Chris Roberts is a name familiar to PC gamers. For most of the ’90s, the Wing Commander series, masterminded by Roberts, was a PC gaming juggernaut, before FPS games killed the space sim. Roberts recently held a Kickstarter for Star Citizen, his revival of the genre, and raised four times his goal. But he’s been crowdfunding independently, and got more. A lot more.
How much? Try $20 frickin’ million from 260,000 supporters. And according to Roberts, half of that came in in the last five months.
There’s reason for that. Star Citizen is essentially an open world space dogfighting game where you haul loads, gun down pirates, and choose your path; basically imagine EVE Online with more action and fewer spreadsheets. It’s something that’s never really been attempted before, and if Roberts can pull it off, it might be much more than just a cult hit for people who still remember dog-fighting with the Kilrathi.
Of course, it’s on Roberts and his company to actually deliver the game, and Kickstarted games have had problems with that in the past. But if nothing else, there’s definitely a show of faith in the genre, and we’ll be interested to see the game, coming in 2014.