Star Citizen's Problems Through Eyes of Employees. Perfectionism, Unnecessary Spending and Frankenstein Creation
Star Citizen has been in development for 12 years, but apparently, the studio is still struggling with the same problems, allegedly duplicating the mistakes of other devs from 20 years ago.
12 years and almost $800 million later, Star Citizen remains in development. Apparently even former and current developers are not happy with how the development of Chris Roberts' new game is proceeding. This information was provided by Tom Henderson from Insider Gaming.
Reports of problems at Cloud Imperium Games with SC are hardly surprising. Even if we disregard previous information (among others about layoffs at the beginning of the year), it's hard not to have suspicions about the course of the game's development, which still has not seen an official full version release after 12 years of "early access". It's not that the version that we have is unplayable, but there is no indication that the actual "1.0" release will appear anytime soon.
Crunch before CitizenCon
We already mentioned the order of Erin Roberts, the global production director. As reported by Henderson’s sources, Cloud Imperium Games employees were to be required to work a minimum of eight hours a day, even on weekends, until October 19.
This was supposed to be related to preparations for the upcoming CitizenCon, however, after the issue was highlighted by Insider Gaming, changes were quickly introduced in the form of a free Sunday, provided that a given developer works 58 hours from Monday to Saturday.
Aside from the issue of legality of these new arrangements, the studio employees, who were reached by the website, have no doubt that it was not a coincidence. In their opinion, Cloud Imperium Games needs a complete overhaul of its structures if the management wants to prevent the inevitable disaster.
Current expenses
Tom Henderson allegedly reached out to several former and current employees of the company, but also cited statistics regarding expenses for the development of Star Citizen. Although the $790 million collected to date is a gigantic amount, CIG was supposed to allocate about $130 million for development in 2022 alone, and a total of $637 million since 2012. With the current upward trend, there may be doubts whether the studio has larger savings in reserve.
Of course, this could be justified by the high development costs – after all, Star Citizen is a very ambitious project, often called the "ultimate" space simulator. The problem is that, according to Henderson's interlocutors, CIG spends money rather inefficiently.
Frankenstein and "pushing boundaries in game development"
Such an argument is often used by the Cloud Imperium Games management to justify the studio's expenses. Even ones like the interior design of the company's new office in Manchester, modeled on the fictional SC universe. One of the employees, whom Henderson reached, compared the CIG headquarters to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory - more aesthetic than functional.
Speaking of functionality, Insider Gaming's interviewees didn't have much good to say about SC's technology. They compared the Star Engine to Dr. Frankenstein's monster - a mix of loosely connected elements which, on top of that, are almost daily modified by the team. There is probably no need to explain that this does not make the work easier.
Both former and current CIG employees say the same thing about the creative process. Chris Roberts, known as a perfectionist, makes changes every day that add weeks of work to the team. These are both modifications of key elements and minor details such as the placement of individual objects with which the player will never interact. As a result, the studio lacks focus on actually finishing the game, and the team is "repeating mistakes made by other studios 20 years ago".
Sometimes he [Roberts - ed. note] may be checking the most basic functions half a dozen times, and then delete or change them at the seventh revision.
This created an unhealthy work environment; you can't push for anything. They are repeating mistakes that other companies made 20 years ago, which contributes to the shortcomings of their ambitious functions.
As a result, many studio employees have left or are considering such a move. Especially in the face of the alleged suspension of raises and promotion paths.
Nothing new...
It is worth emphasizing, however, that Henderson's information is nothing new. Many of the facts he obtained had surfaced before. For example, a mention of spending practically all acquired funds on development appears in the financial report for 2022, which was published on January 1, 2024. The same seemed to be confirmed by information about layoffs.
We have heard more than once or twice about Chris Roberts' perfectionism. It's enough to recall the information from 2015 and 2019, as well as the very telling statement from the creator from 2020, that mentioned the lack of polish in Cyberpunk 2077. As for crunch, CIG is by no means an exception - reports of absurd overtime and intense work are commonplace in the gaming industry.
Some fans even believe that Henderson is looking for sensations, while presenting mostly well-known facts. They know well that Cloud Imperium Games is far from perfect.
Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that Star Citizen is a special case. Even if we agree with the increasingly popular statement that video game development never ends and that work on it merely stops, not releasing a game after 12 years and almost $800 million in funds collected from players is going a bit too far.
...and a lot (?) of new things in update 3.42.2.
Of course, it must be honestly noted that CIG is by no means hiding underground: Star Citizen is receiving new features. The game has just been released update 3.42.2, which introduced not only balance fixes, optimizations, etc., but also new cave types, customization options, and ships. Apparently, that was enough to reignite the players enthusiasm and cause a massive resurge in the game's popularity.
Already in September, one of the developers referred to the patch as "4.0 Lite", a kind of sample of what the "fourth" version of SC will offer (via Reddit). The latter, if previous information is to be believed, will be released later this year, but it has already served as the basis for patch 3.42.2.
