Chris Roberts' Continuity Error In His Letter From The Chairman 2025

Chris Roberts, the co-founder and CEO of Cloud Imperium Games, really liked making movies. Before starting work on the Star Citizen project, Roberts produced movies such as The Lord of War, Lucky Number Slevin, and The Punisher. Since he's familiar with the concept, I think he should appoint a continuity supervisor for his Letters from the Chairman, because I think I found an error in this year's entry in the series.

Roberts really talked up some statistics from 2025.

We had record-setting engagement this year, with more than 64 million hours played in Star Citizen (up from 48 million in 2024). You set new records in peak concurrency and unique daily users, and we saw huge increases in every metric, including 40-60% increases in average daily users and average peak concurrency. We also saw huge improvements in server stability with 57% fewer player disconnections per 1 million player hours compared to 2024.

Impressive numbers unless one is suspicious. Or nosy. Seeing the statistics I wondered if Roberts always included statistics like these, I started reading some of the older letters. Needless to say, I found a continuity error in the 2024 Letter from the Chairman.

Over one million of you have played 32 million hours in the game this year, and our ranks have swelled by almost half a million Citizens. 

Now I was totally distracted from the narrative Roberts was trying to sell; that of a rapidly growing game. But if the number of hours played actually doubled, no wonder so many content creators were proclaiming that so many new players had taken up Star Citizen. 

I found I had accidently stepped into a rabbit hole and started trying to track down the way out. The 2023 letter didn't have hours played but did state the year had the highest ever. The 2022 letter, however, had a solid number, 46 million hours played.

The above is why I say Roberts needs a continuity supervisor. A drop from 46 million hours in 2022 down to 32 million hours makes sense since the number of new accounts created per year dropped by 44.3% from 2022 to 2024. Then the huge increase from 2024 to 2025 also makes sense considering the rapid rise in new accounts created (46.2%). In fact, using 32 million hours fits perfectly with the message of lots of renewed interest plus better server performance leading to a doubling of hours played.

So where did the 48 million hours played come from in the 2025 letter? Did Roberts just make a number out of thin air? In my eyes that seems the case. A careless and sloppy mistake. Another reason why those who support the development of Star Citizen tend to want Roberts to be heard rarely, if at all.