Cloud Imperium Games Tops $1 Billion in Crowdfunding

$1 billion in lifetime crowdfunding is the headline number for Star Citizen, and Cloud Imperium Games said it reached that mark on Sunday, May 24. The milestone caps 14 years of development on a project that began in 2012 and was built without a publisher or private backers.

Star Citizen Reaches $1 Billion

$1 billion came in through a model Cloud Imperium chose from the start: raise money directly from players and put it back into development and operations on Star Citizen and Squadron 42. The game began with a crowdfunding campaign that raised $6.2 million after a website crash, then kept gathering support as the project stayed in front of fans through weekly livestreams, blogs, roadmap releases, and early playable access to the continuously updated alpha build.

1.0 still does not mean the work is finished. Chris Roberts said he expects the universe to keep expanding after the full release, telling Variety, "I fully believe that we’ve still got a long time, even after we’ve got what we call 1.0 out, and we’re not considering an alpha anymore, that we’ll be adding and building on the universe and the world, and it will be a place for people to adventure together and meet up together and have fun together."

Chris Roberts and Sandi Roberts

2012 is when Chris Roberts co-founded Cloud Imperium Games with Sandi Roberts and started work on Star Citizen. The company had originally targeted a 2014 release, but the project kept stretching as the studio chose open development and direct community funding instead of a traditional financing structure.

Community buy-in helped carry that timeline. Sandi Roberts said, "We did a lot of AMA Reddits in the beginning, and a lot of forums, and they voted on things" and "And we did a lot of shows, showing the open development and the real nitty gritty of how things are made."

14 years into development, the open question is not whether Star Citizen can still attract money; it already has. The harder test is whether the studio can turn a $1 billion funding base into a finished 1.0 that still leaves room for the long runway Chris Roberts says is ahead.