"When I sold Digital Anvil to Microsoft I was sort of burned out," he said. Roberts eventually sold Digital Anvil to Microsoft and left the business entirely. In the 90s, Roberts left Origin to found Digital Anvil, where he helped create two more significant space games: space flight simulator Starlancer and space trading and combat sim Freelancer. The Wing Commander series went on to become one of Origin's most popular games. The game didn't just reinvent the space sim genre, it sort of created it. In the 80s he was the lead designer on space combat game Wing Commander at Origin Systems. Roberts first career, though, was video games. Star Citizen is Roberts re-entry into gaming after more than a decade spent making movies in Hollywood as a producer on such movies as The Punisher, The Jacket and Lord of War. Roberts looks genuinely taken aback, as if the idea that gamers would fail to help hadn't occurred to him. "What happens if you don't get the money?" Not until close to the end of the marathon meeting, when I ask him a question he doesn't seem prepared for. Once we sit down and he starts walking me through the ideas behind the game, the lofty goals and endless directions it could go, he doesn't stop. Roberts' pitch is a intoxicating mix of nostalgia and showmanship, peppered with just a dash of reality in the form of a working prototype. That's not to make the game, that's to prove to much bigger investors there's enough interest that they should drop in the rest of the money needed to build the online universe. To make Star Citizen a reality, Roberts needs $2 to $4 million dollars in gamer backing. The concept, which I even had a chance to play for a minute or two, is breathtaking, but it all rests on a single bet. It took two hours for him to walk me through the intricacies of his vision, to show me the prototype that was so detailed I could see the threading in a flight suit and the rivets in a ship, to explain the sweeping political backstory, the science of his universe, and the math of his creation's economy. Last week, I sat down with Roberts for what was meant to be an hour meeting. Right now, Star Citizen is just a pitch and a prototype. It sounds sublime, and it could re-energize the long dormant genre, but it's also mostly still in just Roberts head. That's Star Citizen, a new game in development by Chris Roberts, the man behind Wing Commander and Privateer. Imagine all of that in a single game created by the person who virtually birthed the space sim genre. Imagine everything you could ever want in a single space game: Combat, trade, rich stories, detailed graphics, massive online communities, real physics.
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