Star Citizen Employees Reportedly Mandated to Work Seven Days a Week to Meet Citizencon Deadlines |

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Star Citizen Employees Reportedly Mandated to Work Seven Days a Week to Meet Citizencon Deadlines | MMORPG.com

A report claims that Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is mandating a seven day work week to meet Citizencon deadlines.

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ZenJelly

This isn't unusual and this isn't news. It's manufactured outrage.

Angrakhan

A better question to ask is why is this team so slow? I mean holy cow this game has been in development how long and they're still in alpha? I'm not surprised they're being asked to put in overtime. If they could get stuff done in a reasonable amount of time then they wouldn't be in crunch mode to hit Citizen Con. This game should have been out the door a couple of years ago and they should be working on their first expansion, and they're still in alpha.

Forgive me if I don't hop on the outrage train with everyone else.

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viney123

Why do they even have cons for an alpha/demo of the game? It's now the most expensive game ever being made, taking over 10 years of non-stop development with no end in sight. When it does eventually release, which I highly doubt it will, it'll still be a niche game for a limited audience. By the time it releases, technology will have already well surpassed what it was using to make it, unless it changes entire engines every few years which just adds years more to the development time.

There's a reason it's still in Alpha after over 10-14 years. Because the game is never going to release.

Scot

"Employees would receive TOIL (time off in lieu) that can be used later on." So the day after Sqn 42 ships you take that leave, it is not exactly a hardship.

MaxBacon

ZenJelly said:

This isn't unusual and this isn't news. It's manufactured outrage.

Yep, I was on a stream days ago with CIG developers kinda venting about the article going all "doom and gloom" about this 



citizencon is also a morale boost for the developers themselves, announce and show their stuff on to the players and such, so that crunch has its momentum I'd say. Especially the SP Campaign that's deff the focus of this year's event.

Vrika

ZenJelly said:

This isn't unusual and this isn't news. It's manufactured outrage.

I think the TOIL itself isn't really newsworthy, but the condition that they're only given free time back after SQ 42 has launched is.

Either it means they're launching SQ 42 before next summer, or it means they've got an inept manager making a lot of their employees really unhappy with them.

Lark3m

Scot said:

"Employees would receive TOIL (time off in lieu) that can be used later on." So the day after Sqn 42 ships you take that leave, it is not exactly a hardship.

Don't forget about the inevitable launch day bugfest/server crashes

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Wargfoot

Please note the difference between detractors (I have been waiting 10 years to get the ship I paid for) and haters (the people who make a big deal out of TOIL).

Scot

Lark3m said:

Scot said:

"Employees would receive TOIL (time off in lieu) that can be used later on." So the day after Sqn 42 ships you take that leave, it is not exactly a hardship.

Don't forget about the inevitable launch day bugfest/server crashes

And the invertible layoffs down the line when the game is no longer in full development mode. As long as those guys get all their holiday before that happens I see no issue.

Arglebargle

The funny part is TOIL not usable until the game ships (and you have to still be there).  Given CIGs record for speedy development and up to date releases? 

Pretty sure that sort of schtick is probably illegal in some parts of the world. Don't know about England or Germany.

olepi

You have to work 7 days a week and won't get overtime pay (that's illegal for any hourly employees) and will get to take equivalent time off after they release.

After they release?? Are you f'ing kidding me?!??! Does anybody really believe that they will officially release anything? Ever??

They don't even have a roadmap with a release on it. Based on their previous history, they'll stay in "alpha" forever and the employees owed time off will never get it since nothing is ever released. 

Typical CIG.

MaxBacon

olepi said:

They don't even have a roadmap with a release on it. Based on their previous history, they'll stay in "alpha" forever and the employees owed time off will never get it since nothing is ever released. 

Very much a given that this Citizencon in 2 weeks is focusing SQ42, it is expected that not only the game will once again be sold (it's hasn't been up for sale for almost 2 years If I recall right), that they'll also announce its release date. It's been I think 7 years that they went full silence and haven't mentioned any date or estimate since.

olepi

MaxBacon said:

olepi said:

They don't even have a roadmap with a release on it. Based on their previous history, they'll stay in "alpha" forever and the employees owed time off will never get it since nothing is ever released. 

Very much a given that this Citizencon in 2 weeks is focusing SQ42, it is expected that not only the game will once again be sold (it's hasn't been up for sale for almost 2 years I think), that they'll also announce its release date. It's been I think 7 years that they went full silence and haven't mentioned any date or estimate since.

