Star Citizen and the Quest for the Future

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The amount of funds raised for Star Citizen currently sits at a whopping $596,493,211, with 4,734,598 backers as of July 20th, 2023. Fans have dropped more than half a billion dollars into a game with no signs of slowing down. Some are even spending thousands on 3D models of custom spaceships. Highly detailed, they come with the added bonus of fake digital scarcity.

On the surface, this may appear to be an endless money pit of clever micro-transactions designed to squeeze every penny out of its customers. Yet, something else is bubbling beneath the surface—something older, yet purposefully forgotten in our modern culture: the Frontier Myth. Star Citizen is successful because it sells its consumers the promise of a new frontier, even if it is a virtual one.