They have to file accurate statements with the UK government re some R&D tax incentives they claim; you can have a look at those filings on companies house. They lag the website but broadly align.
+ the $750m only includes ship sales. If you include other revenue (subscriptions) and investors, they are likely at $900m+ now.
they sell virtual spaceships for thousands of dollars, i know a guy who bought several of them like 8 years ago. if he represents the average star citizen supporter (in the sense of being willing and eager to pay more money into a game you've already paid for, for rewards that don't actually exist, in a game that shows absolutely zero promise of ever actually releasing), i believe it.
I think this really illustrates how the scale of the gaming community is hard to reason about. $750 million sounds like a lot but when there are individuals willing to spend thousands of dollars apiece that only needs a core community measured in the hundreds of thousands, whereas AAA games sell tens of millions of copies in a given quarter. That’s still far from easy to do, but it suggests that we’ll see this happen periodically when someone hits the right combination for an underserved niche.
I guess never underestimate the whales of a game. Reminds me of how virtual real estate in Linden Labs metaverse game of Second Life has sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Just absurd.
I occasionally check on Star Citizen "development" just to look at the drama, and some of the stuff they're selling is straight-up obscene. There are ship packs that cost literally tens of thousands of USD (IIRC the most expensive one (legatus pack) is ~50k USD), and you have to have already bought thousands of dollars worth before you're allowed to buy it.
Chris Roberts might be a huge con artist, but there's no doubt he's mastered the art of milking gullible whales for all of their cash.
Also, I always laugh when I see people talking about buying copies of Star Citizen for their kids so they can play together when the kid grows up. Seems pretty unlikely that the game will be out by then, given they've spent 10+ years with no meaningful progress.
It walks the line of a scam imo. They have developed and released enough of a "game" to keep stringing people along and pulling the correct heart strings to keep getting new funds.
On the other hand we have the Asmodee Digital business model: release an (initially) broken game somewhat on schedule with tons of bugs (Terraforming Mars) and only start fixing a few of the bugs if you sell enough copies [0]. But don't fix enough of them to the level where the digital version is as playable as the physical version, not for 5 years at least... in all sincerity I don't know why it's not acceptable to call something a beta release, price it and set expectations accordingly - but with a defined timeline (or revenue goal) to when it should become fully playable.
I'm also reminded of the failed Mycroft AI voice assistant [1].
yeah i believe that it isn't an intentional scam, but from the POV of a customer, it would be totally indistinguishable from one and the end result is the same: taking money from gullible people for a promise that will never be fulfilled. i think it's just a poorly managed pipe dream product that won't ever get out of development hell.
if the people involved in the management were half decent at their jobs they would have stopped expanding the scope and shipped the originally promised game 5 years ago, and then carried on releasing expansions like elite does.
I think it is idiotic, but I don't think it is outright scam. Just comparable to over funded start-up waste. Burning money on every possible feature or thing or detail sensesly.
Crowdfunding passed $150 million in 2017, and $300 million in 2020, $500 million in 2022. $750 million is believable.
I'm really surprised that they are still raising money this fast. I would have thought people lost interest. Most of the discussions online are negative. There was fans buying ships, but I can't see that generating that much money.
Although, $75 million is still impressive.
Edit: I stand corrected. I simply looked at the website which listed the stretch goals to $65 million and missed the $750 million total. Cowabunga.