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Star Citizen expected to reach $100 million in funding
Wing Commander, and more recently Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts recently delivered his BAFTA Masterclass presentation in Los Angeles and via Twitch, revealing target launch dates for each phase of the game. As reported by Polygon, the beta programs for the game's first-person shooter and planetside components are due this spring, followed by arena commander 2.0 ships in summer. Additionally, the first episode of the story-based Squadron 42 single-player campaign will arrive this fall, with the backers-only alpha program for the persistent universe part of the game due by the end of the year. Roberts expects that Star Citizen will see its commercial launch in 2016. The designer discussed the community engagement and crowdfunding efforts of the space simulation game, noting that the developer is "now close to $70 million, and it's likely the carry-on will probably be over $100 by the time the game is close to public release." Roberts stressed that Star Citizen's crowdfunding efforts "isn't really about the money," but rather "it's really about bringing people in to create this community and have them sort of share that experience with you as you're building it." [Image: Roberts Space Industries]
Star Citizen is now a first-person shooter, too
Star Citizen isn't just about spaceships anymore. At PAX Australia, developer Cloud Imperium Games showed off the extremely well-crowdfunded game's first-person shooter module, which lets players fight for glory with handheld armaments (as opposed to galactic vehicle-mounted ones). A gameplay video posted to YouTube by CIG shows a team of four spacefaring badasses securing a space station full of enemies who would like nothing more than to see our intrepid heroes turned into space dust. Things look a bit standard as far as shooters go - albeit with pretty graphics and nice flourishes - but near the end of the video, gravity pulls a disappearing act and the shooting takes to the air. The FPS module isn't ready for widespread battle just yet, but we'll keep you informed of its continuing development. In the meantime, enjoy watching the PAX gameplay demo and check out screens showing off the new mode after the break.
Make contact with 10 minutes of Star Citizen gameplay footage
Space is big. Very big. The-next-closest-planet-is-more-than-30-million-miles-away-on-a-good-day big. That's going to give any spacefaring readers out there plenty of downtime, so why not spend 10 minutes of it with Star Citizen gameplay, pulled from a Twitch stream of CitizenCon 2014? [Image: RSI]
Stick and Rudder: Oh yeah, Star Citizen is a game I'm following!
I actually said the title of this piece out loud the other day. I was compelled to do so primarily because of a certain sandpark's launch as well as the fact that it's been dominating my game time for a solid month now. And yeah, I left off the Stick and Rudder part when I said the title out loud because "Stick and Rudder: Oh yeah Star Citizen is a game I'm following!" would've sounded even stranger than "Oh yeah, Star Citizen is a game I'm following!"
Star Citizen earns Guinness world record for crowdfunding efforts
As Star Citizen recently crossed $55 million in funding, Roberts Space Industries founder Chris Roberts announced that the game is entering the Guinness Book of World Records "not as the largest crowdfunded game of all time, but as the largest crowdfunded anything of all time."
Stick and Rudder: Even more sims to fill the Star Citizen void
I was hoping to use this week's column to talk in glowing terms about Star Citizen's newly released racing mechanics. The only problem with that plan is that Arena Commander 0.9 hasn't launched just yet, purportedly on account of a few pesky bugs that Cloud Imperium is still in the process of squashing. Sooo, I thought I'd dust off an old Stick and Rudder standard wherein we talk about which genre games are worth playing while we're waiting on the "best damn space sim ever."
Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen is standing on the shoulders of genre giants
It's confession time, folks. My Star Citizen fandom has been on the fritz. It's not that I'm less enamored with Cloud Imperium's sci-fi sandbox opus; it's just that the interminable waiting coupled with a pretty severe case of themepark MMO burnout (help me, ArcheAge, you're my only hope) has conspired to foul my gaming mood of late. Fortunately, CIG read my mind and pulled me back in with its gangbusters Gamescom reveals.
