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Crowdfunded Developer of Star Citizen Takes on $46M in Funding at Nearly $500M Valuation

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 25 2018, @04:41AM   
from the mo-money dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

The story of the game Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium, the company developing it, is almost too ludicrous to believe: a crowdfunding effort to create a space sim of unparalleled size and realism, raising hundreds of millions, with backers paying thousands for ships and gear in a game that's years from release. Yet it's real enough that it just pulled in $42 million in private funding to help bring it closer to release.

[...] A huge amount of work has been done on the game, so this isn't just a colossal con, though there are plenty who think the game, and its first-person shooter counterpart Squadron 42, can't possibly ever fulfill its ambitions and justify the money people have put into it.

That doesn't seem to be the opinion of Clive Calder, founder of Zomba and producer in a variety of entertainment formats, whom Roberts met during a clandestine campaign to solicit funding.

[...] Calder's family office agreed to invest $46 million for a 10 percent stake in Cloud Imperium, which all told puts it near a half-billion valuation. One may very well question the sanity of such a valuation for a company that has not yet shipped an actual product — working prototypes, sure, but not a completed game — but hell, at least they're making something people are excited about. That's got to be worth a couple bucks.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/21/crowdfunded-developer-of-space-sim-star-citizen-takes-on-46m-in-funding-at-nearly-500m-valuation/

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Original Submission

• Re:Is the *really* a positive thing for the projec Re:Is the *really* a positive thing for the projec (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @02:10PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @02:10PM (#778319)

  You're just salty because you couldn't afford a better ship.

  Parent

• Re:Is the *really* a positive thing for the projec (Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday December 25 2018, @09:18PM

  by zocalo (302) on Tuesday December 25 2018, @09:18PM (#778413)

  No salt or ship deficiency here, although I am skeptical of whether CIG is going to be able to deliver a finished product. FWIW, I actually had several ships across two accounts, including a Constellation which was probably the best ship available for what I wanted to do with the game as originally pitched, namely a fairly simple game that let me do whatever I wanted to do on the day with out having to worry too much about clans, etc. In fact it's probably *still* one of the best ships available for what I wanted to do even with the game as currently envisaged. I also dumped the ships from one account on the grey market, actually covering my costs for both accounts, about a year before I bailed althogether so I'm actually a fair way in the black overall.
  
  My issue was that what I most definitely didn't want was a game that seems like it's going to require the level of commitment that now seems to be the case. When it comes to my spare time, I've got better things to do with it than spend it on MMOs with all their clan allegiances, seemingly endless arrays of upgrades, and the need to continually level-up to avoid being completely outclassed. That might be a much better game for those still on-board (and I hope it eventually is), but it's not what I wanted and the community issues were just the final straw that prompted my exit. I'm still following the project though, and assuming it ever ships and gets decent reviews I might get a copy of Squadron 42 to relive the Wing Commander days, but this way that's a zero risk proposition.

  --
  UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

  Parent