Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 open to all backers as game hits $100 million raised
As Star Citizen quickly approaches the $100 million milestone, Cloud Imperium Games has announced that Alpha 2.0 is now available to all backers.
As the weekend begins, Cloud Imperium Games has made it a happy one for Star Citizen fans. The developer has officially launched Star Citizen's Alpha 2.0 for all backers. On top of that, the game's crowdfunding is about to reach another major milestone, with the game nearing the $100 million mark.
Among the new features debuting in Star Citizen 2.0 are three new flyable ships: the Constellation, the Retaliator, and the Vanduard. Also, it's time to finally get out of the ship and get up close and personal, as the game adds first-person combat for the first time. The Quantum travel ability (putting players at the speed of light) has also been added, for anyone looking to reach their location quickly. Players will also be able to explore the planet Crusader, along with three moons, three space stations, a repair/restock station, and nine comm arrays.
It's been over three years since Star Citizen was first unveiled, but Alpha 2.0 appears to be some real progress in the game's ongoing development. For more on the new alpha, let's watch the trailer from last week's Game Awards one more time.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 open to all backers as game hits $100 million raised
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Ya know I remember awhile back when zach Braff did a gofund me and everyone got pissed? I feel the same way about this game, crowd funding is a great way to raise money risk free to the developer. However Chris Roberts was already insanely weathey, and i personally thihk its kind of crummy to ask other people to give you money when you're so incredibly well off in the first place, like maybe he should have found a private investor or funded it himself, and my god it just entered alpha? I'm glad people are excited, but I see this as a easy way to funnel money into pockets to make a game that people well continue to pour money at for the next decade. I look forward to the beta in 2035.
I know im the minority here but it's just my 2 cents, stuff like this really concerns me and I'm very passionate about it.-
Yeah he totes took all the handouts and got himself richer and the poor poorer amIrite???
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Snide remark about apparent lack of information
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How much money does Chris Roberts have? They wanted to avoid investors/publishers to stick to their vision. All of this was documented. It's an outlier as a crowdfunded game, and was one of the first to have such a wild backing.
There is nothing crummy in getting investment from many people over a handful. Everyone who backs it is (or should be) fully aware of what they're putting money towards.-
He most probably does not have $100mil. No way he could have financed the current scope by himself, nor should he.
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Most people aren't annoyed/frustrated with the whole thing because they're worried that Chris Roberts is just trying to enrich himself. Most of us are just annoyed that the game morphed into something very different to what the original campaign started off as. We were expecting a fun single-player space sim that would come out in a year or two because they were using a pre-built engine and CryEngine was supposed to make it easy for them. All they had to do was the art and some programming to get it in place.
Then it morphed into a pseudo-MMO, with a FPS module, with all kinds of other unnecessary "goodies" like an entire alien language and hiring famous actors for the FMV and suddenly it's like Hollywood invaded the studio and are remaking it into something else.
As shallow and quickly boring Elite: Dangerous got, at least I got my $60 worth out of the combat and docking simulator.-
So I don't know where this assumption came from that the original pitch was a single player only game. Since the beginning it's always been a persistent universe multiplayer type game.
Take a look at the original kickstarter pitch: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description
Some of the very early stretch goals talked about boarding operations as well as actors for the voice acting.
$5 Million - Enhanced boarding options: melee combat, heavy weapons, zero gravity simulation, suit HUD options and EVA combat.
Squadron 42 will feature celebrity voice-acting including at least one favorite from Wing Commander and 50 total missions.
Take a look at some of the early stretch goals: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals-
Me neither. CIG has always stated what their goal was, people must have just assumed some facts without actually taking their time to check.
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Exactly. It was all spelled out very early. "this is what we want to do, if we get this much money" Hell, even in the very first intro video "rumors of my death have been exaggerated" he said exactly what he sees for the long term game.
And when they got way more than expected, they polled the community "you guys want us to make it bigger now, or wait till after release" and the polls overwhelmingly said "yes, do it now, we can wait".
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when i first heard about it (and backed it on KS), it was multiplayer coop persistent world - that was pretty much what i was super on board for. like flying around and doing space missions with my friends!!! we played Evochron: Mercenary like that for a while and loved it, so this seemed like a bigger budget version of the same thing.
elite wasn't on kickstarter yet, and i hadn't heard of it at the time
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He originally only wanted to raise 2 million from the backers. He had investors in the wings to finance the game, the original amount was just to show them that there was still an interest in this type of game.
Then the funding exploded, and he told his investors "guess I dont need you guys after all" and decided to make the game without being beholden to any investors or publishers in the background forcing changes and early releases (like Braben w/ Elite:Dangerous did).
Collectively, fans of the genre told chris to SUATMM. And here we are. -
I believe he funded everything up to the point where they started the kickstarter campaign. That very first video that they put out with the carrier being ambushed was created by him, with his own money.
I believe the initial idea was to get enough crowd funding to show private investors that the game was viable. I think they were only looking for a couple of million dollars at that point. The overwhelming response and influx of money initially made them rethink the idea of bringing on private investors. I believe they said, "If we hit $X Million we won't have to bring in any private investors". I think that was somewhere around $20-30 million.
Chris has spoken about the private investor money idea before. Part of the downside of having private investors is that all they are interested in is getting a return on their money. That doesn't necessarily mean they make the best game, which is what he wanted to do. -
Generally, people who have big ideas that are beyond their means don't try to self-fund things because that basically tanks their ability to do future things.
Would you put your ability to feed yourself and your family at risk for a project that could ruin you?
As it is, he put up quite a bit of risk with this project by pouring his life and time into it. However, you want to limit the liability of a large project so that you CAN be a bit risky and push the envelope a bit.
I would not want to live in a world where we all had to self-fund dream projects. Nothing would ever get done. Why do you think venture capital and angel investment exists?
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You know, I am grateful for the people pitching in to fund this thing, it is going to be nuts. But please please do not spend more money than you can comfortably just watch evaporate. I have spent a few hundred bucks over three years, and love the pretty jpegs I've got for my trouble. It's like paying for a stripper. And that's ok.
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Exactly. Putting money down on it was a gamble, as it had the possibility of never getting pulled off. Anyone who put more than they were willing to risk, should not kickstart anything, ever.
I backed for 2 reasons.
1) Chris Roberts. I never played a roberts game than I didn't thoroughly lose myself in. They've all been great. Even his "failure" game, Freelancer, was tremendous fun.
2) Privateer. Privateer especially I had so much ridiculous fun with. If the only thing we got out of the game was a remastered/reimagined version of a multiplayer Privateer, I would have been completely satisfied. So far it looks to be on point. I had fun trying out ver2.0 on the PTU, crashes and all.
And now the whoring part. If you want to start the game w/ an extra 5k ingame credits (and give me some hangar decorations) go here to sign up.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/enlist?referral=STAR-VZ4C-P92W
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