Chris Roberts, the mastermind behind the Wing Commander series, finally revealed his newest entry into the PC gaming arena on Wednesday after a ten-year absence. Called Star Citizen, it's an ambitious MMO, a project Roberts said he wanted to do with the Wing Commander franchise but lacked the actual technology back in the 1990s.
Like Mojang, Chris Roberts has figured out that the future of PC gaming as a thriving platform relies on the independent developer. Crowd funding also seems to be the future, pulling in financial resources from fans and potential customers rather than relying on publishers who will want their huge cut of the revenue.
That said, Star Citizen is taking the crowd funding route, but instead of relying on third-party sites like Kickstarter, Chris Roberts is taking pledges directly from the Star Citizen website. Only there's one problem: the surge in interest over his latest space sim on Wednesday crashed the custom crowd funding page as well as the core community site. Until then, he said they were on track to break crowd funding records – no surprise there, honestly.
"Now, thirty hours later, we're only just getting the core site back online," Roberts reports. "The proper crowd funding page is still unfortunately down, but we have a backup site that, while not having the full range of features we intended, can take people’s pledges. With this site we have to update the data manually as there is no way to easily collect the crowd funding statistics on a live basis, which is why you haven’t seen a counter on the backup site. We are working very hard to get the main crowd funding plug in to play nice with the rest of the site, so we can deliver the seamless experience we envisioned when opting to have the crowd funding integrated into the main community site."
No one has lost their "golden ticket", he said. Everyone who makes a pledge on the backup site is connected to their community account.
"We didn't just set out to raise money to build a game; we set out to build a community," he adds. "The intention was never to shut off the forums, disable the Golden Tickets or stop the flow of information after the launch; anything but. We hope you'll bear with us as we get the community back online. The features you've enjoyed for the past month will continue -- the Comm-Link, RSI Museum and Time Capsule -- along with much more information about Star Citizen and chances to interact with its development team. As we move forward in this endeavor, you are our strongest asset; a vanguard of dedicated fans who will help us build and promote this game."
"We still have a ways to go but I have no doubt with your support we will get there. This is our chance to tell the world: PC gaming and space sims are BACK!" he said.
For more information about Star Citizen, head here.
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