Another year has gone by and there's still no final version of Star Citizen, but there are plenty of positive signs, while the financing is going swimmingly!
According to Wikipedia, an " arlesienne is a type of fictional character who is described or mentioned, but does not appear in the flesh. The term comes from Alphonse Daudet's short story L'Arlésienne, or more precisely from the play of the same name based on it ". By extension, the term is used for any work, or indeed anything, that has been the subject of much discussion, but that we're still waiting to discover more about, and in the world of video games, it's used to describe games that have long been announced, but whose release we're still waiting for. One of the most famous of these is Star Citizen, a science-fiction game imagined by Chris Roberts and planned over 10 years ago. In fact, the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign was launched at the end of 2012.
However, the term "arlesienne" is not the most appropriate, since Star Citizen has playable versions, and is even regularly updated by developers who seem to spare no effort in bringing Chris Roberts' idea to fruition. In fact, the many players who have already backed the game regularly invest in new ships and accessories, further increasing the game's budget... and the war chest of Cloud Imperium Games, a company set up for the occasion. Taking advantage of the new year, the TechRaptor website took a closer look at Star Citizen and noted - based on data from the CCU Game application - that 2023 was the most lucrative year in the project's history. In total, Star Citizen players spent more than $117 million over the last twelve months.
Where things get pretty incredible is that 2023 will therefore have surpassed 2022, which held the previous record at $113 million. It's impressive to note that Star Citizen rakes in more money every year than the previous one, and only 2017 saw a small hiccup with a 3% drop in funding. In total, we're talking about a budget of over $657 million for the part provided by players alone, who have created over 5 million accounts. To make matters worse, last year's CitizenCon was the occasion for a number of very positive signals. Money is flowing in for Cloud Imperium Games, and the studio seems to be making progress on a number of fronts: two months ago, the publication of a beautiful trailer (above) for Squadron 42 - the game's single-player campaign - reassured many, and two weeks ago, it was the turn of update 3.22(Wrecks to Riches) to be unveiled (below).
