No other game has come even close to reaching one million backers, so it was inevitable that Cloud Imperium Games would celebrate in some form or fashion. And in his latest communiqué to all and sundry, Chris Roberts has confirmed the company is, of a fashion, doing just that.
It’s not a massive livestream party or free Star Citizen for all, although Cloud Imperium Games is giving back — at least to its backers, anyway. In the post, Roberts says the company is abandoning the module pass and Alpha Access systems that had previously gated off access to various parts of the game.
Getting rid of the module passes, which were being sold at US$5 a pop, and the Alpha Access model means that anyone who becomes a backer, or was a backer previously, will have full access to any part of Star Citizen. It’s sensible given the ever-expanding scope of the game, although it’s a little difficult to praise the company too much given the additional funds they would have recouped since those models were enacted.
As a further extension of goodwill, anyone who did pay for the privilege of alpha access will get 10,000 UEC added to their account. Those who bought passes to get into the Arena Commander module will get half of that, and Roberts says the credits cap will be increased to accommodate the change.
“Going forward, should we need to put out some sort of limited release it will be done through the PTU test server. All backers will have access to any live release, the moment it publishes.”
Star Citizen as an idea is complex enough already, and making it a simpler product will benefit everyone. It should help CIG too: without these added systems it becomes easier to sell, although one would argue the depth of reverence amongst fans of the ‘Verse (I believe that’s the proper terminology) did that for the company anyway.
Comments
13 responses to “Star Citizen Makes Modules Available To All Backers To Commemorate One Million Mark”
“Star Citizen as an idea is complex enough already…”
That’s the issue, Star Citizen still seems more “idea” than “game” at this point…
How so? It is playable like a game and already has a thriving community such as any game providing important feedback to the game studio.
If I’m making an open world life sim, and I release modules that allow you, separately, to play chess. To go to a wardrobe and change your clothes. To drive a car. Is that a playable game? Technically yes. Is it anywhere near the game I described and that my backers paid for? Not at all.
I’d use MGS Ground Zero as an example. Technically its a full game, yet we all know it was a demo/proof of concept from Kojima to get funding for TPP. It has no business being classified as a full game.
No, we backed Squadron 42 a Single player experience set within a Star Citizen world, as backers we managed to push the game into developing a fully open multiplayer experience, it has been 3 years and we have the infrastructure for Dog fighting, hanger module and social module with part of the open universe being turned on for exploration (seen during citizencon)
Would I call Star citizen a game yet, no, its an alpha test site, barely a beta of elements that we are testing from paying for the development, if this was privately funded we would only be hearing about the game now, and would have had none of the involvement or community experience that has been built from the years of development,
Star Citizen criticism is more “idea” than “fact”.
Not at all, there’s plenty of fair criticism out there, plenty of it, even Roberts listens to it, responds occasionally and tries to improve the direction of the game and its develop with fair critique. It just gets drowned out by the morons like Derek Smart.
You can call him a moron, but his case against CIG is specific in its claims. According to the letter of the law, I wouldn’t bet against his case. Be aware, he is not attacking the game itself.
On a side note, were the majority of the 1m backers in favour of removing the module system? I haven’t looked into that.
He’s a moron.
I prefer the word ‘conspiracy theorist’, since he is clearly intelligent, yet tends towards somewhat obsessive and bizarre rants with little concrete or direct evidence to back his statements.
Agreed, the sooner we forget about him the sooner he’ll fall back into obscurity again where he belongs
Everyone: please don’t use this as a thread to post your referral codes, thanks.
LOL
Derek Smart is a troll, he spent years trolling the Freespace community with threats that he would buy out the IP. He’s a bad developer who makes bad games and he can’t handle anyone else’s success in space games.
I developed on Vegastrike which was a clone/remake of Wing Commander Privateer. Chris Roberts has been following the development model we used relatively closely, but obviously with a lot more artists/programmers and money.