Star Citizen has now raised over $350 million

Wow that's insane. Still no release date though

'Over eight years after its initial crowdfunding effort began, Star Citizen is still without a release date, although parts of the game have been released in early access form. Squadron 42, the single-player portion of the game, is still in development but does not have a release date.

Star Citizen and chief developer Chris Roberts have come under fire for years now for failing to release the game, or provide a target release date. Developer Cloud Imperium Games makes money by selling starter packs, subscriptions and virtual space ships - some of which cannot currently be piloted in-game. CIG insists money pledged goes directly to the game's development.

CIG provides real-time updates on the money flooding into its coffers, and we can see November last year was a bumper month for Star Citizen, bringing in nearly $17m alone as CIG held the game's annual two-week free access period. The months since have been leaner: nearly $6m came in in December, just over $3m in January and around $5m in February. Nearly half a million dollars came in on 12th March alone.

Star Citizen's initial crowdfunding campaign set the bar high, securing over $6m back in 2012. Despite the space sim having missed its original anticipated release date of November 2014 by quite some margin (not to mention a succession of other milestone targets for its various announced modes), that figure has continued to climb dramatically in the years since.'

How many mansions does Chris Roberts own now? This is the most pathetic game related project in history.

I remember the first time this was announced my students were clamoring to support it. They graduated and some work in the game industry and still no release date. During its debut, they were bragging about how their game was impossible on console (360|PS3 era) now we are two generations later and no release date to be found. This would be the biggest scam in gaming.

Imagine No Man Sky crashed on released and was able to rebuild itself to what it is now, meanwhile this game is asking for more money while having 100's of millions of funding.

I remember back in 2012 Hermits were bragging about this game. Hilarious that 8 years later it's still nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile Elite: Dangerous has been out for 6 years and is still being supported.

I can tell you as a Star Citizen backer and player since 2015, most boards outside of dedicated SC boards will just hate on the game and hearing news like this is just gonna make it worst for Cloud Imperium. By the way, I need to return to SC at some point if I wasn't so busy with playing other games.

So you are saying that you need to be perpetually brainwashed by limiting yourself to dedicated Star Citizen boards in order to not see the scam? 😋

@Pedro: Can't be a scam if I'm still getting updates on the game's progress from my e-mails😉

Do the emails look like

"We have added something. See if you can find it. Please look forward to the next update." 😂

If you and the other backers are satisfied with the game's progress, that is great. Meanwhile, folks like me would poke fun of the game until it is released. 😁

Yeah that be it😎

They need a closer

Look I'm still hopeful for the game, but I am losing my patience; it needs to be finished. No doubt COVID has given them all the excuses they need to drag it out even longer.

I still don't think it is a scam, but....c'mon. It needs to be released. What they already have is freaking incredible to behold, all it needs is to be finished.

This is why creatives should not have sole control over game development. You need people that can actually meet deadlines and deliver products to the public.

Same.

Even in alpha it's a great game to play.

But it needs to be finished.

ROFL yeah that's the gist of it.

In their defense, every major alpha update (and some minor) gives the game some new stuff. New ships, more stability...there is progress being made on the game. Just not enough

I wouldn't say I am satisfied with the progress, but it's not like there's a shortage of games to play while I wait.

I wonder if maybe funding SC is just like a sunk cost fallacy issue, and all the backers just keep buying ships because they're completely in denial about how bungled this project's release is going.

The Five Stages of Coping with Star Citizen:

Not sure what's worse, the scam going on or the ones who are ok with the scam and happily keep paying more.

Its actually almost 10 years as of now.

people still think this will release when it will never.

Lol I remember when they hit 1-2 million and I thought: "Eh they've got plenty of money, they don't need mine. I'll just wait for the release"

So here we are.......

They have an event called citizen con, i mean they're telling you in the title, and people still haven't got a clue 🤣🤣🤣

There are many who still continue to be brainwashed by the idea of this game. Mark my words: Star Citizen will NEVER come out. (squadron 42 will in like 5 years and be mediocre at best)

Does anybody really care about this game?

@i_p_daily: lol, i tip my hat to that one

Will this game even make enough money if they release it? I mean no one even knows or mention this game outside this forum

I was on-board with this shit initially, but how is this still ongoing? Is there even a projected release?

I'm so glad that I don't give a shit about this game.