Star Citizen reaches $50 million in space bucks
Star Citizen crossed $50 million in support following the launch of some pricey digital starships. The milestone was reached thanks to the docking of the "2945 RSI Constellation Lineup," a collection of four ships that went on sale over this past weekend. The game reached $48 million in mid-July, at which point Roberts Space Industries introduced the Retaliator ship. The 2945 RSI Constellation line of starships range in price from $150 to $350, the latter being the Constellation Phoenix, a luxury spacecraft in limited production: Just 5,000 of the ships will be made available. As of this writing, 628 of those ships were sold. Roberts Space Industries began its monstrous crowdfunding effort for Star Citizen with a Kickstarter project that hauled in a now-seemingly-puny $6 million in November 2012. One other PC game by its creator, Chris Roberts, is currently free on Origin until September 2: Wing Commander 3. [Image: Roberts Space Industries]
Stick and Rudder: Should you be scared off by Star Citizen's community?
Massively's Justin Olivetti and I were talking MMO communities recently. Star Citizen came up, and my esteemed colleague mentioned that the constant hubbub surrounding the crowdsourced space sim sandbox has made him a bit wary of getting invested in the title for the time being. From the inside looking out, I can see how the game's community sometimes seems like a roiling mass of internet rage and entitlement, but I think it's worth mentioning that -- like the game itself -- it's also what you make of it.
Star Citizen tops $48 million, unveils new bomber
Since our last look at Chris Roberts' space epic Star Citizen, the game's crowdfunding effort has pulled down another $5 million, bringing the current total to a staggering $48 million. With another funding milestone comes another stretch goal reward, in this case, the two-fold debut of the bomber seen above. Though work in progress imagery of the Retaliator is the only glimpse available as of yet, developer Cloud Imperium Games is working on a spiffy in-universe commercial for the ship similar to the ad spot it created for the 2944 Aurora last year. Looking ahead, the stretch goal for the inevitable $49 million mark is a plant. Literally, an in-game, extraterrestrial plant. "Similar to a bonsai tree, the Centennial Bloom is a very famous Xi'An plant indigenous to Eealus III that blossoms for one night every one hundred years," reads the official description of the Xi'An Space Plant. [Image: Cloud Imperium Games]
Stick and Rudder: How complex is too complex for Star Citizen?
I've taken a little while to let Chris Roberts' recent flight model manifesto marinate. In that time, my opinion has run the gamut from "funk yeah, simulation!" to "hmm, I hope I'm able to enjoy this title" and back again. I waffled because as much as I'm salivating over Star Citizen and everything it represents, it's still one game out of dozens that I'm following. And as much as I'd like to, I can't realistically devote all of my free time to a single title!
Space bugs delay Star Citizen dogfighting module
A series of bugs grounded this week's scheduled launch of Arena Commander, the space-based dogfighting module for Star Citizen. Project creator Chris Roberts revealed the delay in a blog post on the game's website, saying "it would be foolish to release an unstable build, even if pre-alpha for the sake of meeting an internal deadline." "I know that's not the news you wanted to hear tonight. No-one would like to see the community get their hands on Arena Commander more than I would," he added. Roberts praised Star Citizen's crowdfunding model as part of the reason a delay was possible, citing quality as a main directive rather than a publisher's milestone calendar. "A publisher would make us ship tomorrow regardless of the current build quality," Roberts wrote. "But as you are all focused on quality rather than a financial return for shareholders we are able to take a few more days to deliver something that is stable." Since its crowdfunding campaign began in October 2012, Star Citizen has amassed over $44 million from Kickstarter and from the game's own website.
Stick and Rudder: How Star Citizen is turning the game industry on its ear
When this column began, the first thing I talked about was Star Citizen's then-unique development model and how important it was both for fans and the game industry as a whole. Over a year later, the jury's still out on whether or not Cloud Imperium's opus will bring balance to the Force and give starving hardcores a home of their own. It's already safe to say that Star Citizen has turned the industry on its ear, though.
