MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Star Citizen has already bagged $168m in crowdfunding on the space title, but it seems that Cloud Imperium’s moneytrain is approaching another station, as the company behind Star Citizen yesterday offered players the opportunity to buy a plot of land. In a space game.
It’s not cheap, either. Players can get a 4km x 4km plot of land for $50 or drop $100 on an 8km x 8km spot. The official FAQ reveals that each plot comes with a Geotack Marking Beacon to enable players to find their home plot, alerting them when intruders trespass on their land. However, right now what players are actually purchasing is a land future, with the feature that will make use of the land still not actually in the game. Purchasing now gives you a claim license for the land when it appears.
There’s a lot of space available in the game up for sale, with Cloud Imperium claiming ‘billions of square kilometers’ can be purchased. If a chunk of these sell, that’s a series chunk of cash that is going to be fed into the project to aid ongoing development.
Cloud Imperium has said that players who don’t purchase any land will not be at a disadvantage, but as it’s not yet clear what the the land, which again they’re selling for $50-$100 for a plot, will actually do in-game it’s hard to prove or disprove these claims.
Star Citizen has been in development and soliciting donations since 2011. The game was planned to release in 2014, however at this point in time in 2017, no official release date has been confirmed. You can buy the “AEGIS JAVELIN ANNIVERSARY 2017” for $3,600 in Star Citizen’s store.
