Star Citizen's CitizenCon Disappointing, but Earned a Lot of Money
During the Star Citizen convention CitizenCon, we've heard no release date announcements and no mention of the single-player Squadron 42, yet the developers made millions of dollars in a single day.
- Another CitizenCon passed without revealing the release date of Star Citizen;
- The devs also remain silent on the single-player project Squadron 42;
- Yet the game is still making money like crazy, with activity scores 2-3 times higher than in 2019.
Last weekend, studio Cloud Imperium Games held CitizenCon 2951, a virtual event for fans of Star Citizen. Traditionally, a lot of new things were shown, but much more important is what was missing. After so many years of development, the studio is still not ready to give any, even an approximate, release date for the game. Developers also wouldn't talk about the single-player Squadron 42.
As you may recall, Star Citizen was first announced nine years ago. The project's currently condition leaves no doubt that there is still a lot of work left to do. The developers are even unable to meet the deadlines set recently. The roadmap on the official website, schedules the launch of update 3.15 for the third quarter of this year, a date which has already passed - and without us getting the update.
During last year's CitizenCon, Cloud Imperium Games head Chris Roberts admitted that it would be a long time before Squadron 42 will even enter the beta phase. The mode hasn't even been mentioned this year, and it's already been delayed by seven years from its originally planned release date.
Many fans don't seem to mind, though. On the day of CitizenCon, studio Cloud Imperium Games earned $2 million. To date, players have donated as much as $391 million to the developers. In mid-March this year, the amount was 350 million, so in less than seven months the developers managed to raise an additional $41 million.
The success of the game is not the result of the actions of a group of desperate people who still do not lose hope for the release of the full version. During CitizenCon Chris Roberts said that both this and last year the early version of Star Citizen was played by an average of 2-3 times more people than in the same periods of 2019.
Finally, it's worth mentioning what was shown at the event. The highlight presentation was the Life In The 'Verse panel, which discussed the current shape of the virtual universe and showed off Pyro, the next planetary system to be added to the game. Also discussed were upcoming spaceships, an improved renderer for the graphics engine, and planned changes to server technology.
