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Others have left the likely real answers here, but... $750m is the right order of magnitude for this game. That's "only" ~400 employees for ~10 years. Games ar

Others have left the likely real answers here, but... $750m is the right order of magnitude for this game. That's "only" ~400 employees for ~10 years. Games are hugely labour intensive, and in mainstream cases also hugely advertising intensive. The company currently have ~60 open roles. Your average Call of Duty game is $100-200m, and they come out with one every year or two, spending at a similar rate. The budget for GTA V was $265m, but has now made $8bn. I don't think we can even say that it's "bad" or "unfinished" and therefore shouldn't cost this much... the game is finished in the truest of senses – it's available to buy and brings in revenue. Whether they are continuing development, whether it currently sucks, etc, are all somewhat irrelevant. I think we can judge it for being a bad game, I think we can judge it for not being cash-flow positive like we would with any other startup, but the amount of money involved is seemingly in the right ballpark for the market.

rowanG077 2y ago
I don't think comparing GTA, the most financially successful game of all time, to star citizen does star citizen any favors. Star citizen is a very niche game, even if they will do everything they plan I don't expect they will even approach 500m in sales.
- wongogue 2y ago
  These players are not investors expecting a return. In a way the game has already got them $750m.
- yreg 2y ago
  They have already passed 100s of millions in sales. We can consider some of the earlier money inflows 'donations', but what's happening nowadays is de facto sales.
  - arlcode 2y ago
    Buyers in Europe pay full VAT for Star citizen "donations" since that law was introduced many years ago. So at least the EU and UK believe these transactions to be sales.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
It's been more than ten years though? The kickstarter was in 2012, and they'd already been working on it for a year or two by then I think?

rowanG077 2y ago

I don't think comparing GTA, the most financially successful game of all time, to star citizen does star citizen any favors. Star citizen is a very niche game, even if they will do everything they plan I don't expect they will even approach 500m in sales.

wongogue 2y ago
These players are not investors expecting a return. In a way the game has already got them $750m.
yreg 2y ago
They have already passed 100s of millions in sales. We can consider some of the earlier money inflows 'donations', but what's happening nowadays is de facto sales.
- arlcode 2y ago
  Buyers in Europe pay full VAT for Star citizen "donations" since that law was introduced many years ago. So at least the EU and UK believe these transactions to be sales.

TulliusCicero 2y ago

It's been more than ten years though? The kickstarter was in 2012, and they'd already been working on it for a year or two by then I think?