Chris Roberts, the gaming guru, is working on a game that will be the be-all and end-all. Is Star Citizen going to be released? Now is the time to find out the solution.
Chris Roberts is a video game designer, programmer, film producer, and filmmaker from the United States who is on a quest to build the most ambitious game ever.
The crowdfunded space simulator Star Citizen is shaping up to be the best space game the world has ever seen. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested to make this enormous dream a reality. Is it, however, on the verge of becoming a reality?
QUICK FACTS
| Full Name | Chris Roberts |
| Famous For | Developing Games, esp. Star Citizen |
| Age | 52yo |
| Date of Birth | May 27, 1968 |
| Place of Birth | Redwood City, California, |
| Siblings | Erin Roberts |
| Height | 5’7 (1.73m) |
| Weight | 65 kg (143lbs) |
| Ethnicity | Caucasian (British-American) |
| Nationality | American |
| Lives in | Austin, Texas |
| Hair Color | Dark brown |
| Eye color | Dark brown |
| Profession | Video game designer, Programmer, Film producer, Film director |
| Education | Parrs Wood High School |
| Wife/Spouse | Sandi Gardner
Madison Peterson (ex wife) |
| Children | 2 (girls) |
| Relationship Status | Married |
| Zodiac Sign | Gemini |
| Total Net worth | $20M |
| Social Media
Presence |
Website
Instagram Roberts space industries, Cloud Imperium Games
|
| Games |
|
| Films |
|
| Trivia | Star Citizen was in 2015 Guinness World records for raising the highest crowdfunding amount in history. |
Chris Roberts: Childhood
The renowned multimedia artist was born in the United States, in the city of Redwood City, in the year 1968. He was reared in Manchester, England, by an American mother and a British father, and attended Parrs Wood High School. Martin Galway, a computer music composer, went to the same school.
Chris grew up reading fantasy and science fiction literature, mostly Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings, and picturing the parallel universe created by them.
Chris Roberts’ father took him to see Star Wars in a Manchester cinema when he was eight years old. That tragic day in 1977 changed the small boy’s life forever, igniting his interest in space and the galaxy far, far away.
Chris showed promise as a teenager, writing many video games for the BBC Micro computer in the 1980s, including King Kong, Stryker’s Run, and the best-selling Wizadore.
Chris Roberts: Early Life
His father had purchased him a BBC Micro in the early 1980s, so he grew up around computers. Chris enrolled in an extra-curricular computer class at Manchester University when he was 12 to study BASIC, but their teacher was more interested in phone number management databases. While the rest of the class was working on these projects, Chris was coding action game code in the back of the room.
The teacher took notice so when he moved to become the editor-in-chief of The Micro User, he asked Chris to create a “game of the month” to be stored in the floppy disk attached in the magazine.
Chris proposed the action game he was working on as a result of this chance, which helped him expand his skills. A player had to push King Kong from the Empire State Building while boarding a chopper. Chris Roberts earned £100 for his first video game when he was 13 years old.
Origin Systems, Inc.’s Chris Roberts
Chris’ parents moved from Manchester to Austin, Texas, while he was in his late teens, where his father obtained a job as a university professor.
In 1986, he followed suit, and at the age of 18, Chris began working for ORIGIN Systems Inc. (OSI). He worked at Origin Systems on games like Times of Lore (1988) and Bad Blood (1989). (1990). In 1990, the first episode of the Wing Commander series was released.
Roberts was credited with doubling the company’s sales from $4 million to $50 million.
Series of Wing Commanders
Wing Commander, a critically praised PC game released in 1990, set a new benchmark in the industry. Wing Commander and its franchises quickly established themselves as Origin’s most popular product.
Wing Commander II, Wing Commander: Privateer, Wing Commander III, and Wing Commander IV are some of the spin-offs from the franchise.
The game’s cinematic qualities, plot lines, and well-known performers turned it into a “interactive movie,” a new gaming genre. Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes for the series which won him one of Next Generation’s “75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995”.
