Star Citizen

Star Citizen is an upcoming space sim video game for Microsoft Windows and Linux.Star Citizen will consist of two main components: first-person space combat, mining, exploration and trading with first-person shooter elements in a massively multiplayer persistent universe and customizable private servers, and a branching single-player and drop-in co-operative multiplayer campaign titled Squadron 42. The game is built on a modified CryEngine and will feature Oculus Rift support.

Both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are set in a 30th-century Milky Way centered on the fictional United Empire of Earth (UEE), an analogue of the late Roman Empire. A central theme of the game is citizenship – or lack thereof – in the UEE, which must be earned through player actions such as completing a period of military service. It is anticipated that citizens will enjoy certain in-game benefits, like paying a reduced tax rate, but the exact details are yet to be determined.

A strong focus will be placed on player interaction, with player behavior influencing and being influenced by a dynamic economy system.

Cloud Imperium Games

Cloud Imperium Games is an American video game company, founded by Chris Roberts and Ortwin Freyermuth, with offices in Los Angeles, California, Austin, Texas, Wilmslow, Cheshire, England and Frankfurt, Germany.

History

In 2011, Chris Roberts founded Cloud Imperium Games Corporation, together with his business partner and long-time international media attorney Ortwin Freyermuth, to work on a new game. On October 10, 2012, Cloud Imperium Games launched a crowdfunding campaign from the Roberts Space Industries website with the stated goal of raising between two and four million dollars to produce a space sim game for the personal computer in a sandbox vein. It was being built on the Cryengine 3 game engine. The game promised to integrate a traditional "branching storyline" game to be called Squadron 42 with a persistent online universe game to be called Star Citizen. On October 18, 2012, at the request of fans, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to run in conjunction with the Roberts Space Industries website. By November 19, 2012 when the combined campaigns concluded, they had earned $6,238,563, approximately 4.1 million from the RSI campaign, and approximately 2.1 from the Kickstarter campaign. This surpassed all stretch goals set for the campaign, and broke video game industry crowdfunding records, both in funds received and in number of backers. Chris Roberts had stated that if at least $23 million could be raised over the course of the crowdfunding campaign, no outside investors' or developers' funding would be required. This goal was reached October 18, 2013. As of January 2016, they have raised over $107 million.

Imperium Games

Imperium Games was an American game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements.

History

Marc W. Miller partnered with Sweetpea Entertainment to license his science-fiction property Traveller in exchange for funding to get Imperium Games running in February 1996, as a new publisher solely dedicated to Traveller material; Sweetpea advanced Imperium Games seed money to launch in exchange for equity and media rights.

Former GDW employees Lester W. Smith and Timothy Brown came to work for Imperium Games.Don Perrin also designed role playing products for Imperium Games's Traveller RPG Universe.Larry Elmore did most of the black-and-white artwork for Marc Miller's Traveller (1996).Chris Foss created much of the color concept art for this edition of the Traveller franchise, and produced 12 pages of artwork for the new Traveller edition's first supplement, Starships (1996). Foss also illustrated a number of covers for Imperium's Traveller.

When Sweetpea Entertainment bought out the stock of the many creators who had worked on T4 and took over some of the day-to-day operations of the company, Timothy Brown took the helm of Imperium Games under Sweetpea's guidance, and was now the only official staff for Imperium, with others acting as freelancers.

Imperium

Imperium is a Latin word which, in a broad sense, translates roughly as 'power to command'. In ancient Rome, different kinds of power or authority were distinguished by different terms. Imperium referred to the ability of an individual to command the military. It is not to be confused with auctoritas or potestas, different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic and Empire. Primarily used to refer to the power that is wielded, in greater or lesser degree, by an individual to whom it is delegated, the term could also be used with a geographical connotation, designating the territorial limits of that imperium. Individuals given such power were referred to as curule magistrates or promagistrates. These included the curule aedile, the praetor, the censor, the consul, the magister equitum, and the dictator.

Personal characteristic

In ancient Rome, imperium could be used as a term indicating a characteristic of people, the wealth held in items, or the measure of formal power they had. This qualification could be used in a rather loose context (for example, poets used it, not necessarily writing about state officials). However, in Roman society it was also a more formal concept of legal authority. A man with imperium ("imperator") had, in principle, absolute authority to apply the law within the scope of his magistracy or promagistracy. He could be vetoed or overruled either by a magistrate or promagistrate who was a colleague with equal power (e.g. a fellow consul) or by one whose imperium outranked his - that is, one of imperium maius (greater imperium).

Game

A game is structured form of play, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.