Originally posted by Alcovitch:

A game today should not take 6-10 years to develop. Please don't base your idea of game development on Star Citizen.

DEVELOPMENTAL TIMES AS REFERENCE POINTS
- Star Wars Squadrons: about 3 years
- Mass Effect 1: ~4 years
- Sims 2: about 4 years
- Kenshi: 12 years total, 5 years in Early Access
- Rimworld: 5 years in Early Access
- Minecraft Dungeons: about 5 years
- Fallout 3: about 4 years with Bethesda, +2 years with Interplay
- Don't Starve: about 3 years
- Astroneer: ~3 years in Early Access
- Diablo 3: ~10 years
- Team Fortress 2: ~9 years
- Owlboy: ~10 years
- Valheim: Early Access for 13 months so far

Early Access games on Steam, or Closed Alpha/Beta games are usually about one-quarter to half way through its total development cycle. So a game like Astroneer may have been in Early Access for 3 years, but there was Alpha development prior to that, which most likely took another 1-3 years.

So why you're kind of right that game development today shouldn't take 6-10 years, you're also wrong that game development today shouldn't take 6-10 years. The key variable on why something may take X to Y years to make is based solely on the studio's ability, capacity, vision, creative energy, and acts-of-the-universe (disasters, lock downs, war, etc).

Thus, not everyone bases game development times on Star Citizen, as noted in my sample list above. It's actually quite normal for an indie studio to take about 3-7 years of total development time to create one game.

My know-how? Been a part of software development companies since 1998.