Another month, another $2 million for Star Citizen
The last time we checked in on crowdfunding success story Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' space epic had pulled in over $41 million. Now that total has surpassed $43 million. Like previous earnings landmarks, that figure brings with it a new content addition for the long-awaited game. In this case, all backers will receive a gratis set of marine combat armor within Star Citizen. According to the lore description offered by Roberts Space Industries, the Omni Role Combat Armor mk9 offers mid-range protective capabilities, though it warns that for ultimate protection it's best to simply just avoid firefights. That seems like solid life advice in general. Having already surpassed so many funding goals, Roberts Space Industries is now looking ahead to the seemingly inevitable $45 million mark where players will unlock the mysterious Hadesian Artifact. Instead of a useful item, Roberts describes the Artifact as "a puzzle players will someday compete to solve," though he makes no mention of how or why. Those wondering how the Star Citizen development team has spent all that money should view the above footage. Released at last month's PAX East conference, that video serves as the first, and so far only, in-game look at Star Citizen. [Image: Cloud Imperium Games]
Stick and Rudder: On crowdfunding and 'dev abuse'
The DFM PAX reveal came and went, and it was exactly what I expected: full of bugs befitting an alpha state and still absolutely stunning in terms of its potential. And that's all that really needs to be said about that, at least until we get our hands on it in the comfort of our own homes! I'm more interested in riffing off some of the trollish behavior from the pre-PAX backer-only gala. If you watched the full presentation, you probably know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, well, it was basically drunks being drunk, but it leads into something I've wanted to talk about for a while, which is mass appeal, niches, and the gaming industry viewed through the prism of Star Citizen.
The first public demo of Star Citizen
Ever wonder what $41 million looks like? It's a lot more blue than we would have thought. This is the first public demonstration of Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' interstellar crowdfunded project. It's 14 minutes of pretty planes and space battles in a very early build. The yelling isn't part of the game – that's the crowd at PAX East. Chances are, a lot of those people are cheering because they're finally seeing their money in digital, playable form. Star Citizen has raised more than $41 million in crowdfunding. [Image: Roberts Space Industries]
Stick and Rudder: Five more space sims to fill the Star Citizen void
A few months back I put together a list of my favorite space sims in an effort to pass the time remaining until Star Citizen's release. Well, that release is still a ways off, even though we are scheduled to get our grubby little space mitts on the dogfighting module next month. I'm in the mood to pew pew right now, though, and if you are too, here are a few more classic games to help fill the void.
Stick and Rudder: Getting perspective on Star Citizen's development
I recently spent a week enjoying the hell out of Elite: Dangerous. CCP's Valkyrie project -- a virtual reality EVE Online riff powered by Oculus -- is apparently far enough along to merit public demos and a slow-burning hype train. And Star Citizen? Well, I can still solo around in my hangar, fitting ship guns and firing them at cardboard targets. I bring all this up not to pile on Cloud Imperium. On the contrary, I'm OK with SC's development pace, and if you're on the world side of the world-vs.-game debate, you should be OK with it too.
Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen's backlash effect
Can someone help me understand the Star Citizen backlash effect? I mean, seriously. If Chris Roberts and his Cloud Imperium developers announced that the game's next stretch goal was a cure for cancer, the first comment on the resulting news article would be some variation on "bullsh#@!" Followed closely by "that's not possible" and "feature creep!" My question, though, is why?
Stick and Rudder: OK, so Star Citizen might be a PvP game
A few weeks ago I outlined why I think Star Citizen is more a PvE title than a PvP title. I'm sure most of you disagreed, so this week I'd like to examine the other side of the debate. Sorta. See, I still think SC is mostly for PvE types, given Chris Roberts' design sensibilities, but I also went back and studied the Roberts PvP quote highlighted in the previous piece as well as the full wall o' text that surrounded it. Roberts, according to that interview, believes that SC will be both a PvE and a PvP game. Fair enough. We often hear devs speaking grandly in the pre-alpha stages of a project and swearing up and down that it's going to make everyone happy. Can it really, though?
