Destiny vs. Star Citizen: The Upper Limits of the Video Game Industry

15 May, 2015

Last time, we went into detail on the nature of writing for video games. This article will go on a little more detail as to the industry side, how video games are funded and what some of the upper limits are.When Destiny was first being shown around at conventions and trailers were being released, people got excited. Maybe because Bungie produced it (the team behind Halo, one of the most beloved video game series), or that it was being voiced by Peter Dinklage. Some, definitely, were excited by the fact that its budget was over $500,000,000, which is significantly more than any Hollywood film ever (Pirates of the Caribbean 3 takes that place, even adjusted for inflation – who saw that coming?).And while maybe they didn’t necessarily use that amount, it’s a phenomenal price tag. Which is what makes it so disappointing when the game flopped – just kidding, they made that money back on it’s opening weekend.Now, this is the largest gaming project we have seen to date. It really isn’t a realistic situation if you’re trying to break into the market, especially in Australia. However, it does let us know that the industry is incredibly powerful, it has far surpassed film in both individual instances and the market worth itself.That is the AAA market, the blockbusters of video games, so where does the price range of independent games lie? One of the most popular ways for new, independent projects to be funded has been Kickstarter. For those unaware, Kickstarter is a website in which you can pitch a product and the public can donate money to it, usually if they donate a substantial amount they receive a reward of some kind. You set a monetary goal at the beginning and if you don’t meet that funding within (usually) a month the money is returned to the people.Star Citizen was a personal project proposed by Chris Roberts that originally asked for half a million dollars. While Roberts is an industry legend, he certainly had not been active for a while before he pitched this game. Eventually, after the month he moved donations to his website. As of the writing of this article, current donations to Star Citizen have reached $61,000,000. Again, while this is a phenomenal amount, it is in the 1% of the 1% of projects on Kickstarter, even among those that actually get funded. However, it shows that the public, not just the big developers, has power in this industry. If you have an idea bold enough that people would actually enjoy you can get it made – and fifty million is the upper limit, for now.