HIGH EXPECTATIONS
Video game developer used crowdfunding to raise funds — and that raises some issues.
MARK Kearns, 38, a web designer and gamer from Chicago, stumbled upon a new video game called “Star Citizen” while online in late 2013. The game, which was in development, promised to revive the spaceflight simulation genre with a sprawling universe for players to explore.
Intrigued, Kearns decided to pledge money to see the game come to fruition. In total, he donated $175, which gained him access to the game’s alpha version — a playable version of the game in its early stages — plus a virtual ship to use in the game.
Kearns and others have now vaulted “Star Citizen” into the record books. Since 2013, the game has quietly amassed more than $148 million in funding — all from regular people who have donated either through the crowdfunding site Kickstarter or through the game’s online donations page. The amount is a record for a crowdfunded video game, and one of the largest for any crowdfunded project. The game’s developer, Cloud Imperium Games, has not taken any money from traditional financiers.
“My expectation was that we’d raise around $4 million,” said Chris Roberts, 48, the founder of Cloud Imperium Games. “I had investors lined up to help with the rest but Sandy, my wife, told me not to worry about investors — that we’d make it to $20 million. I told her she was crazy, and then it kind of went from there.”
Yet the gigantic sum of money has created issues for “Star Citizen,” which began with a modest goal of raising $500,000 in 2012. As the dollars have mounted, the ambitions of Cloud Imperium Games have grown, and the game’s official release has repeatedly been pushed back. Some gamers have demanded refunds. One even filed a formal complaint with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office last year.
“I’m already building the best game I can,” said Roberts, who acknowledged the bumps. “But imagine — the game I can build with $140 million is going to be very different to the one I could build with $10 million. If I can build a bigger and more robust experience, I will.”
“Star Citizen” highlights the promise and perils of crowdfunded video games, which have become increasingly popular in recent years. Video game creators have flocked to crowdfunding to make niche games for specific audiences of passionate fans and to interact with gamers earlier in development. Crowdfunding has helped spawn a revival of classic roleplaying games like “Baldur’s Gate” and “Divinity,” which were popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
According to Eedar, a video game market research company owned by the NPD Group, about 30,000 successfully funded video game projects were on Kickstarter as of February, and more than $593 million had been pledged to them.
Yet several prominent crowdfunded video games have failed to live up to expectations. “Mighty No. 9,” a game pitched by developer Keiji Inafune as a “spiritual successor” to the classic Mega Man action series, raised $4 million, but was delayed several times before being released in 2016 to lukewarm reviews. In 2014, a firstperson sword-fighting game called “Clang” that had raised $500,000 in crowdfunding was canceled when the developer failed to secure additional funding.
“Crowdfunding projects, even those from established developers, are not seen by consumers as a sure bet as they were five years ago,” said Patrick Walker, vice president for insights and analytics at Eedar.
Still, for players, giving money to help develop a video game like “Star
Citizen” offers a way into exclusive content — as well as something more emotional.
“Investing in ‘Star Citizen’ gives you the tantalizing pleasure of looking forward to a deferred enjoyment, a slow, continuous build that stretches out the anticipation and taps into the power of our imagination to fill out the details of its imaginary world,” said Frank Lantz, director of the New York University Game Center.
Cloud Imperium Games was founded in 2011 by Roberts, who has a long history in the video game business. He started making games as a teenager in England, and later gained renown with the Texas-based video game company Origin Systems, where Commander.”he made Released in 1990, thethe game “Wing sci-fi spaceflight simulation game was a critical and commercial success and produced several sequels.
Roberts later left the games indusucing try to focus on producing film and television projects in Los Angeles. Among other things, he directed the