Star Citizen Crowdfunds Half a Billion Dollars – and $100 Million In Less Than a Year

Cloud Imperium Games has now raised more than half a billion dollars for Star Citizen’s development, including $100 million since last November.

As reported by Eurogamer, the space trading and combat sim – which has been in development for more than a decade – now claims to have amassed $500,111,757 from backers.

Star Citizen’s initial Kickstarter campaign for $2 million started in October 2012, but this was just the beginning. Cloud Imperium Games has raised more and more money over the years, surpassing $400 million in total just ten months ago.

Despite this astonishing amount of money, however, the game is still in an alpha stage of development, with no release date in sight. For context, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt cost $81 million and took around five years to develop. Red Dead Redemption cost between $80 and $100 million and also took five years.

Star Citizen creator Christopher Roberts said in 2020 that the various gameplay elements promised over the years aren’t pipe dreams, and that they wouldn’t take decades longer to be implemented. A year later, however, an advertising watchdog warned the studio over its marketing of concept ships, saying it needs to make clear that it’s selling products that don’t exist yet.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

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