When you've got a project backed by an individual with a portfolio like Chris Roberts's (Freelancer, Wign Commander) and a tech demo as impressive and beautiful as Star Citizen's, you can't resist the urge to grab your wallet and throw it at the project with the hopes that your money will help it reach completion faster.
Chris Roberts first revealed his latest project, Star Citizen, a space simulation MMO of epic proportions, just a few weeks back. He decided to crowd fund the project on his own website, which proved to be an issue when his site went down from the sheer volume of wallets being thrown at him. After raising quite a hefty sum on his site, he decided to expand the crowd funding to Kickstarter, and set a goal of $500K. With 24 days left before the fundraising period closes, Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games have managed to already raise $641,727. You might not be impressed by that number, considering that there havve been plenty of big videogame projects in the past that have accrued that amount within a smaller timeframe. But… the $642K figure is on top of the almost $1.5 million that's already been raised via his website.
The scope of Star Citizen may seem ridiculously ambitious, considering the ridiculous amount of detail paid attention to each little thing and the fact that it's powered on next-gen graphics (on an MMO, no less.) Still, if Roberts' past work is any proof of quality, then everyone can rest easy on the fact that Cloud Imperium will deliver.
You can still fund Star Citizen via Roberts's website, or via the game's Kickstarter. There are different tiers of awards available depending on how much a donor gives, as per crowd funding model.