Star Citizen Crosses $1 Billion in Crowdfunding - Inside Games Daily

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Star Citizen has officially crossed $1 billion in crowdfunding according to their crowdfunding tracking website thanks to sales of a new $5,000 ship that is not in the game yet. And obviously no, there is no release date for Stars. Welcome to Inside Games Daily, the only game news show brave enough to still occasionally play the game while thinking this is kind of super scummy.

[00:00:22]>> Yeah, I mean there's nothing like it.

[00:00:23]There truly isn't. Uh there's a there's a dynamite clip that I think sums up everything about Star Citizen and we'll show a little bit later, but yeah, you don't have to buy it, right? That's what everyone says. The community is kind of torn between this between, you know, don't reward them for this garbage and also let people enjoy things. So, it's a tugof-war, but the $5,000 ship is shockingly winning.

[00:00:44]What a surprise. Uh, Star Citizen crossed the milestone in crowdfunding yesterday, fueled by the in-game Defense Con event and sales of the $5,000 Anvil Odin Battle Cruiser. Yeah, this is this is an impressive ship. Uh, at least it will be when it exists in the game. This monstrosity can accommodate a crew of between 33 to 65 players and up, more than 65. It's over 250 m long and offers six integrated side hangers to rapidly repair, refuel, and rearm ships during active combat. It's got loads of missile banks, a giant laser cannon on the front. It's got a briefing room. Uh everything you could imagine. Yeah, good stuff.

[00:01:25]>> Also, Lawrence, it doesn't exist.

[00:01:27]>> That's Yeah, not real. Not even Not even fake real. Not even video game real.

[00:01:31]There's only images and that's all.

[00:01:33]>> That's right. Uh they have I'll be honest with you, though. I was like, who would buy a $5,000 JPEG? And it turns out a lot of people from the player base of Star Citizen will buy a $5,000 JPEG.

[00:01:46]Uh, also, this is my favorite part of this whole thing. Uh, because not just anybody can actually have the privilege of paying $5,000 for a PNG, right, Lawrence? Tell tell them why.

[00:01:55]>> That's right. Yeah. Yeah. There was there was an audition process. hopeful starship captains had to apply to join the Odin Founders Club, which involved writing an essay about why you want an Anvil Odin. That's [ __ ] It's like [ __ ] college, dude. Like, that's crazy. You're making us do homework and [ __ ] and also taking $5,000. Oh my god, this stuff makes me like I like the game. I really do. But holy hell. Um, those that were lucky enough to be chosen to join the club are able to buy what Robert Space Industries calls a quote limited vehicle concept pledge that will be available to play in a later patch.

[00:02:32]>> Later patch, that's always that's a fun phrase in Star Citizen. Yeah. No even theoretical release window is offered about when this ship will be available in the game. In the meantime though, Odin purchaser will get a loner vehicle until this ship is available. Currently, the laner vehicle is the Aegis Idrris P, which seats a poultry 28. Uh, if you got your you got your Odin crew, all 65 of you ready to go. Some people are just going to have to wait on the docks.

[00:02:57]>> Ah, that sucks.

[00:02:59]Uh, and one final kicker, the ship will theoretically be available in Star Citizen once it fully launches, but we I don't think the game's going to fully launch, maybe ever. We're not sure.

[00:03:11]>> Maybe. I mean, it's supposed to happen a few years after Squadron 42, and that's any day now, I suppose. Yeah. So, the you will be able to buy it in game, I guess, with in-game credits properly.

[00:03:21]So, being able to buy the ship is not an exclusive thing that warrants necessarily spending $5,000. The other angle to this is that the paints only come with the version of the ship that you buy with fresh cash.

[00:03:32]>> So, you're saying it's $5,000 for the paint. Is that what you're saying?

[00:03:36]>> Oh, the ship and the paint. But the pain is the only thing that's truly exclusive to the $5,000 version of the ship. Yeah.

[00:03:42]>> All right. I just want to make sure that is crazy. This is This is It blows my The more that I talk about this, the more it blows my mind. Just to be perfectly clear, the Odin can also be purchased with store credit, which you can obtain by trading in previously purchased ships, but that costs more and doesn't include the exclusive paints that we just talked about for $5,000.

