Despite having 288 million dollars, Star Citizen‘s near eight-year development is still not over…

Forbes published a lengthy article about Cloud Imperium Games‘ game, which the fans gave no less than 242 million dollars. The game has been in development for several years, and originally, Star Citizen was planned to launch in 2014 before it got delayed indefinitely – out of the one hundred star systems, not one has been completed yet, and we can’t blame it on the 46-million investment last year, which would be mostly spent on marketing…

Forbes paints Roberts as a „micromanager, who is a poor steward of resources;” they talked with twenty ex-employees about the game development’s situation. They are „chaotic:” 537 employees across five offices, and just in 2017, the salaries have required twenty million dollars. On paper, as we don’t know how much the employees have received… but the site points out that Roberts got a house in Los Angeles for 4.7 million dollars. He defends this move by claiming that he bought it from his success before Cloud Imperium, as he was Origin’s partner a few decades ago, and he was the majority owner of Digital Anvil until Microsoft has acquired them.

About Roberts, Forbes also reports that he moves employees from bigger, key issues to smaller, unnecessary things. A senior graphical designer has spent months on the visual effects of a ship, and a lead character artist has created five characters in 17 months, as it’s common within the company to reverse approvals, which is why he left in 2015. Others say that they worked on demos to sell space ships and generate more money.

Allegedly, Roberts only had 17 million dollars on his bank account by the end of 2017, as they burned through the money they got, which is a reason why they need to ask three thousand dollars for a space ship. Forbes says 87 ships have been completed for the playable alpha out of 135, but there are some in the remaining 48 that only exist in picture format at the moment. They also pointed out that a total of 129 people have requested refunds from the FTC (Federal Trade Commission in the United States), including someone who wants as much as 24 thousand dollars back. „The game they promised us can’t even barely run. The performance is terrible and it’s still in an ‘Alpha’ state. I want out. They lied to us,” one person, who spent a thousand dollars, said.

It’s hard to go against such a report.

Source: Gamesindustry