For years there have been reports about the poor working conditions at Cloud Imperium Games, the company behind Star Citizen. Now we were able to witness the toxic interaction for the first time. Nevertheless, the money counter keeps rising.
What did we witness? You may have heard about it: The latest livestream of Star Citizen was anything but good. The staff members playing were struggling with bugs and technical issues. It was clear they had no backup plan for this.
Ultimately, Content Director Jared Huckaby intervened and ended the event early, but not without properly moderating the show. Instead, he metaphorically threw the ball back to his younger, overwhelmed colleagues after the announcement, putting them in a visibly uncomfortable situation.
Afterward, there were several minutes that were hard to watch and indicate: Interpersonally, the team seems to be in crisis. The way the Content Director acts and interacts with his younger employees could be seen as disrespectful and toxic. You can also visibly see the immense pressure that must be on the developers after all these years.
Reports from the Developer Hell
This is just the tip of the iceberg: Since the gaming industry has become highly professionalized, it has become very rare to receive such unvarnished insights.
Often, a PR team oversees what information gets released and in what form. Much of what is not yet supposed to reach the public is protected by confidentiality clauses. Developers who make public appearances often undergo training beforehand.
Accordingly, the disastrous appearance of the Star Citizen team at the livestream mentioned earlier was remarkable.
This was not the first indication that much must be going wrong internally at Cloud Imperium Games (CIG). Years ago, we reported about the partly poor payment of employees, severe crunch phases with mandatory overtime, and layoffs without severance pay.
A particularly grim picture was painted by a report by industry insider Tom Henderson in October 2024. It addressed mismanagement, cancellation of planned salary increases and development measures, nonsensical investments (like a floor-sized coffee bar), and the unorthodox development processes at CIG.
Time and again, the name of studio founder Chris Roberts came up, who is said to have significantly delayed development with his constant interference and ideas. This aligned with a report from Forbes in 2019. Furthermore, the modified version of the CryEngine used for Star Citizen is said to cause many issues.
All these factors combined are said to have driven many experienced developers away from CIG over the years. New, often inexperienced developers were apparently hired partly just because they were fans of Star Citizen. Around these fans, a nearly cult-like mentality seems to have developed.
How does MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz assess all of this? I don’t know how you feel, but that doesn’t sound like a place where I would want to work. The insights from the latest livestream confirm this impression. In such an environment, it must be incredibly difficult to realize a creative mammoth project like Star Citizen.
No surprise that this SciFi MMO seems to be far from a final release despite all the money and long development time.
The thing is: Star Citizen can afford all of this. Even now, in its still unfinished state, we are talking about one of the financially most successful gaming projects of all time. Many supporters are so involved that they will continue to invest a lot of money into their dream of a SciFi MMO, even if the developers who are supposed to realize this dream are not doing well.
Nothing will change with the latest blunder. Since the stream, the crowdfunding ticker on robertsspaceindustries.com has already risen by several thousand dollars. The show must go on. No matter what it costs.
I’m not surprised by any of this anymore. Back in May 2025, I had attributed partial blame to the community for the various problems and excesses of Star Citizen. Chris Roberts has been lacking the compulsion to finish his game for years, thanks to the financial support from fans. More on this here: Star Citizen has gone too far after 14 years and 800 million dollars – But actually, the community is to blame
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