750 million US dollars in crowdfunding: "Star Citizen" is a phenomenon

Developing triple-A games costs a lot of money. Three-digit million sums can sometimes come together. However, the fact that these sums can also be raised through pure crowdfunding is a speciality. The game "Star Citizen" is one such project. It was announced in 2012 and is essentially financed through crowdfunding.

Now a milestone has been passed that is truly astonishing: So far, more than three quarters of a billion US dollars have been donated to the studio Cloud Imperium Games for the game. You can see the current status of the crowdfunding on the game website. The money is expected to come from around 5.5 million donors. In 2022, 610 employees worked on the game

The special feature: there is still no release date. "Star Citizen" is currently only playable as Early Access. The donations are mainly pledges: interested parties can buy spaceships in the game for real money and thus support the development.

The space sim for everything

"Star Citizen" is set to be an open-world space game that offers a mixture of simulation, trading, combat and exploration. The announcement of the game in October 2012 by studio founder Chris Roberts aroused great interest. Roberts was responsible for the popular "Wing Commander" game series in the nineties. With "Star Citizen", he wanted to build on this and develop the idea further. Within a short time of the announcement, the stated crowdfunding targets were far exceeded.

Since 2014, interested parties have been able to take a seat in the Cockpit themselves and explore a part of the universe. A year later, the first city opened its doors to pilots: They can now visit the industrial urban planet centre "Area18". The game is still being developed and new content is gradually being added. The last major update dates from 24 November 2024.

According to the website, there are three main game modes at the current stage of development: The "Persistent Universe" is the centrepiece of "Star Citizen", which will offer the full range of possibilities once the game is complete. Here you create a game character that can follow seven different career paths, including trader, bounty hunter, medic and more. There are also the "Arena Commander" and "Star Marine" modes, which are reserved for PvP spaceship combat and racing as well as first-person shooter PvP.

However, the alpha version of the game only offers a fraction of the announced possibilities, such as only two solar systems instead of five - originally it was even supposed to be 100 solar systems.

Criticism of "Star Citizen"

The long development time in particular, combined with the high revenues, repeatedly led to criticism. A release in 2014 was initially planned. The studio was also criticised for not communicating transparently what happens to the donations from interested parties and that development should be much faster with such a high level of capital. This is apparently also due to Roberts' management style.

The option to buy spaceships in the game, which can cost up to several thousand US dollars, has also been criticised. The purchase is of course voluntary and there are also significantly cheaper ships. But it is a virtual item for a game that is still only an early access title despite such a long development period and a high capital base. At the same time, some players criticise the fact that buying expensive ships is pay-to-win.

The single-player campaign was originally intended to be part of "Star Citizen", but was spun off in the course of development. It will be released as "Squadron 42" as a separate game. Many fans were also upset.

Despite all the criticism: according to some people I know, the game is "quite good".

Addition: The article initially stated that the release of "Star Citizen" was planned for 2026. This is incorrect, the single-player campaign "Squadron 42" is due to be released in 2026. Thanks for pointing this out!