[00:04:03]Also, by the way, if you're purchasing the Odin uh with in-game credits, it's probably going to be a shitload of money. I would imagine it's be like 50 million credits or something like that.

[00:04:14]>> Yeah. Yeah. An absurd amount. Uh it's it's really more the concept that you'll be able to do it versus the reality. I mean, again, it's not in the game. We don't know how much it's going to cost or and those prices could move around.

[00:04:26]Who knows? Yeah. As you might imagine, asking $5,000 for an unfinished or as far as we know, unstarted ship in an unfinished game has even the game supporters feeling a certain type of way about this.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah, it does. Reddit user Toastless Memes posted a thread titled, quote, "I just bought a $5,000 Odin JPEG, Ask Me Anything," on the Star Citizen subreddit, only to respond in good humor to a long line of roasts about their irresponsible spending.

[00:04:54]>> Yep. Yep. They offered this explanation for their spending in one of the more sincere replies. Quote, "I measure my happiness with a game based off of how many hours I've played it. Despite the game being buggy and broken at times, I play this game more than anything else in my limited free time. So, for me, as long as things keep improving and they keep adding content, then I will be happy with my purchase." There you go.

[00:05:14]That's really all that matters, I guess, if you spent the money. Uh, meanwhile, other users are frustrated that they received an invite to buy one, only to find that the ship, which obviously doesn't exist, is sold out >> somehow. Yeah.

[00:05:27]>> What?

[00:05:27]>> Yeah. Red Reddit user Elk Kunas innocently replied, "How do pixels sell out?"

[00:05:37]>> Huh? Uh, other other community members are slowly realizing that there may be no JPEG too expensive for Star Citizen enthusiasts. Megalodon Hunter solemnly writes, quote, I sort of just wish one time we would boycott something to really prove the point, but it felt like the Odin should have been that moment.

[00:05:54]>> Yeah, when you look around and you realize despite what everyone says, what they do uh says something vastly different and at some point you just throw up your hands and realize that's the way it is. And yeah, being a being a Star Citizen enthusiast and assuming that there may be some amount of standards that the uh that the audience would hold the developers to. Only realizing that doesn't exist. I've been realizing that in some other things in life on a larger scale, but we'll leave that for another topic.

[00:06:20]>> All this is in a game where your character can slip and bonk themselves dead on flat ground. And and I've done it.

[00:06:27]>> Yeah. Have you seen this clip, Bruce? To me, this is like this is pretty prime Star Citizen. Just a dude aura walking down a hallway and then bonk dead just right on the ground. I love it.

[00:06:44]>> Oh yes, I Yeah, I have seen I did watch this live >> with the defense con banners and everything.

[00:06:52]>> You are incapacitated.

[00:06:55]>> Oh man, >> can't get enough of it. How about a release date for this game that was originally intended to launch over a decade ago? I think they originally said 2014. Oh, Chris. Oh, we've come so far.

[00:07:06]>> Uh, no. There's no release date. No.

[00:07:08]Come on, stop it. Uh, now I was just doing some research into Squadron 42, cuz this is my favorite thing that Star Citizen apologists say over and over.

[00:07:16]Whenever you say this game's never coming out, they always go, "But Squadron 42." So, Squadron 42 has been pushed many, many times. I We're talking 2015 was the original release date for Squadron 42. Chris Roberts just recently said 2026 was the release date. However, he did just release a quote just a few months ago or I think maybe a few weeks ago. That was something to the effect of uh well, we were going to release Squadron 42 at the end of this year, but GTA 6. So, he's blaming the Squadron 42 release date push to 2027 on GTA 6.

