Star Citizen has passed the $750 million milestone, or over three quarters of a billion dollars, for fundraising over its lifetime. The milestone was accomplished sometime on November 28, as spotted on the Funding Tracker page.
This achievement comes during the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo, which is the game’s biggest advertising event, letting non-pledged players play for free and try over 150 ships.
The ability to test ships is a driver of sales, as it allows players to make up their mind about what ships are suitable to their needs throughout Star Citizen’s development and into its full-force, full-release economy and gameplay—and it’s much appreciated for the fifteen or so ships that are priced over $500. An uptick of fundraising has happened despite this year's major bugs causing the event to accelerate too quickly.
The last stretch goal on the Funding page was “Enhanced Ship Modularity” at $65 million, which was achieved, of course, quite a while ago. There are quite a few ships now that are modular, but full hands-on modularity was meant to come with the Engineering update that was promised for the Alpha 4.0 update; now, that feature has been pushed back to a later unknown date.
Star Citizen and its derivative shooter game, Squadron 42, has drawn a lot of controversy for its combination of hundreds of millions of fundraising, increasingly lofty goals, and poor timelines for releases, updates, and bug fixes. It first began raising funds in 2012 and continues collecting through ship and item sales. Both games are starting to promise their full commercial release versions.
