Cloud Imperium quietly steal Star Citizen developers' weekends from under them with mandated overtime in the lead up to Citizencon

It's the “latest in a slew of ridiculous requirements," says report

Any plans for the weekend, Star Citizen developer? Had a dog walk planned, did you? Nice little roast dinner? With the gravy? Spoon of mint sauce on the lamb, eh? Bit of pudding afterwards? Lovely little slice of pud? Lol. Lmao. No you didn’t. You absolutely did not, says Cloud Imperium. According to internal memos obtained by Insider Gaming, the Manchester (game?) studio have mandated its workers to pull two seven day weeks in the leadup to Citizencon on October 19th.

Via Insider Gaming, the memo contained a mandate to "double down over the next 18 days to make sure that once again we create an amazing experience for our community. This means for the next two weekends we will be mandating extra time for all those working on deliverables for Citcon."

From the report:

All staff are to be in the office on Friday, October 4th and Friday, October 11th (typically a work-at-home day)

All staff are to be in the office on Saturday, October 5th, and Saturday, October 12th (for these days, the company will provide breakfast and lunch, with staff receiving company TOIL (time off in lieu) which can be stored and used for time off at a later date

All staff are to work on Sunday, October 6th, and Sunday, October 13th (this can be a work-at-home day, but the company "encourages" people to be in the office. For these days and for those in the office, the company will provide breakfast and lunch, with staff receiving company TOIL, which can be stored and used for time off at a later date.

IG describe the mandate as "latest in a slew of ridiculous requirements" arising from "mismanagement". Where this gets especially dodgy is that, as per another memo obtained by IG, said TOIL - effectively working overtime for the promise of commensurate time off in the future - will only be made available after the release of Squadron 42. The single player component of Star Citizen was apparently feature-complete as of last year’s Citizencon, but no release date has currently been confirmed. Star Citizen as a whole has been in production since 2011 - game development is an uneven process, but requiring staff to crunch at this stage seems borderline insulting.

The additional kick in belly is that "employees must still be employed with the company by the time the game ships, or the TOIL "will be forfeited." Cloud Imperium staff were hit with layoffs this February coinciding with an internally controversial relocation, including game director Todd Papy and lead designer Dane Kubicka. Back in July, Edwin reported on a senior programmer awarded £27,748 by a UK employment tribunal in a discrimination case. Paul Ah-Thion, who is autistic, was let go in 2022 after his work from home requests were denied.

As of this May, Star Citizen has raised over $700 million in crowd-funding. Wing Commander 3: Heart Of The Tiger is under a fiver on GOG, and you get to fly the spaceships and everything.