Electronic Arts (EA) purchased OSI as a fully owned subsidiary for $30 million in 1992.
The Wing Commander Series accounted for 60% of the company’s sales, bringing in over $110 million in five years (1990-1995). The game’s breakthrough product received several accolades and sold millions of copies throughout the world.
The Digital Anvil of Chris Roberts
Roberts left OSI after ten years to form Digital Anvil (DA), which he co-founded with Tony Zurovec, his brother Erin Roberts, Marten Davies, Craig Cox, John Miles, Eric Peterson, and Robert Rodriguez.
The game firm was founded in Austin, Texas, and signed a publishing agreement with Microsoft in 1997. In an interview, Roberts claimed they grabbed the opportunity to write an email to Bill Gates and received a call the next day from the company’s general manager for the entertainment business. Digital Anvil received $75 million from the exclusive publication arrangement.
The studio was smaller than OSI and Electronic Arts, but it allowed Roberts to accomplish anything he wanted, particularly in terms of game and film production. Electronic Arts, Origins’ parent firm, was said to solely want to sponsor Wing Commander sequel ideas, which irritated Roberts.
Digital Anvil is acquired by Microsoft.
DA had an average yearly income of $14 million prior to the debut of several of its titles. DA was the first interactive entertainment business to turn a game title into a $25 million feature picture, starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., Saffron Burrows, and Matthew Lillard, thanks to Roberts’ advancements in the gaming industry.
Starlancer, Digital Anvil’s first completed game, was released in 2000.
In December 2000, Microsoft purchased DA and sold Conquest: Frontier Wars, directed by Eric Peterson, and Loose Cannon, directed by Tony Zurovec, to Ubisoft.
In November 2005, Microsoft reassigned the developer’s workers to its Microsoft Studios headquarters. On January 31, 2006, Digital Anvil was formally disbanded.
Ascendant Pictures
Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment in the hopes of producing films, television shows, and video games; while no content was produced, it did lead to the formation of Ascendant Pictures in 2002.
Edison, Timber Falls, Outlander (Kim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Houston), Who’s Your Caddy?, The Big White (Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, Woody Harrelson), Ask the Dust (Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek), Lucky Number Slevin (Bruce Willis, Joshua Hartnett), and Lord of War were all produced by Ascendant Pictures (Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto).
The firm was purchased by Bigfoot Entertainment in 2010.
Ascendant Pictures Sued by Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner sued Ascendant Pictures in 2005 for breach of contract on a picture that had not yet been released. According to a report, Ascendant Pictures reneged on its verbal agreement to pay Costner $8M to star in a romantic comedy movie entitled “Taming Ben Taylor”. The plot revolves around a resentful divorced couple who refuse to sell their cash-strapped vineyard.
As of this writing, there are no case updates available.
Cloud Imperium Games Corporation is a company that develops and publishes video games
Roberts returned to game development in 2011, forming Cloud Imperium Games Corporation to build on his work in Wing Commander and Freelancer. Sandi Gardiner, Roberts’ now-wife, and Ortwin Freyermuth, a long-time international media attorney, were co-founders.
In 2012, the business started a Kickstarter campaign for Star Citizen, a groundbreaking game that Roberts stated will be the finest space game ever created.
Crowdfunding for Star Citizen
The campaign was able to raise $6.2 million in a month and more than $23 million in a year.
After five years, 2.2 million fans have raised over $211 million to complete the sci-fi world. Roberts claimed the business has received an extra $46 million in venture money before the end of the year to launch complete marketing campaigns for both the single-player and the wider multiplayer sci-fi universe of Star Citizen.
Snoot Entertainment, which is owned by UK entertainment moguls Clive and Keith Calder and currently owns 10% of the firm, was one of the first outside investors. Roberts owns 75 percent of the company.
The Concept of Star Citizen
Roberts aims to provide a reality-based gaming experience in Star Citizen, where a player could go to “various locations, wander around worlds, fly ships, and have it all done in this detail that you would imagine you could project yourself in as a person”.
