After 14 years in development, Star Citizen still isn't released. Well, it was released into Early Access in 2017 but it's far from being a finished product. Its single player component, Squadron 42, is still nowhere to be found. Though Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) is currently stating that Squadron 42 will release this year, I'm not going to hold my breath.
That all said, Star Citizen has now surpassed $1 billion in funding. The game saw a spike of new funding on May 24th, when it hit over $9.6 million raised over the course of 24 hours and bringing the past week's total funding up to $21 million. This spike in funding was no doubt helped by this weekend's DefenseCon event that is basically an in-game ship expo. Players can view, rent, and even test fly various ships for free.
This spike in funding also comes right around the same time that the studio put up a new $5,000 virtual ship for players to buy. The $5,000 ship is called Anvil Odin and it actually isn't available to use yet in the Early Access release. That didn't stop plenty of people from throwing down the five grand for it. The ship will become playable at some point in the future. In the meantime, CIG grants you access to a loaner ship that will have to hold you over until the Anvil Odin is ready.
The Anvil Odin is one of Star Citizen's larger ships. It offers support for crew sizes of over 65 players, is 752m in length, 222m wide, and 213m in height. In order to even purchase one of these ships (again, that you cannot actually fly right now), you had to become a member of the game's "Odin Founders Club." In order to join that club, you had to write an essay explaining why you wanted an Anvil Odin. If your essay was deemed acceptable enough, only then were you allowed to give CIG your $5,000.
This entire thing probably sounds insane to you and that's because it is. Regardless, plenty of people went ahead with their essays and purchased what is currently just a $5,000 JPG.
Star Citizen's $1 billion in funding comes not just from foolhardy Anvil Odin buyers but also from previous crowdfunding efforts, large investments from private investors, and from those players who like to put down a lot of real-world money for other, non-Anvil Odin ships that they may or may not be able to pilot immediately.
Star Citizen is still in early access.
