While the ambitious space simulator Star Citizen from the studio Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) is conquering new heights of crowdfunding fees, layoffs are taking place in the development team.
Image source: X (SpaceScumbag)
According to the Insider Gaming portal, following the CitizenCon 2954 festival in October, in preparation for which employees were forced to work seven days a week, CIG parted ways with some of its staff.
The first to report new layoffs to CIG was a former employee at X. According to him, over the past couple of days the studio laid off “a bunch of employees with zero compensation after grueling overtime and didn’t even say thank you.”
Insider Tom Henderson’s sources clarified that the scale of the layoffs was not so dramatic – the situation affected a dozen employees (about 1% of the total CIG workforce) in the quality control department.
Image source: Cloud Imperium Games
Meanwhile, the amount of user donations for the development of Star Citizen has already exceeded $750 million ($700 million the game reached in May) – over the past week alone, the figure has grown by more than $5 million.
Fundraising for Star Citizen has been going on for 12 years now – it began in 2012 on Kickstarter, after which it was transferred to the official website. The game is still at the alpha stage and does not even have an approximate release date for version 1.0.
On the eve of Star Citizen, the studio intends to release its story branch Squadron 42 – its release is expected in 2026. At CitizenCon 2954, more than an hour of action gameplay was shown.