Star Citizen Alpha 4.0 By End Of Year & Are CIG Having MASS LAYOFFS!?
Welcome to some more Star Citizen and that juicy drama.
I saw some posts and Videos on CIG laying off staff and downsizing which I want to delve into, SC Leaks suggesting Alpha 4.0 is still planned for later this year and a nameless couple of CIG Sources that I talked to about those topics.
SC Leaks Summary
Alpha 4.0 is apparently on track for End Of Year at least in some form of Test or PTU. This should include both Pyro & Server Meshing.
Meshing has been in active testing for months. Mostly focused on client crash handling, server crash fixes, and friend list issues.
Pyro is almost done, will probably get a “feature complete” announcement at Citcon
They also recounted a question from the Shanghai Bar Citizen earlier in the year:
What can we expect from version 4.0?
“We’re holding a lot of details about 4.0 ’til CitizenCon, since CitizenCon will mainly be focused on cool things in 4.0 as well as some other things. However 4.0 will definitely include the first version of Server Meshing as well as travel to other systems and other things too but I think Tyler or Jared will shoot me if I say too much.”
Make of those leaks and rumors what you will…
Are CIG doing large scale Layoffs And Downsizing?
We had a now Ex-Embedded QA and Jr Designer from CIG’s Austin Stuido on Linked in making a post:
There were a few CIG employees responding with messages of support for the employee and shock at him being laid off.
And another saying You too? You don’t deserve this.
People speculated that they had also been laid off… but they had actually left CIG in 2022…
SC Leaks Reported:
In case you’re wondering how the PU team is doing – it’s been reduced so much that we have single digit teams of single developer disciplines doing the work of… well at this point the entirety of a level design team for one example. Shit’s going to a stand still outside of maintenance to heavily prioritise S42.
It’s going to get worse in this regard. This is me warning you to not count on anything PU related apart from potentially a Pyro content drop until the full release of Squadron 42: Episode 1.
My Sources
I reached out to my sources and they didn’t seem to know much about it. And said they are much more focused on hiring and expanding but always look to make sure that employees are a right fit for the company.
They suggested a few things it might be something specifically affecting their Austin Studio (potentially the least viable studio now) and maybe they want to focus it on certain disciplines. I think the UK is super cheap wage and labour wise.
Potentially it’s issues with Working From Home Vs Office… they were expecting some staff to not want to come back to the office at all.
It might be more focused on QA / Embedded QA at the Austin Studio OR some redundant Jr Positions.
CIG are trying to be more efficient with Testing, PTU waves, evocati etc… but QA is still incredibly important.
Yes a huge portion of resources are focused on SQ42 episode 1 but also a huge amount of things that are used for both games like Master Modes, Resource Management etc…
And there are still various dedicated teams for PU elements beyond just SM & Pyro.
Thoughts
There just isn’t any evidence beyond a single QA / Jr Designer…
There is the potential that Ex-Employees have an NDA so can’t talk about it.
I haven’t heard of any “layoffs” from CIG out of the norm.
This to me looks like it’s probably standard efficiency stuff.
Though maybe CI are trying to recruit more to the Offices in Montreal, UK and Frankfurt.
I do think CIG may have a problem attracting and keeping quite so much talent as they want to… as they are trying to grow a studio in an age where people all want to work from home and they would prefer them at the office.
Also wages aren’t great and there is a cost of living crisis which doesn’t help!