In no way a lawyer, and in no way pretend to be (an engineering degree)...but work in IT and we're constantly 'informed' through various continuing ed requirements about the legalize surrounding crowd sourced software...

and it's a joke. A single attorney can write up some off the wall licensing, and it basically can give the receivers of crowd sourced funding freedom to do whatever they want with it. Typically crowd sourcing is funneled through some sort of middle-man like agency (kickstarter, gofundme, etc.) that puts their own requirements in place, takes a cut, and overall keeps things on the up and up so that all parties are better off. To my understanding, everything related to Star Citizen's development budget is in house, right?

Crowd funding allows group(s) of people to do some amazing things that they couldn't otherwise do, but also can illustrate why a certain 'idea' wasn't funded in a traditional way in the first place. Start Citizen falls into the latter imo. Over half a decade, approaching 200 million in funding, and it's still not a product...or a service...in any tangible sense. The biggest question i've had for a while is what do the backers get, exactly? They get some online content and access to the 'game', but do they have to outright buy the 'real' title later on? A primary problem with situations like this is that the development budget flips into just revenue when everything is said and done, because backers get the game at release...and no one else ever cared to begin with.

Just under 200 million in development is crazy...200 million in 'sales', most of which already having been expensed, is...well, that's why it hasn't been picked up by any traditional publishers. But they're spending it, that's for sure. Every couple of months a few 30 minute videos show up with some extreme concept art, relatively underwhelming test footage of gameplay, and Chris Roberts w/ a girl talking in front of what seems to be a very expensive camera.