According to him, the concept is based on a dynamic, living, and breathing cosmos that reacts to the activities of the players. The game’s objects and characters will age, wear, and tear in such a way that they will be prone to aging, wear, and tear.
Roberts claims that the Star Citizen universe moves whether or not the player is present. This puts it in a league of its own among other massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.
Updates on Star Citizen
Roberts stated in 2018 that the game will be released in the summer of 2020. Some players are unsure if they will be able to play the full version of the game.
The corporation released its 2018 financial statement, which showed commitments of $37.8 million and $3.3 million in memberships.
It allegedly raised $17 million from new investors as of March 2020.
Issues in Star Citizen
Despite the fact that the enormous project was supposed to be released in 2014, gamers are still waiting over seven years later. According to a Forbes story, the development process is being hampered by charges of financial misappropriation and Roberts’ dubious design guidance.
Mark Day, a veteran Wing Commander producer who was part of the first Star Citizen crew in 2013, was taken aback by Roberts’ inability to concentrate.
According to a different source, Roberts insisted on approving all designs even as the project grew, leaving one graphics engineer trapped working on a ship’s shields for several months.
Wife of Chris Roberts
Roberts married Sandi Gardiner, his second wife, in 2015. The Australian-born model and actress is the co-founder and marketing director of Cloud Imperium Games Corporation.
Controversies in Star Citizen
According to the article, marketing accounts for a significant portion of the budget, with Roberts’ wife directing the staff. Roberts is said to have given Gardiner credit for her marketing plan. Star Citizen has become the most crowdfunded game ever.
According to the exclusive Forbes article, Roberts was previously accused of misappropriating cash when he utilized a portion of the money spent by Microsoft to partially bankroll the Wing Commander film.
According to a recent Forbes piece, twenty former workers of “Star Citizen” shared their experiences, showing that the over $300 million crowdfunded game is doomed to never be released.
Star Citizen Investors are Angry
According to Forbes, the Federal Trade Commission has received over 129 refund claims, some totaling $24K. Forbes quoted Roberts as saying that the company’s fundraising is “ethical.”
Lawsuit Against Crytek
Crytek, a Frankfurt-based video game developer, sued Cloud imperium Games in 2017 for copyright infringement and breach of contract.
Crytek allegedly agreed to let Star Citizen utilize its CryEngine technology at a cheap cost in exchange for prominent displays of its trademark in the reality-based space game, according to the complaint. In 2016, Roberts allegedly attempted to diminish Crytek’s role to Star Citizen by renaming its video engine Star Engine rather than CryEngine, according to the lawsuit. There are currently no updates on the lawsuit’s status.
Chris Roberts Net Worth
| Estimated Net Worth 2020 | $20M |
| How Much Did Chris Roberts Earn Last Year? | $2M |
| What Are Chris Roberts’ Income Sources? | Game developing, Selling merchandise |
| How Much Does Chris Roberts Earn From Game Development? | $2M |
| How Much Does Chris Roberts Earn From selling merchandise? | $5K |
What Is Star Citizen and How Does It Work?
Being a “Star Citizen” necessitates the provision of funds for game development. In exchange for a pledge, one receives a ship and other goodies, as well as access to alpha gaming and testing.
A full package costs $27,000 and is split among big groups of players who have joined together to gain access to more of the game’s content.
For $12 or $24, you may get access to the Jump Point digital magazine, as well as first-wave access to the Public Test Universe (PTU), in-game equipment rentals, a private chatroom and forum, and discounts.
Merchandise for Star Citizen.
RedBubble and its official website also sell posters, t-shirts, hats, and a hardback Jump Point collection book.
House of Chris Roberts
There have been several allegations of Roberts’ financial malfeasance. According to reports, he and his wife own a $4.7 million home. There have been no images of the residence or the cars they utilize.
Roberts Space Industries is worth a lot of money.
Roberts Space Industries said that 2,447,236 individual Star Citizens contributed a total of $250 million (£193.7 million). During the same time period, the firm was valued at $496 million.