In other words, there is no evidence that they are going to release anything anytime. It has been "expected" that they will release a game for years, almost a decade now.

I'll gladly eat my hat if they actually officially release anything in the next year or two.

Why not pay their employees? Why not give them the time off after the con is over? Why predicate the time off on something that CIG has never done?

Doesn't pass the smell test.

I've been in crunch mode many times. I've worked weeks in a row with no time off. But we always got our time when the project was done, and our projects always got done. CIG's projects never get done.

MaxBacon

olepi said:

In other words, there is no evidence that they are going to release anything anytime. It has been "expected" that they will release a game for years, almost a decade now.

I'll gladly eat my hat if they actually officially release anything in the next year or two.

Why not pay their employees? Why not give them the time off after the con is over? Why predicate the time off on something that CIG has never done?

Doesn't pass the smell test.

What you just said yourself points more that SQ42 is a sooner, rather than a later.

1) It more feels to me that SQ42 had faced MAJOR reworks, in all these years it was kept under wraps, the campaign's return last year announcing feature complete hinting they were finally done with big reworks and moved towards content-complete.

2) Doing a big marketing push now for the campaign after 7 years of mostly silence, after almost 2 years of the game being pulled from sale. To me points that they are locked in on its release milestone, and decisions are made that now is the time to start promoting it.

3) The TOIL thing also points to me that SQ42 is a sooner rather than later, seeing that is the milestone that has to be achieved, the developers working on it may be about to deal (or already are) with an imposing deadline, which wouldn't surprise me if we start hearing about more frequent crunch to get it done in time (this can also be financially motivated because of the known terms with their investors too).

4) They started talking about Star Citizen 1.0 last year, and continue doing so, despite this I don't think anyone expects 1.0 is not still years away even if they tried their hardest, but SQ42 is another story as it was always meant to release first and being a far more linear game and not even close to the challenge that'd be getting SC to a polished and optimized state.


I don't find logic on this saying "CIG has never released a game so why would they release one now", sooner or later it'd have to happen. I find more logic on the combination of things that are: a game resurfacing of what probably was years in development hell, together with a big marketing push being done for it with the game starting pre-orders, and news of SQ42 developers starting to be asked to double down, pointing towards an imposing deadline.

vanderghast

this "game" is a joke at this point. Biggest vaporware since duke nukem forever. Give them another 10 years and they MIGHT hit beta.

Xiaoki

vanderghast said:

this "game" is a joke at this point. Biggest vaporware since duke nukem forever. Give them another 10 years and they MIGHT hit beta.

They dont have another 10 years.

Im sure something big for Squadron 42 will be announced at CitizenCon, not because its ready to be released but because they are running out of time.

Not all of the money that CIG has gotten was from fans, they have real investors that put up tens of millions and theres a soft deadline for returns and a hard deadline.

If there isnt a big announcement the Calder brothers might get cold feet and exercise their put option, which means that CIG would have to pay them $115 million by March of next year. If they dont exercise by March then the hard deadline is March 2028 when they will have to pay $130 million to the Calder brothers and Eli Klein.

Wargfoot

I may or may not have heard a rumor that not only do the developers work 7 days a week but any of them with children are expected to have the children working 10 hr. days making official Star Citizen merchandise.

Those sunglasses and fanny packs won't make themselves.

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GrindcoreTHRALL

Crunch time baby. I don't see any problem here.

niceguy3978

Isn't "crunch time" usually for when the game is about to launch to keep it on schedule to meet that deadline? This is crunch to make sure you can have a demo for a convention. Weird.

Kyleran

I'm buying the limited  edition SQ42 ULTIMATE Commander pre-order pack as soon as it's available, heard it will be a total steal at $499, but only if you act as soon as they go on sale, price goes up after the first round are gone.

Babuinix

vanderghast said:

this "game" is a joke at this point. Biggest vaporware since duke nukem forever. Give them another 10 years and they MIGHT hit beta.

The Many-Vaporware-Game of many ugly faces and hairdos 

Arglebargle

My Origin buddies said that prepping for a convention demo killed about a month of actual game development.  Consider how much running a full custom convention could do. 

On the other hand, it is always a marketing extravaganza for them, and they have to tread that water or sink.  

Or maybe get taken over by the Calders.  Best Case Scenario.