[00:07:56]Yeah, I was going to say we're we're a little bit theoretically closer to Squadron 42's launch. And if you're unfamiliar, by the way, this is the singleplayer narrative campaign that's set in the world of Star Citizen. It's kind of a separate product that's alongside Star Citizen. It's going to feature the performance talents of Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, and Jillian Anderson among others. But yeah, like Bruce was saying, it also doesn't have a release date. Doesn't even really have a projected release date. They said in what is it in I think in 2024 that it was very definitely going to launch in 2026. I think that was the same year they said it was feature complete. No, wait 23 I think is when it was feature complete. So it's been feature complete for 3 years. Uh it was supposed to come out in 26, but apparently GTA is just elbowing it right out of the way into 27A. What can you do?

[00:08:41]>> Uh this is I mean we like to talk about Squadron 42 here. There's there's a lot to talk about because they've been talking about this as much as the game.

[00:08:48]In a variety interview commemorating the game's $1 billion in funding, Cloud Imperium Games founder and CEO Chris Roberts said of Squadron 42 that quote, "We're right at the end now. We're in the closing stages and it's coming together really well." Uh Roberts later says the team is imminently closer to launch while still not offering any speculative timetable. So what is it? Is it what is it? Wait, is it this? just put it out if it's done.

[00:09:15]Who cares about GTA 6? People will play Squadron 42. It's been around for 10 years been talking about this.

[00:09:20]>> Yeah, I agree. I agree. And also, if Star Citizen has proven anything, it's that their consumers are immune from anything else. Uh I guarantee you people that are interested in Star Citizen based on the fact that they're buying a $5,000 JPEG will happily buy Squadron 42 and GTA 6 in the same month if they have to. But hey, let Robert say whatever he's got to say. Speaking of, Robert's had a lot of words about Squadron 42.

[00:09:44]Uh, I'm excited. Bruce, I think you ought to read this because I know how much you you love. He he makes a creative illusion here that I think will really set your world on fire.

[00:09:52]>> I I I really do enjoy listening to Chris Roberts talk about how much money he's made, but but accidentally. He's always talking He's always talking about like the game and how much he loves it and all this other [ __ ] But the undercurrent is, I can't believe how much money I keep making. I love it.

[00:10:07]It's my favorite. All right, so here's this quote about Squadron 42. I've been very lucky as a creative because I've had the ability to take the time and have the funding to really do it. James Cameron had that when he was doing his avatars. This is sort of like my version of it in games where I've had the time.

[00:10:22]I've been able to spend the time to get the tech. And so the vision that's being delivered is really my imagination. My vision from the beginning and that's not something you always get the chance to do. So I'm pretty grateful for that. And I'm also very excited for people on the outside to experience it in the year 2032 or whenever it comes out.

[00:10:41]>> We got to make it to 2032, Bruce, because man, the video game version of Avatar, can you imagine? There's there's so much there's so much built-in comedy to Yeah. James Cameron blowing billions on Avatar and then it's two blue people like rubbing their their uh ponytails together and then everyone in the audience is like, "Oh, it's amazing." Uh well, that's just me actually. But so yeah, for him to say this about a space opera where he gets his favorite actors to like there's no way it's going to be like profound, right? It's oh no, the the fleet is around the rings of Orion.

[00:11:11]We have to initiate the slip drive except it's going to look it's just going to cost a billion dollars to say the same thing. I don't know may I want to be proven wrong. I can't wait to see it because I love it when any amount of m like that volume of money is set on fire to make something. That's right.

[00:11:25]And also all this vision [ __ ] that he's talking about. Lawrence and I have played a lot of Star Citizen. So the vision is right now you have a 50-50 shot of properly getting out of the bed after waiting for 10 minutes to for the game to load. It's I mean like that is the vision that you're playing currently. Just so you know.

[00:11:43]>> Yeah. One of my favorite Star Citizen moments was rolling out of bed to fall through the floor and then directly into space and dying and then it just respawns you back in the bed. So you're like, "Well, let's roll the dice again.

[00:11:53]Hopefully I land on the floor this time.

[00:11:55]And if you want to experience this magic, good news. Star Citizen is currently free to play until May 27th to celebrate Defense Con. You can dive in yourself and see what $1 billion can buy you in terms of video game. Oh man.

