Star Citizen developer supports Kickstarted projects Godus, Elite: Dangerous

Star Citizen developer Chris Roberts is a firm believer in the power of crowd-funding, and has urged his backers and fans to turn their attention to two Kickstarter projects that he says need a monetary bump as their campaigns wind to a close: 22Cans' Godus and Frontier Developments' Elite: Dangerous.

Roberts defended 22Cans' director Peter Molyneux against the "blow back" leveled against the developer and his current title, Curiosity — what's inside the cube? According to Roberts, the likeliest reason for features not making a final game cut, like what happened with Curiosity, are due to publishers needing to push a game at a certain deadline.

"He is definitely very enthusiastic, which can get him into trouble sometimes, as he can over promise, but it always comes from the right place — he wants to push the possibilities and he has a childlike wonder with doing this," Roberts wrote. "The difference between Peter and a lot of other developers is that other developers are a lot more circumspect in public in disclosing what they're trying to put in the game."

As to why he is supports competing project Elite: Dangerous, Roberts says that "the world is big enough for multiple quality space sims." Roberts says that Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous are both very different games, with Roberts' game focused on universe crafting while Elite presents a larger, more exploring-driven world.

"[I think] you backed Star Citizen because you wanted to say something to the business and marketing machines that normally decide which games are made," he wrote on his website, explaining why he thinks crowd-funding has become so popular. "You said they are not the taste makers for you, that you want your voice heard on what kind of game you play and you want to have a greater involvement and connection to the development of that game."