Image: Cloud Empire
Star Citizen, a video game that exists as a Forever Promise, was first unveiled to the world in 2012 through a Kickstarter campaign that raised $2.1 million. In the next decade, with the announcements of spin-offs, modules, in-game economies, and countless other features and half-baked ideas, the game seems no closer to an actual release.
However, one thing it has achieved is making some money. Lots of money. As noted earlier in this post, the official money-raising tracker on its website tapped just above $500 million, and at the time of posting is at $500,089,473 raised from 4,096,539 backers.
Half a billion dollars. For a video game that has been in development for over ten years. If this was five years ago, this would be the point where I would question the future of the game, or wonder how close it is “off”, or make some jokes. But it’s 2022, and the whole thing right now is just… sad. They could have completed a whole damn trilogy of these games now if there had been an ounce of good management, someone on the team capable of separating the game’s unchecked ambition from what was technologically possible then, or even now.
However, Star Citizen is what it is, so instead I’m going to remind you of this trailer, which was released in 2015, when Obama was still president and this website was owned by Gawker Media:
Mark Hamill as the old man from Squadron 42 – Star Citizen official trailer
And now, to put the passage of time in further context, I’m going to list some other video games that were announced in 2012.
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$10 or more
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SimCityXCOM: Enemy UnknownThe Elder Scrolls OnlineZombiUCompany of Heroes 2Dead Space 3FIFA 13Resident Evil 6Crysis 3Gears of War: JudgmentNBA 2K13Pikmin 3Rock Band Blitz
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