I thought it would be good to explain a little of our thinking in the Aurora promotion that we are running with the Aurora brochure. According to our database we have over 40,000 users that signed up but have yet to back. Some of these may be accounts of people that have pledged but their account is unlinked. Some are secondary accounts of people that have backed through a different account. Some of these will be people that signed up but have since decided that they are not interested in Star Citizen. The last group are people that are interested but aren’t ready to back yet, either because they are not convinced just yet, or are waiting until they can play something. A really interesting statistic is that almost 20,000 of the accounts with Golden Ticket status show as of not having a pledge!

My dream is to make Star Citizen the first AAA game that has been 100% funded by the crowd – besides being a milestone there are many reasons why this a good thing, but the most glaring is that this will ensure that the community and developers are 100% in alignment. Both our priorities is to make the best game possible, no compromises. Star Citizen is going to cost approximately $20M to make. We have this covered already between the incredible funding we’ve received from you and the commitments from investors. But here’s the truth: I’ve been holding off on closing investors because your commitment means we won’t need as much money as we originally expected. Every dollar we make from crowd funding means one less we’ll take from outside investors.

To achieve this we need to bring in new people, as all of you have given more than we could have ever expected you should not be expected to contribute any more to the cause. What better way to get some new members than a sale to entice them to join before the new site and their access rights change? Which is why we decided to create a sale for the unveiling of the Aurora in all its glory. We’re really proud of the work that’s been done on the Aurora – I think you will agree that no other game goes to such detail in designing and realizing a universe. The Aurora is indicative of what we are looking to achieve in terms of detail and immersion in the final game, and while it is the cheapest player ship available it is by no means a “Starter ship”.

As part of this we’ve decided to create a little mini campaign around the new site, complete with some stretch goals, rewards for all backers and a 24 hour live cam setup to celebrate the new site going live at the end of May. For those of you that will want to add the Aurora LX to your collection now we’ve created a couple of options for you to contribute a little more money towards development and get in return add the LX to your fleet. I want to stress that if you did this it would only because you wanted to contribute to the development funding not because you have to. You will be able to earn credits to buy this ship in game once we go live. So please do not feel obligated to do anything. Everyone has given more than enough. This is purely a “for the fun” sale / event to hopefully push our funding along.