My theory is scope creep. These guys have done a good job of convincing people that they can live the ultimate space exploration fantasy that's been talked about since the 80s.
It's the ultimate simulation. We know very little about space and even fiction (ex. star wars) seems to generate even more demand.
As people got excited and started throwing money at them, so did the scope obviously. I love Star Citizen's attention to detail but it's suffice to say that they've hit people's patience.
> “I’m already building the best game I can,” said Mr. Roberts, who acknowledged the bumps. “But imagine — the game I can build with $140 million is going to be very different to the one I could build with $10 million. If I can build a bigger and more robust experience, I will.”
My guess is they keep going until donations taper off and they're about to run out of money, then rush out a massively buggy release that disappoints everybody.
I used to work in a small indie game studio (in the PS2 days) and the games we made had tight deadline (less than 12 months usually from start to finish). And even with such time and money constraints Scope creep would always rear it's ugly head.
I can only image what goes on when the devs are let loose in the SC candy store with so much money and wanting to live up to the hype(so to speak).
It's the ultimate simulation. We know very little about space and even fiction (ex. star wars) seems to generate even more demand.
As people got excited and started throwing money at them, so did the scope obviously. I love Star Citizen's attention to detail but it's suffice to say that they've hit people's patience.