Mammoth upcoming space game, Star Citizen, has been in development for some time now, and the majority of its funding comes from a Kickstarter campaign. While this approach to making a game certainly isn’t anything new, it’s wild to see just how popular this title has become compared to others on the platform.
Amazingly, Star Citizen raised more money in 2017 than all other games on Kickstarter combined, for the second year in a row. The numbers aren’t even close, with the space title raking in $34.91 million ($44.58 million AUD) last year, which is slightly down from 2016’s $36.11 million ($46.11 million AUD).
Successful video game campaigns overall amassed $17.25 million ($22.02 million AUD) in 2017, while 2016 was slightly higher, at $17.6 million ($22.47 million AUD).
Of course, it must be noted that Star Citizen’s numbers are self-reported by the teams at Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games, and doesn’t include refunds, some of which are still being disputed and can be as large as $25,000 ($31,926 AUD) each. It’s unlikely to knock the totals down to that $17 million mark, but it would definitely put a dent in them.
The Star Citizen project includes a number of games, including a single-player campaign called Squadron 42 and a multiplayer mode they call “persistent universe”. There’s a closed alpha running, but no release date just yet.
It’s a massive feat achieved by an equally massive and ambitious game that’s gathering a lot of hype. It’s easy to get drawn into the scale and beauty of the title, but let’s not forget a certain game of a similar nature that didn’t fare so well…
*Cough* NO MAN’S SKY *cough*.
It does look fucking insane, though. Check out some of the latest footage below.
