Star Citizen Employees "Speak Out" [Oct 01, 2015, 4:35 pm ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
An
article on The Escapist talks anonymously with some purported current and
former employees of Cloud Imperium Games about Star Citizen, the
crowdfunded space combat and exploration game. Their sources express
doubts about the viability of the project, and guilt over the sale of virtual
ships to eager customers. The story was updated after it was posted to add some
responses from CIG's Chris Roberts, who suspects "these are the words of a few
bitter ex-employees trying to stir trouble," and the included quotes also
touch on a toxic work environment and issues with Roberts, his wife, and
other management, lending support to his contention. There is also a
Chairman's Response to The Escapist post on the Roberts Space Industries
website (thanks 88fingers). The article concludes with a quote from one of their sources, and Roberts'
contrasting statement of faith in his project and his 261 employees:
"Chris Roberts thinks he's George Lucas. He thinks he's a genius," CS2 asserted. "He's a fraud, pure and simple. If he was just a salesman, or he worked in marketing, or he was answering to a producer, he would do well. But the emperor wears no clothes. Anybody who has worked with him will tell you the same thing. The difference is that lots of people have a dream, but only some can communicate it. I don't think he's sinister, or a bad person. He's Donald Trump. He thinks that if he wants to do something, he can. Because he's Chris Roberts."
"I'll put my 261, their passion and energy against the complaints of a few disgruntled ex-employees any day," Roberts said. "We have backers visit the offices all the time, they all come away with the same impression - that the entire team is dedicated to making the best game possible."
theyarecomingforyou wrote on Oct 1, 2015, 20:22:
Many of the claims are unsubstantiated and are in violation of The Escapist's own ethics guidelines. It strikes me as poor journalism.
That's very true. I've read the whole thing in the meantime and it's completely unprofessional. They should have contacted CIG before publishing the piece and given them a chance to comment, not insert CR's comments after the fact.
As an outsider it is hard to tell what might be true and what not but only $8m left (guaranteed to be complete bullshit) and everything about Sandi seems to be 100% made up, the latter probably by the same lunatic who has targeted her before in forums posts etc. - This isn't the first time she is accused of very weird sounding things.
I've only seen Sandi on camera (but hundreds of times) and she would really have to be an awesome actress if any of the allegations were true. She's always come across as genuinely nice and friendly usually. Maybe a little conceited (which actress/model isn't?) but evil, vicious, bitchy? Nope. Not a hint of it.
There is in fact only one single accusation I would deem credible. It's this piece...
The most common issue people discussed, second only to tales of workplace improprieties, was the lack of progress that Star Citizen has seen. Three former employees, who voluntarily quit for a myriad of reasons, echoed this sentiment, stating that they felt they were spending more time creating material for cons and fundraising than creating any material for gameplay.
That one confirms my own observations. They started out as a game development organization. Then when they realized that the funding did not stop and how important the marketing is for the ship sales they reorganized everything to become a marketing company to produce flashy trailers, commercials and to optimize the entire ship sales pipeline from concept to hangar-ready and flyable (AC).
The way I see it is that the current reorganization is actually a re-reorganization to focus on content delivery a.k.a finally making the fucking game.
On a whole the Escapist article is almost 100% grade A bullshit. What is concerning though is what Chris Roberts has said in some of his replies. As I said in the other thread his claim that the PU was a stretch goal is a blatant lie. A big fat lie. Plain and simple.
It's also funny how he finally admits that the scope changed the timeline. Really, Chris? Did you not promise people that if they kept pledging that more money would actually help get stuff done FASTER and that the game would come out SOONER?
Hmm... odd. Instead of that faster delivery you kept making up stretch goal after stretch goal all the way up to the $65m mark thereby increasing the scope and DELAYING the game.
It is very unfortunate that CR had to pack his retort with so many lies because that makes his retort look just as unprofessional as the Escapist piece. It's like a gigantic clash of bullshit as if a million cows all shat at once!
This comment was edited on Oct 1, 2015, 21:49.
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