Even if it gets released, at this point it had better be the best, game-changing thing ever to justify the investment.

I look forward to all the suckers descending on this thread trying desperately to convince themselves that they're not suckers for funding Chris Roberts' lavish lifestyle.

@gym_lion: 350 million USD. That is just absurd. If you guys can donate just 35 million USD to me, I'll have a new game ready for you very soon...

I think Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco scared Cloud Imperium off from releasing it now lol.

They've already made their money from all the suckers backers happy to pay for a promise. Even if Scam Star Citizen is actually released and doesn't sell a single copy, everybody at the top of Cloud Imperium's food chain will still walk away multi-millionaires. You don't really believe they're going to spend the whole $350 million on development, do you?

Does this game do anything exceptional over Elite: Dangerous?

Genuine question.

I remember when Shenmue 3 was announced as a Kickstarter and tons of people were pointing to SC as a reason to never back anything game related. I've since backed Shenmue 3, got my copy, and beat it.

Why do people still donate to SC? That's the question.

Idiots are making these people millionaires. I'm sure these guys are having the time of their lives right now

Biggest scam ever in the history of gaming ... and that's a lot when we have companies like EA and Activision.

Yes. Combat is more fun. Ships are more diverse and interesting. Scale is, surprisingly, better; while ships in E:D are massive (even smaller ones), in SC they're large and small and you can walk around the larger ones.

The planet tech is incredible as well. Designed through a combination of algorithm and hand-crafted areas, they're simply stunning.

With that said, SC might have to step it up; the upcoming expansion for E:D will allow us to walk on planets and engage in on-foot combat, which more or less puts it in step with what you can do in SC.

I like both games, and obviously E:D get's credit for actually being a finished game with excellent DLC, but Star Citizen is still more impressive to me from a technical standpoint than literally any games I have played. Ever. I think when finished it is going to become a new standard for game design, which is surprising given that the space sim genre is very, very, very niche (doubly so for the hardcore space sims).

For me? Hope. Please note that I don't "still donate" to SC, but I have.

It's an independently developed game to put the AAA publishers to shame. It's in a genre that is niche, but one I love, and arguably the genre that got me into gaming in the first place.

I only funded 50 dollars, and I've gotten more than my money's worth already, so I don't feel too bad about waiting.

Yeah, waiting sucks, but I am still hopeful despite that. The world is full of so much shit to be cynical about; but not games, we can afford to hope and be optimistic about it. If it sucks, well that's too bad, but there's always good games to play.

@mrbojangles25: Good on you for still having hope about something. I no longer have any.

@mrbojangles25: Strong praise. It would be funny if this game actually delivered.

WIsh they had more incentives to deliver a game.

At this point they do not even have much of incentive to deliver a game. They do not seem to be beholden to anyone or to any deadline's. Furthermore, why deliver the game when you can continue to make $6m or so a month from it (which give or take is equivalent to selling 120k copies a month).

I would not call it a scam per say (but I would also hesitate to say definitively that it is not a scam, its quite questionable) but this game has been in development for so long yet has so little to show for it. Their choice of engine was poor and not made for what they intended (as much as I like the cryengine, or I guess lumberyard is what they use now which is a version of that, that engine was not meant for massive games like this). Granted its still in "development", but given how it was initially meant for much weaker hardware, the game still performs so poorly. Very unstable, massive FPS drops even on a good rig (was not great on my 9700k with 2070 Super, and its not great now that I have an RTX 3070) (note I never backed the game, I tried it again using friends account on my own PC).

As for the world, everyone keep saying it will have a massive world so much bigger than ED's, but that is not true at this point in time. ED has a large working world, tons of planets (albeit empty), they have foot combat coming now (and with ED you know it will release so this is a safe bet). SC on the other hand currently has a small world with a few stars. Should they say they will have a large world, but at this point in time it is empty promises given their track record. I used to be super excited about this game (especially Squadron 42), but now its just ridiculous. Chris Roberts is milkng you all dry. Imagine if this 350m would have been invested somewhere (would be worth much more), or given to better causes than to inflate some delusional (at this point) guys wallet who cant manage a project.

@gym_lion: Look, I hope this game does come out and is AAA.

However, as it stands, it's like a Ponzi scheme or vaporware. I wouldn't give them one dollar until it releases.