Star Citizen, the biggest gaming crowd funding success story, has now tipped the scales at over $9 million (£5.8 million). However only a small portion of that came from Kickstarter, the rest has slowly ticked up on the official site, half making you wonder if Kickstarter is even necessary any more.

The man behind it all, Chris Roberts, who had a hang in some of the best space shooter sims in the history of gaming (Wing Commander, Freelancer) was initially only asking for $500,000 on Kickstarter, but that total was quickly  passed. This comes from an impressive total of 168,788 backers.

The Aurora is certainly an impressive looking extra to add to your already stacked reward tier

Part of the reason Star Citizen has been so effective however, is because of its impressive list of tiers, bonuses and add-on options that backers can sign up for. Even those that have previously pledged a certain amount are encouraged to add more to their total with added extras. There's also been a recent push for new tiers in the form of the Aurora Sale, which allows players to get limited time bonuses for their accounts when the game launches at the end of 2014.

If you still want to kick in to Star Citizen, the developer, Cloud Imperium, is still taking donations via the official website and all tiers are still available for purchase – apart from the $15,000 Completionist one.

KickStarter Says: That's what's so sad with these great crowd funded games. As awesome as they are, we have to wait so long to get a return on our pledge. End of 2014 can't come fast enough. 

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