Ah, Star Citizen. The ambitious, space trade-and-battle game project that many thought would flop — and many still do — but it’s been six years, and we’re not sure if a full release is anywhere on the horizon, but developers Cloud Imperium Games are still steadily ploughing on (and racking up funding, as they do).
While the multiplayer Star Citizen will probably remain in alpha for the foreseeable (and maybe, unforeseeable) future, it’s single-player counterpart, Squadron 42 has publicly committed to a schedule — a real shocker, since we thought they’ve thrown release estimates out the window, ever since they blew right through their past estimates.
But following a fair bit of consideration, Chris Roberts, CEO of Cloud Imperium Games, has sealed a deal with record producer Clive Calder and his son, independent film producer, Keith Calder, whom he got on with “like a house on fire”. As a result of a minority investment of US$46 million, Cloud Imperium is taking on two outside board members — Dan Offner, the Calders’ board nominee, and Eli Klein, long-time friend of Roberts.
Roberts has announced that the US$46 million will go towards marketing Squadron 42 — which has a pretty impressive cast, featuring Mark Hamill (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and Gillian Anderson (Hannibal, The Spy Who Dumped Me) — because “a AAA game that matches the biggest single player games out there only goes so far if no one knows about it”.
To date, Cloud Imperium’s valuation has come up to US$496 million — pretty impressive considering how it’s mostly-crowdfunded — and they’ve also released a report detailing their 2012 to 2017 financials “in a further effort at transparency”.
Considering the sheer size of their undertaking, our fingers are crossed that they’ll manage to pull it off, whatever the naysayers may say about it.
JoYFQ is a Gryffindor who distracts herself from the pitfalls of capitalism and hegemonic representations by reading fanfiction. Has surprisingly good RNG luck in games. Probably just jinxed herself.
Si Jia
Yonk
Jake Su
