Cloud Imperium Games, the developer of Star Citizen, has mandated its developers to work seven days a week to meet deadlines for Citizencon on October 19th.
Star Citizen has Deadlines? Since when?
Since the 2014 release date.
I would have said I can’t be any more disappointed with this company, wow.
An internal email sent to staff yesterday states that the company needs to “double down over the next 18 days to make sure that once again we create an amazing experience for our community.” This includes finalizing patch 3.24.2 for Star Citizen and having a Squadron 42 demo showcase for Chapter 1.
I’d probably be so inclined to just call in sick every weekend or something. Unless the employees have really been slacking and have no right, I’d not bother with doubling down.
Sounds a lot like my previous jobs where the boss would sometimes tell us to “make a career” for ourselves by working overtime, and ask us to give our absolute 200%, stating how much the clients pay “us” for some big project and how we should really give our absolute best (despite management often briefing us waayyy too late on projects and deadlines), telling us to never have a 9 to 5 mentality, yadda yadda. But never actually bothered to reflect this in our salaries whenever we did put the extra effort in. (And the occasional company pizza slice doesn’t count as a reward)
It never mattered how much effort we put into something, it just meant that the next day the next thing would just pop-up and expectation became we kept putting that 200% into every project. Morale often just dropped to absolute zero around the place. Especially when after all that the boss shows up in his brand spanking new car, while telling us we should be happy to have a job, and even telling everyone they’re replaceable.
Star Citizen feels like it’s exactly this kind of work ethics. Now they gotta put in the extra work to be ready for their next big presentation. But after that it’s probably the same song until the next one all over again.
I’m guessing the top management didn’t learn that crunch is perceived negatively and doesn’t always yield quality results. I’m so glad I never backed this game all those years ago.
I’m sure this will do wonders for morale. Are they paying people overtime for these extra days or is it free labor demanded based on unrealistic deadlines? Nope… just time off.
I’m sure that this will result in some highly innovative and top notch updates. Star Citizen will surely be the greatest game ever. One day. After the last star has blinked out of existence.
They are not paying directly. As per the article you can get additional PTO days in the future, albeit only after Squadron 42 is released (whenever that’s going to happen) and if you are still with the company.
A pretty sketchy approach.
Should be time and a half or double… even if pto…
Agreed, but this is Star Citizen, even from a neutral perspective; a pretty sketchy project run by a sketchy organization (CIG).
EDIT: Clarification
Yeah, agreed. When the game was in its initial round of getting money I spent some money on it, knowing it was a bet. Since then the drama has unfolded and I’m just very interested in how it will unfold.
Since then I have not stopped spending money on some select early access, but simply from the perspective that I’ll sponsor development and hope it goes somewhere. I’ll even sometimes try and give feedback, although nowadays a lot is in discord… and I refuse to yell into that void.
Back to the topic… It’s silly that a company like this still ends up in time crunch before an annual event they plan themselves… and the shadiness of giving pto only after launch and if you are with the company. Hell then they should give pto then and equity now… they are requiring their staff to invest in the company and offering 1:1 pto in compensation… that’s not compensation… that’s theft… as time in the future is less valuable than time now.
Star Citizen and Squadron 42 are the games. Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) is the organization. It also operates as Roberts Space Industries (RSI) but that’s primarily a marketing arm.
The time off should be well over the amount of extra weekend time, to account for the nonlinear negative effects of going 14 days on.
Like each weekend worked should yield a week of PTO.
And it should be an optional trade.
Sooo 4.0 not this year then? 😂
I lost interest in this game. Will check it out again if they come with a beta before I retire.
I tried to check in last week. My computer made it one hour before shutting down due to heat. It runs everything else just fine. I can’t be interested if I can’t even play the game.
Are they just cruel for fun? Do they think that out of all the gaming communities out there this community expects deadlines to be kept? If you opted into SC then you surely don‘t mind waiting, no? Or maybe it‘s got nothing to do with customers and it‘s corporate speak and about fucking investors, Idk.
It’s investors for sure. Customer-focused companies don’t have this level of delusion in their management.
with staff receiving company TOIL (time off in lieu)
I like their self-aware acronym there.
This is a very common term. I encountered it back home in Canada frequently, and just as much here in the UK.
What does it mean? They get vacation days equal to the weekends they put in?
wow my dyslexia had a field day with that title. I was very curious what “Senior Citizens Develop Could Emporium” meant
I hope they just don’t show up on weekends.
The Crobler strikes again!
