At Star Citizen, employees in Austin, Texas, are showing frustration and expressing their anger about the studio’s leadership in a report to the press. One source says anonymously that the game feels like “a gacha game for expensive ships,” with hardly any gameplay, and the focus is entirely on marketing.
This is how Star Citizen is developed: The MMO Star Citizen started as a cute little science fiction indie project by Chris Roberts, a cult video game pioneer from the 90s (Wing Commander).
He received so many millions of US dollars from players for his vision that Star Citizen became a massive AAA project. It is currently being developed by over 600 people at 5 locations across 3 different countries:
- The headquarters is in LA
- in Texas, they are developing the persistent universe
- in Frankfurt, they are working on the technology
- in Manchester, England, developers are working on the single-player experience
- in Derby, they are taking care of the faces in the game
Additionally, the company CIG has a variety of partners scattered worldwide. Apparently, the “indie studio” is having difficulty coordinating these globally dispersed teams and understanding what is happening in each studio at any given time. This is highlighted in a report from the US site Kotaku (via Kotaku). This is supposedly causing significant frustration in Austin, Texas.
Employees of Star Citizen are struggling to survive in Austin
This is the trigger for the frustration in Austin, Texas: In February 2021, there was an exceptional situation in Austin, Texas: A snowstorm completely paralyzed public life, caused power outages for an extended period, and put people’s lives at risk. There are reports of people who froze to death in their beds (via ksat).
The US site Kotaku now writes: 6 employees of Star Citizen from Austin, Texas, have reached out to them anonymously to highlight the issues in the studio during the natural disaster. They say: Internally, the management does not listen to the employees, so they are trying to do it externally.
Overtime expected to make up for natural disaster
This is the accusation from Texas against the studio management: The accusation from the 6 employees is:
- While they were fighting for their lives in Austin, Texas, the management of Star Citizen did not seem to care much. They didn’t realize how serious the situation was in Texas.
- A manager told them they should figure out how to make up for the lost working hours, suggesting they should work overtime next weekend.
- Other studios seemingly had no understanding of how bad it was in Austin. They acted as if it was “snow-free” while people were actually fighting for their survival.
- While employees in Austin exchanged tips on how to obtain food, one source received an email from human resources regarding International Women’s Day in March. The snowstorm was not mentioned at all.
- The bosses of the company in LA only learned at the end of the disaster week how serious the situation in Austin-Texas was.
This is what one of the alleged employees of Star Citizen says now: The US site Kotaku published a statement from one of the alleged employees. The source speaks anonymously about Star Citizen and is apparently extremely charged. A lot of frustration seems to have built up that needs to be released:
The slow and hesitant response from CIG and the general lack of communication has hit the employees hard, who already had low morale and suffer from the feeling that the company does not care about them.
All of these factors contribute to a game that increasingly feels like a gacha for expensive ships without actual gameplay, where useless features are constantly added and removed, with marketing having absolute power over every other department: Employees begin to feel discouraged after a while.
Anonymous Employee of Star Citizen to Kotaku
This is a gacha game: A “gacha” game is a video game that relies on randomness and loot boxes. The most successful gachas earn enormous amounts of money. Genshin Impact utilizes a gacha system: In such games, there are certain items that are highly sought after and rare. In Star Citizen, the ships are sought after and expensive – however, there are no loot boxes. The ships are sold directly in the shop.
This is what the company says: They say:
CIG is saddened to hear that there are accusations from anonymous sources. The safety and well-being of our employees have always been our top priority. The office in Austin has been closed for most employees since the outbreak of the pandemic while employees work from home.
In direct response to the Texas storm, the studio leadership reached out to over 100 employees in Austin, either through their manager or personally, and offered assistance – and we continue to do so to provide help to anyone affected.
Statement from CIG
Intense discussion around insider report ignites
This is the discussion about it: On the Star Citizen subreddit, players criticize the reporting from Kotaku in harsh terms (via reddit). They deny any credibility to the US site, demand source disclosure, and call for CIG to bankrupt Kotaku.
Anyone who criticizes Star Citizen in the relevant thread receives downvotes, causing their post to be displayed at the bottom of the comments. One user who received 40 downvotes says: “Star Citizen is the Stockholm syndrome of video games.”
Reddit users who receive upvotes cite tweets from Star Citizen developers distancing themselves from the report by Kotaku. They have had different experiences. A community manager from Austin, Texas, even calls the report a “lie.”
The author of the Kotaku article states (via twitter): He has contacted the sources again, and they stand by their statements. They also said that two of the people defending CIG now work in the marketing or human resources departments. It is indeed a large studio, and different people have had different experiences.
For the people the reporter spoke with, the “breaking point” has been reached. They could no longer accept the state at CIG.
There are ongoing discussions around Star Citizen. The MMO is funded by passionate players through crowdfunding, has extremely high ambitions, yet release dates and milestones have often been postponed:
