A new report from Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming reveals concerning new details about Star Citizen’s development under Cloud Imperium Games and its founder, Chris Roberts.
Roberts’ stubbornness about this project is well known, and there have been multiple reports already revealing that he and CIG have treated his workers poorly. But this report reveals a recent ugly incident.
CIG planned to enforce a new 8 hour per day, 19 day mandate, from the start of this October. After employees raised questions about its legality, the terms were softened to offer Sunday off if they worked 56 hours for the rest of the week.
The bigger picture is bleak in a clearly unnecessary way. CIG has spent an average of $ 100 million annually, and the devs believe most of that money has run out. CIG laid off between 100 to 150 employees in Austin and LA, and current employees saw wage increases frozen.
It’s bad enough that some of CIG employees are saying they are struggling to make ends meet with their supposed full-time employment in the company. So it was hard for those employees to ignore the company’s unnecessary expenses, such as on the expensive futuristic architecture of their offices, and their on-call baristas.
It won’t surprise you to learn that a big problem holding development back continues to be Roberts’ meticulous micromanagement of the game, down to the smallest details. This is nothing new for Roberts, but now that we know that similar narrowminded thinking was ongoing inside Bungie, it’s easier to see that this is not just a case of one project lead with too much control. This must be something prevalent and invisible within the industry as a whole.
Another big and unsurprising issue is Star Engine, CIG’s custom version of CryEngine. Developers told Tom that Star Engine is a Frankenstein, with parts that don’t always work, and features being added and removed constantly.
Outside of the layoffs, we have known for some time that CIG has high attrition. But this project has frustrated developers to the point that most experienced staff left long ago.
This has created a cult-like environment for the current staff. In one current employee’s words: “It’s created an unhealthy place to work; you can’t push back on anything.” Once again, these are issues that we have heard plagued other troubled game projects.
CIG does have completely new plans to continue funding. While they claimed that Squadron 42 was feature complete this time last year, Tom claims that CIG really only got the game to that status very recently.
And Squadron 42 still looks like the first product they will be able to release, with CIG hoping sales will bring the funding in. They also hope to now expand Squadron 42 into a series of games.
Outside of that, CIG will sell more expensive ships again, but they may also be planning a new medieval fantasy game as well. If true, this new project would be outside the bounds of CIG’s promises to their crowdfund backers.
It’s wild that this report appears shortly before this year’s CitizenCon, this October 19 and 20. Tom says that CIG plans to share a demo of Squadron 42 Chapter 1 at that event.
This is all certainly a lot to take in all at once. But rather than call for the game to be cancelled or for backers to cut their funding (we’ve gone through cycles of this already), backers and the gaming public in general should hold Chris Roberts and CIG answerable to these claims.
If Star Citizen is, as one source told Tom, at the point of no return, it’s time for Roberts and CIG to admit it.
