![]() Our current budget is about 20, but our specific spend is pretty much all on the game."ĬIG must keep the money machine on at full blast. Unlike some detractors, I believe that CIG needs the $46 million investment to adequately promote the release of Squadron 42. "If this was getting built by EA or Activision, it would be a $40-50 million game. "I'm building a game that, if I was doing this at EA or somewhere else, it would be a big budget game, big high profile thing, but we get to do it for less money because I don't have all the overhead, and we have freedom for that, which is great," says Roberts. The first is that it brings him a tremendous savings. I did find one passage from the interview amusing, given the state of Star Citizen today: "It's just the nature of the beast, and for me I'm building this universe that I want to curate and be part of for a long time, so I don't want any of that." Roberts would know he experienced this before at both Origin and his later startup, Digital Anvil, which eventually produced Freelancer after being acquired by Microsoft. "If you have an investor in, three years in, it's a roaring success, they could be like, 'EA wants to buy your company for $400 million, and I'm going to get 10x on my money, so you should take that deal.' And a lot of people get forced in, and a lot of sales happen because of that," Roberts says. Investors pressuring him to sell would inevitably nip those plans in the bud. And some of them are going to get added after the main launch, because it's a big scope." Because it's a whole sci-fi universe, and there's a lot of things I want to do. "I just want to make a great game and continue to have fun with it. He has big plans for the franchise that go beyond the launch schedule outlined above. All the same, he says, "I'm happy not to have investors, mainly because even the best investors, they're in it for a return, and at some point they want their money out, and that doesn't always match up to what's good for the game."Īfter saying some nice things about Valve and CCP, the article continued: Roberts did have some "great people" lined up to invest in his game. means that we can just concentrate on delivering a really great game and have no external pressure." "The fact that we don't have to take investors. In the end, he felt investment could lead to getting sold to a publisher - and for his opinion on that, see above. Roberts had lined up independent investors to fund his game, but he was happy to leave them behind when his crowdfunding campaign took off. In an interview with Gamasutra in September 2013, Roberts gave his thoughts on investors: I don't think he will like having to answer to investors, even if he retains control over the company. Roberts finally getting oversight. For six years, Chris Roberts had free reign to do as he pleased in the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. With a burn rate of $50 million/year, without the cash infusion from the Calders, Roberts would have had to slow down development, even if he continued to collect $37 million from backers each year. It also includes any exchange differences as referred above. ![]() The Other income line represents income from partnerships with various hardware and software vendors, sponsorship income and various local incentives which we receive based upon the nature and location of our development and production activities. The $15 million CIG had in the bank at the end of 2017 came from the "Other income" category: That's right, at the end of 2017, CIG had spent $6.6 million more than it raised from the fan base. In the same amount of time, CIG spent $193.3 million. Including the $11.2 from subscriptions, players provided $186.7 million to CIG. ![]() Through the end of 2017, CIG had collected $175.5 million from backers. But as the recently released information shows, not enough to complete the game. A staggering amount the world may never see raised from video game players again. With sold information available, I have a couple of thought.Ĭrowdfunding is not enough to finish the games. As of Christmas, 2018, Chris Roberts has raised $212.5 million from crowdfunding. In conjunction with the investment news came the release of financial information covering the years 2012-2017. Last Thursday, Cloud Imperium Games, the company developing Star Citizen and Squadron 42, announced that it was accepting $46 million in investments from Clive Calder and his son Keith.
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