What makes Star Citizen unique is that it was crowd-funded—it started taking money before any features were available at all, and released to buyers (“backers”) in an unusually incomplete and buggy state. But all that revenue is turned around and plowed right back into development. (Their finances are publicly available.)

The game remains incomplete and buggy to this day, but with lots of stuff to do and clear forward progress, and, from what I hear, it offers a uniquely immersive experience. People like it enough that revenue keeps increasing, with nearly every year setting new records.

So that’s all this is: a moderately successful company with big ambitions, a lot of bugs, and a passionate fan base. Its annual revenue is nothing special. Don’t fall the sensationalism of the way its modest lifetime revenue numbers are shared.

(Just an interested observer with no horse in this race. I’ve never played the game or spent any money on it.)

• Thrive — An overly-ambitious, Spore-inspired, free/open-source survival game. It's everything people wished Spore was with the depth of mechanics and scientific basis. They've been working on it for over decade (releasing weekly dev updates) and they've barely scratched the surface on the multicelluar stage (stage 2 of 9 planned stages)

• Dwarf Fortress — One of the most phenomenal passion projects ever created and it's pay-what-you-can. I hope some day they consider open sourcing it or passing it on to other hands so it can live on forever.

• Star Citizen — see tfa.

• No Man's Sky — The most dramatic turnaround of a reputation in gaming imo. Fans saw a trailer and way overhyped it leading to a dramatic disappointment at release. The devs have never stopped releasing content for it since launch, turning it into one of the most beloved games on the internet.

• Minecraft — The original indie breakout star (no longer indie). This year they switched to a 2-year version naming system. The PaaS-ification of gaming is complete.

• EVE Online — Just the economics of it really.

Special mentions: Overgrowth, RimWorld, Terraria, and Stardew Valley

2024: $750M (125 points, 170 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42291101

2022: $500M (57 points, 71 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916496

2021: $400M (3 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29289859

2020: $300M (1 point) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23512946

2019: $250M (4 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680999

... 2027: $1.1B?

https://www.gadgets360.com/games/news/gta-6-estimated-budget...

> Rockstar and Take-Two have not yet confirmed the price of GTA 6, but some expect the game to be priced above the $70 standard for current-gen consoles. Last month, Zelnick addressed the concerns around the game's price and said that consumers would pay for the value offered.

I caved in to curiosity and got SC maybe 2 years ago.

I’d login in every 3, then every 6 months or so for 1-2 fly-throughs. Fly-through is when I get into a ship, take a mission or two, get to some planet. Maybe I crash maybe I complete a mission, maybe I succumb to the bugs. Anyhow I keep flying till I’m dead. Then I log out. The whole endeavor takes 2 hours at the longest, so I set some time aside for this. I don’t watch any tutorials or guides, just figure things out by myself, or, don’t, and leave them for the next flythrough.

I certainly got my money’s worth of entertainment from these few fly-throughs.

There are certainly deeper games out there, or even bigger in terms of playable area. Still, I think, if we put the games on a “immersive experience” chart where Y is visual effects and X is scale, then Star Citizen will be in the top right.

Quite an achievement…