It would seem to be the case, now, that Chris Roberts’ Cloud Imperium Games is not your typical independent development company, having added a third studio (yes, they already had a second) to support development of the Wing Commander spiritual sequel, Star Citizen:

Cloud Imperium Games Opens New Game Development Office in Santa Monica

New studio will help create Chris Roberts’ new PC space sim game, Star Citizen

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 23, 2013 — Cloud Imperium Games^TM, led by legendary game designer Chris Roberts, has opened an office in Santa Monica to help create Roberts’ new space sim game, Star Citizen^TM. The game marks Roberts’ return to the gaming industry and has garnered headlines in the last six months by bringing in more money via crowd funding than any other game to date. Cloud Imperium has raised more than $8.6 million since October of 2012 for the development of Star Citizen.

Roberts is best known for creating the hugely popular Wing Commander line of games in the 1990s. Those games sold millions of units worldwide and led to an animated television series, a feature film, a collectible card game and a series of novels and action figures. With Star Citizen Roberts wants to reinvigorate PC gaming and space sims in particular.

The new office in Santa Monica will be part of a distributed development approach for Star Citizen that spans from Montreal to Austin, Texas to the Los Angeles area. “I’m a big believer in utilizing small, very focused development groups,” says Roberts. “Each studio is working on key features of the game. In Santa Monica we’re working on some of the high-end creative elements, the structuring of our game engine and publishing. Other studios are working on technology, game design and production, customer support and web development.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with hanging our shingle up in Santa Monica. It’s an incredibly creative community here already with a lot of game development and art resources all around us. We’re reaching out to fill positions for the new office already.”

The office located in the Third Street Promenade area is 2900 square feet of space. Cloud Imperium plans on staffing with up to 20 people.

For more information about Cloud Imperium including information about job openings, go to http://www.CloudImperiumGames.com.

About Cloud Imperium

Cloud Imperium Games Corporation and its subsidiary Roberts Space Industries was founded in April 2012 by renowned game developer Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Freelancer, Privateer) and his business partner and long-time international media attorney Ortwin Freyermuth. Under Roberts’ leadership using his long-standing relationships in the game space, Cloud Imperium quickly assembled a top tier development team for the creation of art assets, story elements, and an extensive prototype for its first game Star Citizen. Star Citizen is being marketed and launched via www.robertsspaceindustries.com. Cloud Imperium’s strategy is about customer acquisition through established game designer fan bases.

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Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium and Roberts Space Industries are trademarks of Cloud Imperium Games Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

So, a Montreal studio, and now a Santa Monica studio, in addition to the Austin studio…all to support the creation of Star Citizen, which itself will be a massive game featuring both a robust single-player campaign and numerous massively multiplayer online elements for those that want to partake thereof. Cloud Imperium Games is definitely not your typical independent studio. And on the surface of it, it sounds like a pretty big risk; you would think it would be easy for Cloud Imperium to become over-extended by opening satellite studios like this.

But then, Chris Roberts is not your typical game developer. And if there’s anyone who could make this scheme work, it’s probably him.