[00:12:08]Also, uh Brian wrote this in the Discord cuz this is true. So, for context here, the most expensive movies that we think, we're not exactly sure, but most expensive movies ever made, Jurassic World Dominion cost $465 million. Uh Star Wars Force Awakens cost $447 million. And then obviously GTA 6 is actually estimated to have cost between a billion and $1.5 billion.

[00:12:32]But that game conceivably is coming out.

[00:12:36]I think I think we're going to get it in a few months here. I don't know about Star Citizen.

[00:12:40]>> It's also Grand Theft Auto. You know, we'll see. Uh it is an existing franchise that is one of one of if not the biggest in all of gaming. I guess you could compare it to Minecraft or something like that or Roblox as as an entity. Yeah, that game's actually going to exist and and will it entertain the masses and I don't know, probably cost a normal amount of money. Uh we'll we'll see how they monetize it in the future.

[00:13:04]Lord knows GTA Online has its share of Robert Space Industry level monetization. Uh but for for the most part, the things they sell you actually exist in the game when you can buy them.

[00:13:14]>> So also, so you're aware, we love Lawrence and I have been playing Star Citizen now for years. We really do love I really love Star C. I think it's really really fun. I think part of the the fun of the game is is the jank. It's always broken. You never [ __ ] know what it's going to happen ever. I mean, just a few weeks ago, they had released a patch that was a disaster and it was right before a free-to-play weekend. So, they were like, "Ah, never mind. No freetoplay weekend. The patch [ __ ] it." And I was like, still h they're still doing this. They're still [ __ ] it with these patches right before freetoplay weekends and it's 2026. This game has been going since 2013, I think.

[00:13:53]2012, something like that. I I It's It really is shocking. Like, I think I always imagine that one day they're going to release a patch for this game and everyone's going to go, "Oh, that was cool." Like, no, there won't be anything wrong with it. It'll just be people having fun. But that is not the case. So that's that's why when we're laughing and joking about Star Citizen, the juxtaposition of the fact that it's made a billion dollars in crowdfunding to what the game actually is is is mindblowing. I I can't ever figure it out. And I still Lawrence, I don't know if you know this, but I I I read the comments every day. You know this. I read the comments every day on Inside Games. We still get one comment a day on our last Star Citizen video. Uh we called it Star Citizen is a scam. We still get a comment a day that I look into and there's always some [ __ ] dude apologous.

[00:14:48]Yes. Uh Star Citizen is in that funny little category where I respect it but also mock it about as mercilessly as I can. Unlike some other games, uh you can see some glimmer of where all that money went sort of. In Star Citizen, there is a simulation powering that game that is very strong and and very authentic. Uh, and if it ever if it ever achieves like 95% stability, it'll be something pretty magical. And I think for a lot of people, it already is very magical. They they're bought into the vision cuz they can see it. And I can see it playing it.

[00:15:21]So, I respect that. I respect that as a game and as an engineering platform, it truly is trying to do something no other game has at a scale no other game has tried. Uh, a lot of the games, a lot of the developers that used to do that, and I'm kind of thinking about Bethesda here, they kind of dropped that ambition a little bit, and they still break their own games with their patches all the time. So, Star Citizen in exchange for breaking their game all the time and asking for loads of money in exchange for nothing, at least there is ambition behind it all. There is an ambition to achieve something. And when you play the game, you can kind of see that ambition start start to shine through. So, that is very exciting. And I welcome the day.

[00:15:58]And also as a huge Wing Commander fan back in the day, I'm really excited for Squadron 42. I love me some overroought, overproduced single player narrative games. Mostly because you get this, well, in the past you used to get this justosition between garbage writing and like terrible performances, but lots of money. Uh, I don't think we'll get terrible performances. Not sure about the writing, but hopefully it it is just this overproduced big Hollywood ridiculous uh production cuz Lord knows Chris Roberts had his run through Hollywood. Remember the Wing Commander movie? That was fun. So, he's uh he's at least a he at least made a film, so he knows something about directing. Uh I don't know. I'm looking forward to seeing it happen because I think it will happen.

