Star Citizen funding now over $9m

Between a Kickstarter campaign and direct contributions Cloud Imperium Games has now raised $9,061,882 for its space simulation Star Citizen.

The Kickstarter campaign, which ended on November 19, raised $2,134,374 from 34,397 backers. A further $6,927,508 has been raised through the Roberts Space Industries website from 132,572 fans.

The signs of the success are clear, last week Cloud Imperium Games opened new office in Santa Monica, and announced its intention to add 20 new staff members to the team.

On the website, Cloud Imperium Games explains why it decided to go down the crowd funding route.

"Publishers are useful in the old physical distribution world, but the Internet is the great equalizer. Notch didn't need a publisher to reach 20-million Minecraft fans. Riot games didn't need a publisher to reach 30-million League of Legends players, and Wargaming.net didn't need a publisher to reach 20-million World of Tanks gamers."

"If we were building a big 'AAA' console game it would be crazy to try without a publisher. But we want to build a PC game and publishers increase costs because of their need to recoup their sizable overhead cost. We want to make sure all the money raised goes directly to the development of the game. So we're throwing ourselves on the mercy of the PC gamers out there that share our vision and passion for the platform and the space combat genre to raise money outside of the "cartel" of traditional publishers. The game will cost less, be more creatively pure, and, most importantly, be built for the real 'core' audience - not some corporate suit worried about including all the casual gamers."

Star Citizen is expected to reach alpha by Winter 2013.