Decades after Wing Commander, Chris Roberts went on to launch a crowdfunded space simulation game called Star Citizen in 2010. It is still in early buggy unpolished alpha state after all these years, despite (or because?!) raising more then half a billion dollars. Too bad.
That’s uncharitable. It has raised that half billion dollars continuously over the years since it launched, and spends it on development. They’re up to something like 500 developers, mostly artists, level designers, and the like. (They have <100 programmers, last I heard.)
The game is incredibly ambitious in terms of both content and technology. The game is playable, if very buggy, and release an updated alpha version every quarter (except recently, due problems with introducing global persistence). Funding has steadily increased as those alphas have become steadily more capable.
It’s an open question whether the game will ever meet its lofty goals. But it’s disingenuous to imply that the game isn’t making progress.
