The MMORPG Star Citizen has now exceeded the mark of $600 million raised through crowdfunding. However, a post from a former employee caused unrest. He hinted that there had been mass layoffs at CIG. Star Citizen is denying this now.
What rumors were there?
- We reported on MeinMMO on August 30 that a person on reddit said he had worked for CIG for 7 years before he was laid off.
- He then explains that the project is in a financial predicament, has invested a lot of money in the Manchester location, where expensive artworks are also displayed. This has led to a financial bottleneck, which is why some people, including himself, would now have to be laid off. He and his friends are “fantastic” at their jobs.
- The mod team on reddit approved the post after “sufficient evidence” was provided that there is some truth to the post: the user actually worked at Star Citizen.
Employee talks about “layoffs currently taking place”
Why has this topic become so big? In addition to this Reddit thread, there was a post on LinkedIn by Theodore Hirschfeld. He said he is affected by the “layoffs” currently taking place at CIG. Hirschfeld had worked as a “Senior Live QA” and Game Designer in Austin, Texas.
Additionally, there was another post in a Discord that suggested (via pcgamer) that there could actually be problems at CIG: A Discord user said there that the PU team had been significantly reduced. A lot of “stuff” was happening while the team prioritized Squadron 42.
So there were 3 pieces of news, more or less confirmed, suggesting that Star Citizen might be reducing staff.
Star Citizen says: No layoffs, 9 positions have been relocated
This is now the response from Star Citizen: In a statement to PC Gamer , Star Citizen states that reports of “large layoffs at CIG are false.”
They have grown from 900 to 1,100 employees in 2023. During a restructuring, they decided to relocate 9 positions to other sites. This is completely normal for a company.
According to PC Gamer, there have been no other official reports of layoffs apart from Hirschfeld’s LinkedIn post, and even Hirschfeld has since reported that he found another job at Star Citizen.
So there seems to be nothing to the claims of mass layoffs.
Doubts about Star Citizen persist. Even big fans of the game admit that some statements from the team now seem rather implausible:
