The long-delayed crowd-funded video game,Star Citizen, now has the biggest budget of any video game in history. Currently, the price tag for the game exceeds that ofRed Dead Redemption 2,Grand Theft Auto 5, andCyberpunk 2077combined. It is the latest in a long line of crowd-funded recordsStar Citizenhas set.
Star Citizenlaunched its original Kickstarter campaignwith a relatively modest goal of $2M. The game was pitched as a spiritual successor to theWing Commandergames, with the project being led by series lead Chris Roberts. For reasons that remain a source of debate and controversy, the development ofStar Citizenand its single-player campaign,Squadron 42, has gone on for over a decade. Production on the game, however, has not stopped as the developer has continued to get funding from various sources.
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In September 2022, the crowdfunding budget ofStar Citizenfinally crossed over $500M. As of this writing, that amount has increased to nearly $600M with no release date in sight. For some perspective, the budget forGrand Theft Auto 5was around $137M,Red Dead Redemption 2was $170M, andCyberpunk 2077was around $174M. What this means is that the cost ofStar Citizennow exceeds the combined budgets of three of some of the most expensive video games of the past decade.
Even before it hit the 500M mark,Star Citizenwas already the most expensive video gameever made. The only game that comes close to its budget was the MMO RPGStar Wars: The Old Republicfrom BioWare which was estimated to cost roughly $200M to make. Even with that massive price take, it’s barely more than a third of what it’s cost to make Chris Roberts’Wing Commandersuccessor. However, the game has, at the very least, given gamers the ability to play in some form for several years.
The first version of the game went live all the way back in 2013. Since then, the developer has gradually updated the game and added new content while charging players the ability to buy new ships. Thelatest update forStar Citizenwas released in Marchand not without its own share of controversies. The price tag for the game will very likely continue to increase as time goes on and more updates for the game are released. Whether a full version of the game will ever hit digital storefronts remains to be seen.
