I’ve been following the meteoric rise
of the self-funded Star Citizen since the original campaign. The multi-platform title from famed game designer Chris Roberts had a lot of steam behind it and only gained more after securing millions more than the Kickstarter campaign had requested. That $2+ million is just 3% of the current funds raised thanks to continued in-house fundraising. Yeah, the project has been so successful that it’s been split into multiple parts to be delivered at different times. That’s because they very well could be games on their own part. It’s effectively the definition of scope creep.
It’s got numerous people wondering exactly how all this is going to come to fruition. The expectations are through the roof. Stating the obvious is that Star Citizen is incredibly ambitious. It’s an understatement. The gaming community has seen many crowdfunded games collapse complete with lawsuits flung in every direction. It’s left a sour taste in many mouths, including my own, preventing further crowdfunding in at least one case. A project of this magnitude is bound to run into some issues, but the overall concern for backers is simply can Star Citizen ever come out? Backers have accepted the iteration approach and been rewarded with multiple pieces of the title. The question that many in the community have is when will Star Citizen in total be available? Or will we constantly be waiting for the next (appropriately timed) fix for the foreseeable future?
Roberts has tons of experience in envisioning a product and getting them out. He’s shipped games longer than many gamers have been alive. There is eventually going to be someone that can make a $100 million product come to fruition without using the old publisher model. There’s little reason to believe Roberts et. al. at Roberts Space Industries aren’t capable of that. But hey, still reason for concern.