StarCitizen, a video game that exists as Forever Promise, was first introduced to the world in 2012 via a Kickstarter campaign that raised $2.1 million. In the ten years since, the announcement of spin-offs, modules, in-game economies and myriad other features and half-baked ideas has kept the game no closer to an actual release.
However, one thing it has achieved is making some money. Lot of money. As mentioned earlier today in this postthe game’s official “fundsraising” tracker on its website, has just surpassed $500 million and stands at $500,089,473 from 4,096,539 backers at the time of publication.
Half a billion dollars. For a video game that has been in development for over a decade. If that were five years ago, that would be the point where I would start questioning the future of the game, or wondering how close it is to being “done,” or cracking a few jokes. But it’s 2022, and the whole thing is just…sad now. They could have completed a whole damn trilogy of these games by now if there had been a little bit of proper management, someone on the team who would be able to separate the game’s unbridled ambition from what was technically possible then, or even now.
StarCitizen but it is, so instead I’ll just remind you of this trailer that was released in 2015 when Obama was still President and this website was owned by Gawker Media:
And now, to put the passage of time in more context, I’m going to list some other video games that were announced in 2012
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- SimCity
- XCOM: Enemy unknown
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- ZombieU
- Company of Heroes 2
- dead space 3
- FIFA 13
- Resident Evil 6
- crysis 3
- Gears of War: Judgment
- NBA 2K13
- Pikmin 3
- Rock band Blitz
