Star Citizens Radiance and Fame Exceeds $44 Million in Expectations

And by “expectations” I mean donations: Cloud Imperium’s upcoming space simulation hybrid-MMO has exceeded $44 million in crowdfunding goals. It’s only taken three weeks for Star Citizen to net itself another million dollars—having been at $43 million on April 28th.

The crowdfunding success of this title has been at the forefront of its funding success, starting with a roaring successful Kickstarter that ended in November 2012 with $2 million—exceeding the goal of $500,000 by quite a margin. Since then, as noted in the headline, the project has continued to snowball funding as mountains of money have poured in over the past year and a half to exceed $44 million.

As each million is lumped onto Star Citizen the developers slowly unveil new components of the in-game universe and offer up new “stretch goals.” Or, offerings to backs that they will see when the game comes out according to the funding currently gained.

In the past, stretch goals have included new ships, interesting new star systems, and additional capabilities for the game. One example is the stretch goal at $46 million, which will grant players “scanning software” that will enable them to find resources in the Star Citizen universe.

The MMO industry currently lacks many great open-world space simulators—in fact, that niche is persistently dominated by EVE Online.

The promise of Star Citizen’s potential to the space-sim genre is too much to bear for fans of solo and multiplayer space games. Games that make up the space simulation gamut from Wing Commander, Tachyon: The Fringe, Descent: Freespace, and the X game series—the list goes on and on, but the takeaway is that every space simulation game (with the exception of EVE) has not gotten much traction in the MMO game space.

From where Star Citizen has been to where it’s going

I didn’t get on board with the initial Kickstarter in 2012, but very shortly after it funding I bought myself a package that gave me an Origin 300i (runs about $65 USD right now.) The takeaway, it’s a gorgeous ship with a nice number of backer perks…but I just can’t fly it in the game yet. Nor could I over a year ago when I sprang for it.

What I really want is an RSI Constellation because I prefer semi-capital ships to fighters. Of course, flying something that big would also mean I’ll need a crew (once I get it) and I have been itching for a space-simulation game where I get to get online and have my friends take stations on the bridge or around the ship and run it like I have a crew. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a friend or two flying fighter escort.

Star Citizen brings the very real promise of a game sensation exactly like what I’ve described above and it’s easy to see that much of the community has similar expectations.

Right now that’s over $44 million in expectations.

See you in the ‘verse.