Crowdfunding for space sim Star Citizen has passed yet another mammoth milestone, but rumors are flying that suggest things may not be rosy at developer Cloud Imperium Games.
A quick look at Star Citizen's funding page shows that the game has passed the eye-watering $750 million mark, meaning that cumulatively, players have given almost a billion dollars to Star Citizen since its crowdfunding campaign began in 2012.
The funding page is insistent in its declaration that funding for Star Citizen "goes directly to the game's development", although frankly, I can't quite envision a game that costs over $750 million to make and still hasn't been properly released after over a decade of development.
Not only is Star Citizen's development continuing with no real sign of a 1.0 release, but rumors are flying that developer Cloud Imperium Games may actually be laying staff off.
According to Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, who cites an ex-CIG employee on social media platform X (whose posts are locked for non-approved followers), Cloud Imperium has let "a lot of staff go over the last two days with zero compensation" following its annual CitizenCon event.
That's after the developer reportedly mandated seven-day work weeks for staff in the runup to CitizenCon, promising time off in lieu in return for working the weekends of October 5th and 12th. That report didn't seem to suggest that Cloud Imperium had offered staff a choice in this matter.
This isn't the first time Cloud Imperium has been in trouble in the last few months, either. Back in July, a tribunal found that the studio had discriminated against a disabled worker for mandating a return to the office without making adequate preparations for that worker's disability.
In any case, if you do want to follow the development of Star Citizen or you'd like to give money to Cloud Imperium for some reason, you can do so here via the official website.
