With nearly $90 million raised from crowdfunding from close to 1 million backers, Cloud Imperium Games’ Star Citizen has been under close scrutiny ever since its creator, Chris Roberts, first laid out the game’s colossal scope in 2012. Cloud Imperium has maintained a strict policy of transparency to ensure that backers can follow every step of the game’s development, but according to a recent report by The Escapist, things may not be going as smoothly as the studio claims.
According to anonymous Cloud Imperium employees speaking to The Escapist, the working environment for the Star Citizen team is toxic, and even the record breaking amount of money earned through crowdfunding may not be enough to accomplish the game’s epic scope.
“$90 million for what he’s pitching, even with a competent leadership, you couldn’t do,” one source said. “The thing you have to remember about Chris Roberts is that, before this, he hadn’t made a game in 12 years. He has no concept of what can and can’t be done today with that amount of money, or for a game like this. Chris Roberts hadn’t made a game in 12 years, and he was actively ignoring the input of people who have been in and a part of the industry that entire time.”
Cloud Imperium founder Chris Roberts responded to this claim, saying, “How do you or they know this? Which employees said this and what makes them qualified to make that judgement? … We always keep a healthy cash reserve and operate our business prudently based on the incoming revenue. It should tell you something that we are actually increasing our global headcount not decreasing it.”
Another source admitted that Roberts “doesn’t set out in the morning to screw anybody over. He’s just incredibly arrogant.”
A third source described the difficult working conditions at Cloud Imperium, saying, “It was by far the most toxic environment I have ever worked in. No one had clear direction about how to do their jobs well. No one was empowered to do their jobs well. Everything was second guessed, and the default reaction to everything was blame and yelling and emails with all capital letters and curse words.”
Several sources reported confrontations with Sandi Gardiner, Vice President of Marketing at Cloud Imperium and Roberts’ wife.
Roberts again responded to the accusations, saying, “All personnel and HR matters are obviously completely private and we can’t comment on this as a matter of principle. As always, there are two sides to each story.”
The report by The Escapist includes several more accusations by anonymous Cloud Imperium employees, as well as responses from Roberts. You can read the full report here.
Image credit: Cloud Imperium Games