People are looking at this all wrong. What you have here is a 13 year old business that makes about $100M per year. Nothing to sneeze at, but when compared to successful live-service games and MMOs, it’s peanuts. The cumulative revenue is irrelevant, and again, peanuts compared to successful games. Genshin Impact made $100M per month when it was released. World of Warcraft is a few decades old and still made $680M in 2024 (the most recent numbers I could find).

What makes Star Citizen unique is that it was crowd-funded—it started taking money before any features were available at all, and released to buyers (“backers”) in an unusually incomplete and buggy state. But all that revenue is turned around and plowed right back into development. (Their finances are publicly available.)

The game remains incomplete and buggy to this day, but with lots of stuff to do and clear forward progress, and, from what I hear, it offers a uniquely immersive experience. People like it enough that revenue keeps increasing, with nearly every year setting new records.

So that’s all this is: a moderately successful company with big ambitions, a lot of bugs, and a passionate fan base. Its annual revenue is nothing special. Don’t fall the sensationalism of the way its modest lifetime revenue numbers are shared.

(Just an interested observer with no horse in this race. I’ve never played the game or spent any money on it.)

I remember being in high school, so excited about star citizen coming out as soon as I get to college. College was 5 years ago, and I’m still waiting. The promise of this game is so unbelievably enticing but I’ve given up on it.

Has a company ever had a greater fiduciary incentive not to finish and release their game?

I can only think of one other game that has gone this far.

https://www.gadgets360.com/games/news/gta-6-estimated-budget...

> Rockstar and Take-Two have not yet confirmed the price of GTA 6, but some expect the game to be priced above the $70 standard for current-gen consoles. Last month, Zelnick addressed the concerns around the game's price and said that consumers would pay for the value offered.

2025: $800M (7 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43646825

2024: $750M (125 points, 170 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42291101

2022: $500M (57 points, 71 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916496

2021: $400M (3 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29289859

2020: $300M (1 point) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23512946

2019: $250M (4 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680999

... 2027: $1.1B?

By the time they do a final release we'll have people playing it on the Moon and Mars.

There have been very few games that gave me this flash-like sensation of breathtaking wonderment at the vastness of their world. Ultima Online, Planetside 2 and Star citizen come to mind.

I caved in to curiosity and got SC maybe 2 years ago.

I’d login in every 3, then every 6 months or so for 1-2 fly-throughs. Fly-through is when I get into a ship, take a mission or two, get to some planet. Maybe I crash maybe I complete a mission, maybe I succumb to the bugs. Anyhow I keep flying till I’m dead. Then I log out. The whole endeavor takes 2 hours at the longest, so I set some time aside for this. I don’t watch any tutorials or guides, just figure things out by myself, or, don’t, and leave them for the next flythrough.

I certainly got my money’s worth of entertainment from these few fly-throughs.

There are certainly deeper games out there, or even bigger in terms of playable area. Still, I think, if we put the games on a “immersive experience” chart where Y is visual effects and X is scale, then Star Citizen will be in the top right.

Is it now classified as a Unicorn?

So a game that’s at what? 40% of its projected goals/completion is now 33% more expensive than the most expensive game ever?

Quite an achievement…