Crowdfunding campaign

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.

$506,904,160 USD later (As of October 18, 2022[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?

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.

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

Current Funding

References