Chris Roberts has addressed Cloud Imperium Games fans again, not only regarding updates for Star Citizen, but regarding the crowdfunding and nature of the project in general.
First off, he has confirmed that the project has hit the Guinness World Records as the largest crowdfund of all time, after reaching that $ 54 million milestone.
He then went through pains to explain that he set out to treat Star Citizen’s development as outside the traditional funding / development / publishing model. The game has no publisher. It does not have to all fit into a disc. They are not looking for venture capital. They are not making a game for a few weeks’ playtime.
All the $ 54 million raised so far, and whatever they will be able to raise before the game launches, will all be applied towards game development. They have set aside a cash reserve to ensure they can deliver the game as planned, but Chris isn’t keeping any of the money raised as profit. They have also scaled up to use the money appropriately, with now a 280 person team working on the game.
Chris also explained that the community is closely involved with development, to a degree most console games do not even approach. Cloud Imperium Games is not hiding any feature currently in development or planning. To fans worried about feature creep, Chris assures them that everything is well in control. In fact, some fans are already playing builds now. They are unveiling new features and content constantly only because they are not hiding anything. Ultimately, because the game is not following traditional game development, it won’t run into the issues other games have because of feature creep.
Regarding new features, Chris has unveiled the Reclaimer, a ship that can carry a single Constellation’s worth of scrap, a Preacher’s Inquisition XXII stretch goal, and Arena Commander V0.9.1, which introduces customizable keybindings, among others.
Image is detail from Reclaimer concept art. Star Citizen's first modules are expected to be officially released in 2015, for Windows and Linux.
