Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen, surprisingly, isn’t actually the most successfull crowd-funding effort in history (that would be the Pebble Watch, apparently). That said, Star Citizen is closing in on the record, having just crossed the $10 million mark.

Naturally, there’s a press release for that:

Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen Flies Past the $10 Million Mark for Crowd Funding

PC based space sim from Chris Roberts continues on its blistering pace; Record amount of funding raised in only eight months

AUSTIN, Texas, June 10, 2013 — Star Citizen™, the highly anticipated space sim game from legendary designer Chris Roberts continues soaring to record heights. Roberts’ company, Cloud Imperium Games™, announced today that the PC-based game, currently in development at studios in Austin, Texas and Santa Monica, California has raised a record $10 million in a little more than eight months. That’s a record amount for any crowd funded game. Most of the money, $7.8 million, has been raised on the Star Citizen site.

Roberts is best known for his hugely successful Wing Commander, Privateer and Freelancer games from the 1990s. He left the industry to pursue a Hollywood production career before returning last year to game design and the early stage development of Star Citizen. Cloud Imperium launched the game’s crowd funding program in October of last year and fans of PC games and space sims immediately took notice and began backing the project in record numbers. Since the original launch there have been more than 183-thousand pledges for Star Citizen and both the total funding amount and the number of backers continue to grow. It’s a diverse and enthusiastic base of players who represent 99 different countries and have already formed more than 100 guilds for sharing ideas and building friendships.

While most crowd funded projects have a pre-determined funding window of 30 to 60 days, Star Citizen’s campaign remains open. Fans can still visit the website at www.robertsspaceindustries.com and back the project, upgrade and purchase ships, subscribe to newsletters and developer forums and manage their accounts. Since the original campaign ended in mid-November, Star Citizen has raised an additional $3.7 million in crowd funding.

“The Star Citizen community has been nothing short of phenomenal in its support of this project,” said Roberts. “And for that we are eternally grateful. Our backers are providing us the opportunity to make a game that not only we want to create but one that they want as well. The beauty of crowd funding is that the crowd is involved every step of the way, not just with their financial resources but with their regular feedback and opinions as well.”

“We have raised a lot of money from the crowd, which is unheard of in our industry,” continued Roberts. “But we don’t plan on slowing down. In another week we’ll be unveiling new pictures and a special promotional sale for yet another ship in Star Citizen complete with sales brochure and commercial video. And at the end of the month we’ll be launching our new Star Citizen website that will have a more robust e-commerce system that allows fans to upgrade and modify their pledges, purchase add-ons and manage account info. And it’s going to better represent the world of Star Citizen, so it’s going to look amazing.”

Reaching the $10 million threshold has been much anticipated by the Star Citizen community because it carries with it a promise that Cloud Imperium will open a motion capture studio with the funds. Company officials will have more complete details on those plans in coming weeks, but released a video today to whet the appetites of its passionate fan base.

More information about Star Citizen, including videos and trailers of the game, regular communications from Chris Roberts to fans, community forums, game fiction and art can be found at www.robertsspaceindustries.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. More information about the company, including jobs and contact information can be found at www.cloudimperiumgames.com.

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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.

Here’s the aforementioned video, by the way, which announces the new motion capture studio that Cloud Imperium Games will be building thanks to the support of their backers:

A big congratulations to the Cloud Imperium team; what a milestone!