Crowdfunding campaign: Difference between revisions

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Kickstarter logo

In October 2012, Cloud Imperium Games started a crowdfunding campaign on their own website for Star Citizen. The Original Site showcased a trailer for Star Citizen with lore and an original goal of $2,000,000 USD for development.

$577,984,094 USD later (As of May 25, 2023^[1]), Star Citizen is one of the largest crowdfunded projects in the world and it continues to steadily grow.^[2] Additional Stretch Goals were developed beyond the original $2 million with expanded systems, ships, mechanics, and other features. Kickstarter was used in parallel with early crowdfunding, with all current funding managed through the RSI Website Funding page

Crowdfunding Timeline

Original Site
Kickstarter
Continued RSI site funding

Why Crowdfunding?

Chris Roberts didn't see any benefits to a traditional publisher for an online game.^[3]

There are many benefits to crowdfunding. First of all it allows Cloud Imperium Games to break any ties with the standard triple-A developers and publishers. This means that Star Citizen has no deadlines or constrains, the stretch goals can be increased and most importantly, there are no shareholders expecting to earn a big cut of profits.

The original plan was to raise some money from private investors to build a sort of alpha that didn't have everything Chris Roberts wanted in it but would have been enough that he could give it to someone and they could play it and give him a reduced amount of money he could use to continue adding features until he built it to his final feature set.^[4] Wing Commander I was similarly funded by showing basic gameplay first.

At most Chris Roberts hoped to bring in $2 million to $4 million with crowdfunding and add in another $10 million from investors to pay for a functional alpha. Then he planned to use that to start bringing in revenue which would be used to finance the rest of the game.^[4]

Also important, is the fact that backers expect to be given constant updates about the game's development state. Star Citizen accomplishes this through their Comm-Links and the Youtube page.

Crowdfunding Rewards

Stretch Goals
Early backer rewards

Current Funding

Basic ship packages ^[5]
Ship Sales ^[6]
Squadron 42
Monthly Subscription ^[7]
Merchandise ^[8]
Extras (Skins, Hangars, UEC, add ons) ^[9]

References

↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
↑ Wikipedia - List of highest funded crowdfunding projects
↑ Podcast - Gary Whitta interviews David Braben and Chris Roberts about Kickstarter, Elite Dangerous, Youtube, 5 Dec 2012
↑ ^{Jump up to: 4.0} ^4.1 Building Galaxies in Star Citizen's Expanding Universe, Polygon, March 02, 2015
↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages
↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships
↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/subscriptions
↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/merchandise
↑ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/extras

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[1] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

[2] Wikipedia - List of highest funded crowdfunding projects

[3] Podcast - Gary Whitta interviews David Braben and Chris Roberts about Kickstarter, Elite Dangerous, Youtube, 5 Dec 2012

[:0-4] {Jump up to: 4.0} ^4.1 Building Galaxies in Star Citizen's Expanding Universe, Polygon, March 02, 2015

[5] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages

[6] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships

[7] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/subscriptions

[8] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/merchandise

[9] ttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/extras

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@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 ==Why Crowdfunding?==
 [[Chris Roberts]] didn't see any benefits to a traditional publisher for an online game.<ref>[https://youtu.be/NvPU8e2ezgo Podcast - Gary Whitta interviews David Braben and Chris Roberts about Kickstarter,] Elite Dangerous, Youtube, 5 Dec 2012</ref>
-The original plan was to raise some money from private investors to build a sort of alpha that didn't have everything Chris Roberts wanted in it but would have been enough that he could give it to someone and they could play it and give him a reduced amount of money he could use to continue adding features until he built it to his final feature set.<ref>[https://www.polygon.com/features/2015/3/2/8131661/star-citizen-chris-roberts-interview Building Galaxies in Star Citizen's Expanding Universe], Polygon, March 02, 2015</ref> [[Wing Commander I]] was similarly funded by showing basic gameplay first.
 There are many benefits to crowdfunding. First of all it allows [[Cloud Imperium Games]] to break any ties with the standard triple-A developers and publishers. This means that Star Citizen has no deadlines or constrains, the stretch goals can be increased and most importantly, there are no shareholders expecting to earn a big cut of profits.
+The original plan was to raise some money from private investors to build a sort of alpha that didn't have everything Chris Roberts wanted in it but would have been enough that he could give it to someone and they could play it and give him a reduced amount of money he could use to continue adding features until he built it to his final feature set.<ref name=":0">[https://www.polygon.com/features/2015/3/2/8131661/star-citizen-chris-roberts-interview Building Galaxies in Star Citizen's Expanding Universe], Polygon, March 02, 2015</ref> [[Wing Commander I]] was similarly funded by showing basic gameplay first.
+At most Chris Roberts hoped to bring in $2 million to $4 million with crowdfunding and add in another $10 million from investors to pay for a functional alpha. Then he planned to use that to start bringing in revenue which would be used to finance the rest of the game.<ref name=":0" />
 Also important, is the fact that backers expect to be given constant updates about the game's development state. Star Citizen accomplishes this through their [[:Category:Comm-Link|Comm-Links]] and the [https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd Youtube page].