for all our worth, the community leaders are in touch with EA to try and get them to make a new "main" Wing Commander game. And then Chris Roberts himself comes and says he's going to make a new game, which will be the spiritual successor to the Wing Commander ones, with no producer to tell him what to cut from the final product, with a lot of implication from the fans?

Fuck yeah! Take my money!

For the sake of all the Backers I hope this guy isn't a scam artist, and that the game lives up to it's hype.

He is one of the legends of video games (on the same level as Warren Spector) and the community leaders are quite close to the thin, AFAIK. So, nope, he's unlikely to be a scam artist.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

There's been a lengthy dearth of titles in this genre, so any game released/funded would get a far larger cut of the money fans would spend on games in it than another, more populous genre, like RPGs.

 

[SirCannonFodder]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

Except these haven't been 4 unremarkable days, they just recently released the Hornet commercial [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0gZES2pTWk] along with releasing Hornet variants [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13329-Introducing-The-Anvil-Hornet-Lineup]. Every time they release a new commercial and round of ship variants (this is the third so far), the game gets a huge surge of publicity and ends up getting about $2m in the space of a week. I'm personally in at $245, and I know people who have pledged a *lot* more (some of the higher-end packages are multiple hundreds or even thousands of dollars).

 

[Marak Daga]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The second biggest video game crowdfunding was for Torment, with 4 million, and it's backer pattern looked like this [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily]. So did most comparably large kickstarters, with the bulk of the money collected in the days of the announcement, and the closing days.

Even if we were to assume that Chris Roberts and Wing Commander are apparently an order of magnitude bigger household names than Planescape, Obsidian, Double Fine, Homestuck, Elite, and Total Annihilation, that still doesnt't explain why they continue to be collecting a million during any four unremarkable days, almost as much as on their highest days of their announcement, instead of showing the typical curve pattern.

Mainly because there is a huge space sim community that saw games like X-Wing and Wing Commander as household names when they were young, and they now are in a large majority adults with jobs and a much larger income than most crowds targeted by such projects. Then, you have to see that this community remains extremely active in its own network, to the point that last year, a fan-team finally released a game that took litteraly TEN YEARS to produce, and which is better on almost all metrics than anything produced in the genre in those same ten years. And that's one fan-game among others.

We've wanted such a new game for more than a decade, we've been praying for all our worth, the community leaders are in touch with EA to try and get them to make a new "main" Wing Commander game. And then Chris Roberts himself comes and says he's going to make a new game, which will be the spiritual successor to the Wing Commander ones, with no producer to tell him what to cut from the final product, with a lot of implication from the fans?

Fuck yeah! Take my money!

In all seriousness what game? what did i miss!

and OT: panting like a virgin on prom night for this.

 

[Daemascus]

As someone who has already spent too much money on this game, all I can't say is I want to play the dogfight alpha. I want to try my Origin 325A, Constellation and Super Hornet. And its exciting to see what other stretch goals we will get.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

In all seriousness what game? what did i miss!

and OT: panting like a virgin on prom night for this.

Wing Commander Saga. It's finally out! The story of the end of the Kilrathi War, told from the PoV of the anonymous redshirts. The ones who held the line and fought to allow the main characters to put an end once and for all to the whole thing.

Beautiful graphics, dozens of voiced characters for more than 200 pages of dialogues, IIRC, very good gameplay and level design (in some missions, you are literally flying between a good dozen capships slugging against each other, shooting down enemy torpedoes, covering your destroyers as they make a suicidal attack run and potentially saving them if you take down the enemies' weapon systems fast enough, seeing the backstage of the events covered in Wing Commander III...

www.wcsaga.com

 

[thiosk]

Is it just me, or there is something fishy about how implausibly quickly this thing continues collecting money, without slowing down?

The only thing i can say is look at the commentors above you-- the one guy is 600 in.
I suspect that while the base grows, the top of the pyramid is growing as well.

 

[Barbas]

I remember loving Freelancer all those years ago. There were so many quotable lines and spine-tingling scenes. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside to know that the man behind it is finding more success doing what he loves. I haven't been so excited since discovering mods for Star Wars: Empire At War that vastly increased the ship limit and added considerably more capital ships to the game.