'Star Citizen' Has Raised $400 Million, And Is No Closer To A Proper Release

Way back in 2012, developer Chris Roberts announced an ambitious new sci-fi game called Star Citizen. Pitched as a massively multiplayer space adventure of unprecedented scale, Roberts began funding for the project on the then-fledgling Kickstarter. Star Citizen was supposed to launch in 2015.

I'm sure you probably know the rest. 2015 arrived and Star Citizen had raised over $100 million! Yet the game was no closer to release. Over the last few years, Roberts and his studio Cloud Imperium Games have released small playable chunks to backers in the form of "modules", but a full commercial release remains as far off as it ever was.

The longer Star Citizen goes without being released, the more the developer is (rightly) criticised for taking player money and having very little to show for it. Earlier this year, Cloud Imperium Games was warned by the Advertising Standards Authority about selling items that weren't even in the game yet. Naturally, more and more players are starting to wonder if the project has been worth their time and support.

As recently pointed out by Kotaku, Star Citizen has now raised over $400 million from around 3.3 million backers (or "citizens"). But the game remains in development, and its final release date remains a mystery.

I hate to say it, but if your game has raised $400 million and still doesn't have anything substantial to tell fans after a decade of development? It might not be coming out. In the interests of fairness, I should point out that there are plenty of Star Citizen fans who enjoy the game's playable modules and already consider the game to be "out" and more of a constantly evolving experience. But is it anywhere close to "out" by the standards most people would hold a $400 million game with ten years of development time to? No. Not it is not.

Topics: PC