Is It true? Star Citizen surge shows how crowd funding is shaking up studios

Crowd funding is gaining all sorts of popularity these days, and tons of people are signing up with Kickstarter and Indiegogo to attempt to fund their projects. Recently, game studios have taken a liking to the madness, specifically Cloud Imperium Games who has raised over $9 million from crowd funding alone for its upcoming space-based title Star Citizen.

Over 170,000 people have contributed money to the project, which was started by gaming designer veteran Chris Roberts, who is behind classic games like Wing Commander. The game raised over $2 million on Kickstarter, with the remaining funds being donated directly on the Star Citizen website. As for the developer’s reason to go with crowd funding, they cite that “the internet is the great equalizer,” and used examples like Minecraft, Riot Games, and Wargaming.net for not needing a publisher, but rather just die-hard fans willing to pay for a game and support the developers throughout the project. They continue by saying that they’re essentially throwing themselves “on the mercy of the PC gamers” who share the same vision and passion for the PC as they do. Without a publisher, the game will cost less and it’ll be more “creatively pure.” As for a time frame on when to expect the game to arrive, Star Citizen is expected to enter the alpha stages toward the end of the year. [via GamesIndustry.biz] Story Timeline Star Citizen has already raised almost $500,000 Star Citizen can't be run on current-gen consoles, says developer Star Citizen raises $6.2 million in crowd-sourced donations Star Citizen surge shows how crowd funding is shaking up studios is written by Craig Lloyd .