[00:16:38]It'll just take forever. And to Chris Robert's point, not to give the man too much credit, but he is right in that there is no other game like Star Citizen that was funded in this way and given the clemency by its audience to take a decade to potentially release even though we're not there yet. So yeah, it is kind of a unicorn in that way and not many pretty much no games can get away with that. So they are trying to do something new. They were they have the environment to do something new and let's hope that they actually cross the finish line someday.

[00:17:09]>> They're getting there, I guess. I don't I really don't even know. Every time I load in, it's always some new bug that I was like, what? Why did this happen? Um and I was just talking to somebody about GTA online cuz I just recently had played GTA online. Hadn't played in a few years. and uh got to play with Lawrence and uh Max at Beth and I was talking to them and I was like, you know, once we got into it and we actually were playing the game and having fun. It is magical. It was a magical experience GTA online. I think everybody knows that. It's pretty pretty obvious. But the only other game I could think of that compared to that was Star Citizen. Star Citizen, if you actually are playing the game is you nobody has any problems and you get to go do a fun thing in the universe. There there is nothing else like it. There really isn't. So, I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum here. I don't want you to think that I'm like over here [ __ ] on whatever you did. Like if you've spent $5,000 on a JPEG, whatever. I don't care. Um but uh I want you to know that it's very important. I think it's really cool and it is like Lawrence said, there is no other game like it.

[00:18:03]There is magic to it. You can get all your friends together and actually do something, but it's hard to get there.

[00:18:09]And GTA Online also has a little bit of a barrier to entry less than Star Citizen. You have to get through all these crazy menus and all this other [ __ ] to finally go have fun. Star Citizen's even more so a barrier to entry, but once you get there, it's extremely magical.

[00:18:25]>> Yeah. Just figuring out how to pick something up or even like operate a light switch, those can be orals uh in Star Citizen and it's it's one of those magic moments where you're like, is the game broken or am I doing it wrong? Uh or is it just really laggy? So, like 10 seconds after you do something, suddenly everything flies around in your room.

[00:18:43]Yeah, it's a magical time. Yeah, there's really nothing like it.

[00:18:47]Hey, speaking of magic, thank you very much for watching Inside Games Daily.

[00:18:51]Uh, your choosing to watch this show enables the magic entirely. So, thank you very much for that. Hey, maybe if we had a billion dollars to go around, we could make a show that crashes all the time and promise a bunch of stuff we never do. But alas, we are just humble gaming news vendors. We do have a Patreon though, cuz of course we do. We don't sell JPEGs because we give them away. I don't know why that. That's right. Our Patreon is basically a meme dumping ground for me. So check it out if you want a sensible chuckle during your lunch break. I post a free meme with every episode we do for free on the Patreon. So please check it out. On that note, we do have some patrons that support us despite getting the memes for free. So thank you very much. Reden 3, Caleb Clark, Namehogger, Matt Bogenberger, and BB Prime.

[00:19:33]It's got me thinking though, Bruce, maybe we should whip up an expensive looking JPEG to wet people's appetites.

[00:19:38]Maybe we should get Brian to like sign a digital headshot or something. $5,000 for a Brian pledge. think that could fly.

[00:19:45]>> Hold on a second. I think I'm I'm drawing myself a cool a cool ship. This is a once in a lifetime. And imagine this is like an NFT, right? Like there is only one of these. Um and uh I'm going to give it to you, Lawrence. And I'm going to send it to my editor and that's that's it. Okay. That's very important.

[00:20:02]>> Limited edition. Two of one of two.

[00:20:04]>> This is a limited edition. Let me see if I did I I didn't lose it, did I? Please tell me I didn't lose it.

[00:20:12]I I just made it.

[00:20:14]>> All my ship's gone. Somebody help.

[00:20:16]>> Hold on a minute. I just made it. Uh, there it is. Okay, good. Thank god. Oh, that was >> And it's the real Star Citizen experience.

[00:20:22]>> There it is.

[00:20:24]>> Ooh, nice.

[00:20:27]>> Paint job cost an extra thousand bucks.

[00:20:28]But um but uh that's only for you and our editor. And then if you're watching the episode, don't you dare screenshot it.

[00:20:37]You [ __ ] Don't you dare.