Apparently, people want to harm Star Citizen and are inventing scandalous stories. It’s unfortunate when it quickly turns out to be a hoax.
There is a subreddit for Star Citizen where the game’s fans gather. There is also a subreddit where disappointed former backers hang out: It’s called “Star Citizen Refunds” and deals with players who want their money back from the crowdfunding wonder Star Citizen.
$45,000 Refund Kickstarts Space Dust
A post circulated claiming that a guild wanted a total of $45,000 (about €37,500) back. This would have been the largest refund in gaming history. It was about 3 “Completionist” packages at $15,000 each, which is a substantial amount of money.
This huge refund request was also supported by screenshots of the refund process. It was said that the refund process had been difficult. The company behind Star Citizen, CIG, had prolonged it. One had to wait 5 weeks for the money. They wanted the money back, not because of the delay, but because of the many lies.
The information from the reddit thread made its way to Ars Technica, a major site that subsequently critically examined Star Citizen: long development time, feature overload, high backer amounts.
Press Apologizes, Derek Smart Complains
When the story was published, a representative of “Star Citizen” contacted the site and said: That was a fake. There was indeed a refund, but it was not over $45,000, but only $300 (about €250).
There also wasn’t any discussion about whether the money would be returned; it was transferred without hesitation.
At Ars Technica, they apologize for the story. The Redditor has since deleted his account.
The unofficial leader of the “Anti-Star-Citizen” faction, game developer Derek Smart, sees it all as a fabrication by Star Citizen to silence backers. The player probably feared angry reactions now that the story became so big and therefore deleted his account.
For him, CIG, the company behind Star Citizen, is a bunch of lying bastards. For him, this is not a fake.
More about the eternal battle over the interpretation of Star Citizen and how news or developments can be read in various ways can be found in this article:
Star Citizen takes out a loan – Conspiracy theorists rejoice
