Star Citizen has cost nearly $200 million so far

News
By published

But it's also raised over $200 million.

Star Citizen has raised over $200 million since Cloud Imperium Games started looking for funding in 2012, and a financial breakdown from late last year reveals how a lot of that money has been spent between 2012 and 2017. In that time, Cloud Imperium has spent over $193 million, and almost $50 million just in 2017. 

If you’ve thrown your own money at Star Citizen, or if you’re just interested in how all this money we keep writing stories about is getting spent, it’s pretty informative. One of the graphs shows costs split up into salaries, publishing and marketing, developer costs and more. 

Salaries are where CIG is spending most of its cash, though this wasn’t always the case. Salaries became the largest expense in 2014, with contracted developer costs being the highest the year before. In 2016 and 2017, contracted developer costs dropped considerably, from $14,103,000 in 2015 to 3,313 in 2017 as CIG brought in more full-time developers.

Over the past few years, CIG has been spending more than it's earning, but pledges, subscriptions and other revenue streams are still high. In 2017, income reached almost $44 million, though 2016 was slightly better. Across all years, crowdfunding pledges contributed the most, by quite a significant amount. 

Star Citizen is still far off, but the singleplayer Squadron 42 will be ready for beta testing in the second half of 2020. 

Fraser Brown
Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.