The latest multi-million dollar Kickstarter project to find success is Star Citizen, whose crowd sourcing fundraiser ended today at over $6 million. Headed by the legendary creator of the first Wing Commander, Chris Roberts, Star Citizen will be a huge, evolving, open-universe space sim made specifically for the hardcore PC gaming audience. Cloud Imperium Games isn't yet willing to announce a tentative release window, though they estimate at least two years of development time.
Oddly enough, a majority of Star Citizen's funding did not come through their Kickstarter. Instead, the game received funding through their personal website with PayPal and credit card donations. Roughly two thirds of the $6 million came through the personal website, which may prove to be a big story in itself. Are developers potentially going to use Kickstarter more as a marketing tool, while redirecting to an outside crowd-funding source in order to avoid the healthy Kickstarter's percentage.
Not to take away from Star Citizen success at all, of course, but we could be seeing the beginning of Kickstarter's downfall. Not as a result of disuse or a community shift in perception, but because their business model is flawed. Ah, what am I saying. They still helped earn Star Citizen over $2 million through their Kickstarter page. They're not going anywhere soon. Congratulations to Cloud Imperium Games, can't wait to see how Star Citizen evolved over the coming years.
They do have carrier class ships which can be owned by individual players, however they can be flown but they do require a crew to defend it from pirates as well as other players. They will end up being the guild/clan/squad base and will be extremely difficult to purchase without the help of a full guild/clan/squad. When I say expensive, I mean it, They were giving people the option to purchase them with real world money during the KickStarter for 1,000 USD.
You can only imagine the price in game!
(btw, to the creators, PLEASE DO NOT make this game like the game EVE Online)
What I loved about that game is that it did have its huge moments and Star Wars like moments, but it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAY to hard to do ANYTHING and learning how to fly bigger ships took literally MONTHS. (That doesn't include actually buying the ship.)
Please know, that all us space mmo players want, is an immersive experience, huge fast paced space battles, and able to experience this without having to invest our LIVES to it.