Star Citizen, the massive spaceflight simulator from Wing Commander series creator Chris Roberts breezed past a $75 million fundraising milestone this week, extending the record it set last year as the most successful crowdfunding project ever.

“It's a little surreal. I didn't even think that 10 would be possible,” Roberts told IGN. “I'm always amazed. If you came up to me and said that we would be at $75 million when I started October 2012, I would be absolutely nuts.

“I used to have some arguments internally where the head of marketing was like ‘Well, we'll see if we can do 20 [million]’ and I was like, ‘Ahh, there's no way we're doing 20.’ So, it has been pretty awesome.”

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When Roberts first launched the project in October 2012, he hoped to raise between $2 million to $4 million to bring on angel investors to help fund the game. As the game is successfully raising funds independently, the project is liberated from bringing on private investors, allowing the developer to proceed with the game’s production as it sees fit.

“I'm about trying to make the best game possible so I find it quite liberating to be able, in the situation we have now, where we enough money to build this thing to a level where you can only dream of,” he said. “So I feel very lucky and humbled and happy and I'm having a lot of fun making the game.”

How We Got Here

The game easily manoeuvred past the $60, $65 and $69 million USD goals over the past couple of months, achieving the title of largest crowdfunded project ever, beyond video games and any campaign on Kickstarter or similar sites to date.

Roberts estimates by looking at the the project’s past funding trends that funding will hit $100 million by the end of the year. “I said before that I think we could do hundred. It's not because we were saying ‘Ooh, we are so good, we can do a hundred.’

“ How did they get so much money? What’s happening? There has to be some crazy scam going on.’

"We've doing it for long enough to see there is a pattern. I don't know after that because we're going to have Squadron 42 out at the end of this year and a lot of features like the FPS is going to come out next month.”

Surrounded by quizzical, and often negative, attention as to how Star Citizen is snowballing through the funding milestones, Roberts cites the engaged community and the developer's ongoing transparency as driving factors for the project's growing popularity.

“If you don't spend to time to understand it and you don't see the interaction and the information that is shared, you won't understand it,” he said. “[People say] how did they get so much money? What’s happening? There has to be some crazy scam going on.’

“On the development side there's an energy you get from interacting with the community,” Roberts explained. “They are telling you what to concentrate on and what's important to them. Being involved that early is empowering [for players] because a lot of the time you are just given something. Being in that community and seeing how things are progressing and hearing how things are progressing is our own entertainment, so its sort of, not really a reality show, but it has those sort of aspects.”

Shifting the Focus

As always intended, the company spends all funds on development to enrich the game’s original vision sooner than the expected timeframe of 10 years.

“I always had this big picture for the game I wanted but I was always thinking it would take a long time, because I would get the basic version of the game out there and get some money in and keep improving it and adding all these features,” Roberts said. “And with all of this support this early it meant I could hire a lot more people. We got some some really amazing talented people on the team now and a lot of them, so we can deliver a lot more of the depth and detail I wanted.”

Earlier in its campaign, most of the stretch goal rewards were features the developer originally wanted to put in the game but couldn't due to lack of funds, and were added as more money was raised. However, passing the $75 million milestone didn’t unlock any rewards, nor are there cuurrently any in place for future goals.

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“Obviously we are still raising money, but in term of stretch goals, I think we'll occasionally do one. But we're not going to do them in the way that we were doing before, like every million. Now we are trying to focus on sharing more background and design. [We’ll] occasionally focus on a big feature that we want to do, that we haven't discussed before, but because we have more money we can deliver it now.”

The developer is largely stepping away from stretch goals to shift the focus from the negative attention-inducing effect that focussing on the money has. Roberts has found that coverage about the money generally invites skepticism and negativity, while coverage on the sim’s content builds positive energy.

“ "A bit frustrating when everyone always focusses on the money.”

“But I wanted to get away from this constant stretch goal thing because it's a bit frustrating when everyone always focusses on the money,” he said. “I'd rather have the focus on the design features and content and get people excited about that and less about hitting funding milestones.”

Roberts estimates by looking at the the project’s past funding trends that funding will hit $100 million by the end of the year. “I said before that I think we could do hundred. It's not because we were saying ‘Ooh, we are so good, we can do a hundred.’ We've doing it for long enough to see there is a pattern. I don't know after that because we're going to have Squadron 42 out at the end of this year and a lot of features like the FPS is going to come out next month.”

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It's a Hobby

Two thirds of the backers consist of those who jumped in with the entry level ship of $30, now $45, and second smaller group purchased the equivalent of the collector’s edition. Contributing hundreds of dollars “to make sure that it is done right,” a third subset are spaceship collectors and those who see Star Citizen has a serious hobby that they are going to invest years in.

“I met them all at the shows and I say, ‘You don't need to spend anymore than the basic $40’ and they're, ‘No, no I’m really enjoying this and believe in this and I want to make it happen. For me, this is my hobby and relatively, compared to other hobbies, its not that expensive and it’s fun to buy some spaceships.’

“ "Half of the guys doing the spaceship designs for the new Star wars are also doing ship designs for us.”

“People say “Well, how can you spend that much on a spaceship?’ But I know people who would spend $400 on a figurine and put it on the shelf,” he said. “You can't walk around inside it you can't fly it. I think in today’s world, especially if you're more tech savvy, the whole idea for a physical versus virtual is going away.

“You know these virtual things, you don't have to manufacture them but a lot of work goes into building them," he added. "We hired pretty much most of the top concept science fiction artists that do movies. Half of the guys doing the spaceship designs for the new Star wars are also doing ship designs for us.”

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Backers

More than 800,000 backers have contributed to the space sim’s funding to date. Roberts explained as more components of Star Citizen are released—such as the dogfighting module Arena Commander, the upcoming first-person shooter module and Squadron 42 Chapter One—the more tangible it becomes and the more people think like, “It’s cool. I’ll get on it.”

“There's lots of people who won't ever buy a game until it is finished and I think they will be the people who will show up once the game is finished,” Roberts said.

“ "It's already an outlier, so it could be amazing or it could crash and burn horribly.”

Talking to others who have crowdfunded projects, Star Citizen’s creator said that they have typically found that people that join early to what finally sells is about 10 percent. “Now for us, I think that would be too low because we've been out for so long as our numbers are so big. I would expect to double or triple that, at least,” he said, adding that he has given up predicting exactly how many will be on board in the future.

“I dont expect anything anymore. It’s its own thing,” Roberts explained. “There's certain things that I can look back to see what we did last year and the year before and say ‘Well, we'll be able to make a hundred [million]’ but I don't really make predictions the other way because its impossible. It's already an outlier, so it could be amazing or it could crash and burn horribly.”

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Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter.