The MMORPG Star Citizen earned three times more money in 2024 than the total development cost of Black Myth: Wukong – and it’s still the best game of the year according to PC gamers on Steam.
How much money did Star Citizen earn in 2024? In total, the sci-fi MMORPG received $114 million in “pledges” from fans, mainly through the sale of digital ships. Ships are expensive in Star Citizen; top sellers can cost up to €1,000.
The $114 million is slightly less than what was earned in 2023, where it was still $116 million.
Nevertheless, it is an astonishingly high sum. It is the second highest annual revenue of Star Citizen ever. The significance of this amount is emphasized when comparing it to the costs of developing other successful games.
Star Citizen earns enough money in a year to finance Witcher 3
How does this money compare to the budgets of other games?
The most successful game of 2024, in terms of peak player numbers on Steam, is the Chinese action RPG Black Myth: Wukong. At its peak, over 2.2 million people played it simultaneously. In the Game of the Year awards on Steam, it also faced tough competition.
Black Myth: Wukong is said to have cost $43 million in development. With the revenue from Star Citizen in a year, it could have been financed almost three times.
The budget for The Witcher 3 was significantly lower, at $81 million back then, compared to what CIG earns in a year.
Defenders of Star Citizen often use the exorbitantly high budget of the Western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 as a comparison, which is said to have cost between $370 and $540 million. The game was developed for about 8 years, and 2,000 people are said to have worked on Red Dead Redemption 2, which is considered one of the best video games of all time.
Star Citizen sells no ships, only pledges that the ships will come
How much money has Star Citizen earned in total? Currently, the revenue from Star Citizen stands at $774,481,284. Especially in November during the CitizenCon and in December around Christmas, quite a bit more “donations” came in.
What fans of Star Citizen say: Defenders of the project argue that not just a game is being developed here, but two games are being created: alongside Star Citizen, the single-player spin-off Squadron 42 is also in development.
Additionally, a new, modified engine is being created, which is necessary for the technological revolution behind Star Citizen, and the company’s infrastructure is also being built up.
For this, they believe the budget is appropriate.
Critics accuse the project of earning vast sums from the sale of virtual spaceships that sometimes do not even exist in the game yet, while still failing to provide a release date for a finished game. Recently, there has been some unrest in the massive project : players believe that Star Citizen weakens old ships they bought for real money to sell new ships
