$667 Million From Fans Didn’t Save Star Citizen Devs From Layoffs
The layoffs hasn't spared the developers of Star Citizen. The studio responsible for the most expensive game in history has parted ways with a number of employees, although it continues to recruit.
UPDATE
Cloud Imperium Games has finally addressed the reports of staff reductions. This was made possible by a message sent, among others, to the editorial office of the MMORPG.com service. We read in it that the developer of Star Citizen actually cut a certain (small) number of positions - as we read, this was due to the relocation of human resources, aimed at increasing the efficiency of individual teams and returning to offices. At the same time, the company assures that it doesn't intend to suspend the recruitment of new employees.
Original news (February 28th)
According to the Game Developer, Cloud Imperium Games, which had already collected over $667 million from fans for the production of Star Citizen, was to lay off an unspecified number of people. That's the conclusion that can be drawn from the information former CIG employees posted on LinkedIn.
Some of the people who lost their jobs included level designer Dane Kubicka, Quality Control manager Vincent Sinatra, and Senior Quality Control Analyst Andrew Rexroth. Star Citizen director Todd Papy and producer Annie Bouffard also parted ways with Cloud Imperium Games.
The latter published an entry on LinkedIn in which she described in detail the situation at CIG. At the end of January, there were purported "staff relocations" in the company, which were actually "mass layoffs."
Bouffard explains that her boss hasn't communicated with her since November of last year, and during the yearly evaluation, she was "ridiculed in a patronizing manner" when she expressed that "the team's welfare" is important to her.
As a result, the producer decided to leave this - as she described it - "highly toxic company." The developer acknowledged that leaving her job will have a much lower impact on her mental well-being than remaining in the ranks of CIG.
At the time of writing, Cloud Imperium Games hasn't yet commented on the above reports.
