Star Citizen

Star Citizen, a crowdfunded space simulation game, has sold numerous digital products and features since 2012 that remain undelivered as of 2024. Key items include ships costing hundreds of dollars, a modding platform, and private server capabilities, pets, and much more, all of which continue to be marketed and sold despite no implementation timeline.

Star Citizen

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Basic Information
Release Year	2012-present
Product Type	Digital Game Content
In Production	Yes
Official Website	https://robertsspaceindustries.com/

Background

Star Citizen began as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 by Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander. The project promised a combination of space combat, trading, and exploration alongside a single-player campaign called Squadron 42. The campaign raised $2.1 million initially, with total crowdfunding exceeding $600 million by 2024 through continuous sales of digital ships and game packages.

Undelivered Product Sales

Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) has maintained a practice of selling digital products years before implementation under the guise of calling it a 'concept', with several items or 'pledges' remaining undelivered after a decade:

Ships and Vehicles

• Idris-M: Originally sold in 2012 for $1,000, military variant, undelivered.
• Idris-P: Civilian variant sold since 2012 for $1,250, price increased to $1,500, remains undelivered.
• Banu Merchantman|Merchantman: First sold in 2013 for $250 (original concept sale), currently priced at $600.
• Orion: First sold in 2014 for $325 (original concept sale), industrial mining vessel remains undelivered, current price $575.
• Genesis Starliner: Sold in 2015 for $400 (original concept sale), passenger transport remains undelivered.
• Endeavor: Made available in 2015 for $350 (original concept sale), limited availability since with price increases.
• Hull D: Sold since 2015 for $350 (original concept sale), price increased in subsequent sales.
• Hull E: Offered in 2015 for $550 (original concept sale), increased to $950 in later sales.
• Crucible: Sold in 2015 for $350 (original concept sale), repair ship remains undelivered.
• Pioneer: Marketed in 2017 for $850 (original concept sale), base-building vessel remains in concept phase
• Drake Kraken: First sold in 2018 for $1,400 (original concept sale), capital ship with privateer variant sold for $2,000, remains undelivered.

Note: All listed vessels have been sold multiple times since their original concept sales, often at increased prices. Many remain in concept phase or early development despite years passing since initial sales.

Consumer Protection Concerns

The practice of selling digital products years before implementation has raised significant consumer protection concerns. Despite marketing these items as 'pledges' or 'concepts', CIG continues to charge real money for digital goods with no firm delivery timeline or guarantee of implementation. The company's terms of service have been modified multiple times since 2012, changing the conditions under which refunds are offered and altering customer rights regarding purchased content. Many backers who attempted to obtain refunds for undelivered products have reported difficulties, with CIG often citing their evolving terms of service as justification for denial. The lack of concrete development schedules for sold items, combined with regular price increases for unreleased content, has led to criticism from consumer advocacy groups and gaming industry observers. Additionally, the practice of artificial scarcity through "limited-time sales" of digital products that don't yet exist has been questioned as potentially misleading marketing.

Development Status Contradictions

A notable point of controversy surrounds CIG's inconsistent messaging regarding Star Citizen's development status. When players report persistent bugs, server issues, or gameplay problems, CIG and community moderators frequently emphasize the game's "alpha" status as justification for these issues, suggesting the project is still in early development. However, when faced with questions about delayed delivery of promised features or criticism of continuous sales practices, the company often presents Star Citizen as a delivered, playable product that is simply receiving ongoing development. This contradiction has been particularly evident in legal contexts, where CIG has defended against refund requests by asserting that the base game has been "delivered" to backers, while simultaneously using the alpha designation to deflect criticism about long-standing technical issues and missing core gameplay features promised in the original crowdfunding campaign. The dual narrative has led to growing skepticism within the gaming community about the project's actual development status and CIG's transparency regarding project completion criteria.

Development Communication Issues

Squadron 42's "Answer the Call 2017" marketing campaign ended in failure when CIG did not deliver the promised single-player campaign, despite extensive marketing featuring a star-studded cast including Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, and Gillian Anderson. Following community backlash over the missed release, CIG announced plans for a new project roadmap in late 2017. However, this evolved into what became known as the "Roadmap to the Roadmap," with a release view being finally available in March of 2018. When finally delivered, the new roadmap consistently showed missed deadlines and delayed features. Rather than address these delays, CIG ultimately discontinued much of the roadmap's progress tracker in February 2022, dismissively labeling concerned backers as "roadmap watchers" and claiming that showing development progress "puts too much attention on features that had a high probability of shifting around" and was "a distraction both internally at CIG and within the community". This marked a significant departure from their previous promises of transparency and was met with substantial community backlash, particularly from backers who had used the roadmap to track progress on features they had purchased years earlier.

Consumer Response

The prolonged development timeline and sales practices have led to organized consumer response movements, notably the /r/starcitizen_refunds subreddit community with over 18,000 members.. This subreddit serves as a platform for dissatisfied backers seeking refunds, documenting development delays, and tracking changes to terms of service that affect consumer rights. Discussion of these issues on official channels is heavily restricted, with CIG's Spectrum forum rules explicitly prohibiting posts deemed to spread "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" (FUD) and the discussion of support tickets / moderation decisions.

While unofficial communities like the /r/starcitizen subreddit and Discord server exist, these spaces are heavily moderated to prevent discussion of negative sentiment due to strong ties between their moderators and Cloud Imperium Games employees. As a result, /r/starcitizen_refunds has become the primary platform for maintaining records of unfulfilled promises and providing guidance for others seeking refunds.

Ingame Moderation Inconsistencies

The moderation practices of Cloud Imperium have drawn criticism for inconsistent and opaque enforcement. Users can receiving bans for "excessive griefing" despite this term having no defined parameters in either the Terms of Service or Rules of Conduct documentation. Users receive these bans without stated reasons, requiring them to file support tickets to learn of their alleged infractions. This lack of transparency and disconnect between written policies and enforcement has created significant uncertainty about what constitutes acceptable behavior.

Star Citizen's Persistent Universe or PU for short is an open sandbox that allows players to engage in PVP activities such as Piracy and Bounty Hunting yet activity participating in these activities could lead a player to being banned for 'excessively' engaging in this activity under the guise of it being 'harassment' to do so.