Cloud Imperium Games has reiterated that they are undergoing reorganization to improve development of Star Citizen.
CIG shared this communique with the press:
Cloud Imperium Games continues to grow its development team across CIG's multiple studios. Each of our four offices is being streamlined to focus on specific parts of Star Citizen which will allow for a more efficient and accelerated completion of the game.
The company shared this communique following another round of allegations from backer turned critic Derek Smart. Smart alleged to have received a letter from a former CIG employee critical of Chris Roberts and his management style. Smart also claimed to have information on firings within the company, having been critical when several people left the project before.
While CIG felt it was necessary to respond to the allegations, there is a lot of skepticism and criticism surrounding their accuser, Derek Smart. CIG recently sent a letter to Smart’s lawyer that went public, revealing he did not even install Star Citizen’s client after backing it. While this letter may have damaged Smart’s credibility, there’s also ample proof fans and backers are skeptical of Smart on their own, like this thread.
Whatever the situation is behind the scenes at Cloud Imperium Games, or between them and Derek Smart, the developer has set conditions in their crowdfund that will allow them to keep working on Star Citizen indefinitely.
Chris Roberts kept expanding the scope of the project as money kept coming in, until it hit a mind bogglingly large amount. None of this is secret, and you can see what each tier of backing funded here. They have also continued to update fans as promised, most recently twice today, here and here.
Are there reasons to be worried for Star Citizen? Definitely, but it won’t be a case of a missing project, or even a project half finished. Roberts believed they could make the game using $ 2 million, and $ 89 million is more than enough buffer to ensure a satisfactory product.
Whether Roberts should have put all the money directly into development is a different question altogether, but for now, they will continue to enjoy the benefit of the doubt from the wider public and the press, even in the presence of more intense skepticism from more vociferous critics.
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