Some digital sleuthing has been occurring in the meantime, that has raised serious challenges to the credibility of the Escapist article.

Someone on Reddit found the apparent source for some of the quotes as being recent posts on Glassdoor Australia, which does not verify employment status. It develops further from there.

This opinion piece is a good place to start, for anyone who cares to look into that further:
http://totalgamingnetwork.com/entry.php?...-Imperium-Games

Also they claimed that they verified former employees by using pictures of their employee IDs which CIG refutes by saying they have never issued employee IDs at any of their offices.

(no idea if that is true or not?)

how do you get refunds?

Well, CIG is apparently using blank RFID cards of the sort which you can go and buy anywhere - so they're really not an ID proof of any kind.

But anyway, as I've said, there are plenty of things which I have disliked with Star Citizen (the concept ship sales, the feature creep before we get the basics, eg developping mini games for the passenger ship), BUT I'm not going to start paying attention to a rumour mill, which was first started by one of the worst trolls and cyber bully, and I would advise taking anything which came of this article or Derek Smart irrational campaign (he's been stating that he has evidence of wrong doing since July yet he never shows anything that makes sense). This is a credible as your average conspiracy theory on the net and it would pain me if that's all it takes to shoot down a crowdfunded project nowadays...

Email them through the site.

The first reply email went like this:


In order to move forward with the request as quickly as possible I just need to gather some information from you. Can you please provide as much as you can of the following information regarding your refund request:

The reasoning for your request in summary
Which pledges you would like refunding
Which pledges you would prefer to keep, if any
The total amount you anticipate
Your current PayPal e-mail address

Generally, we don't offer refunds outside of the 14-day grace period. Having said that, I am not dismissing your refund query as we like to consider each request on a case-by-case basis.

Additional information:

My manager will eventually have the final task of discussing the refund request with you. However, due to the large volume of tickets we are receiving at the moment there may be a considerable delay before he is able to respond. Rest assured that Patrick will respond as soon as he is able
If a refund is granted it will take 7-10 working days to appear on your statement
We cannot refund delivered Physical items
We cannot refund any and all subscription payments
We cannot refund any items that you have gifted to other users

Hmm that's me buggered then. I bought a package then gifted to a fellow SimHQ member who melted it into my desired package then it got gifted back to me.

Ohh well I guess I have learned a lesson.


The article may be bogus, but one thing is clear. CIG or RSI or whatever they call themselves have gone back on their word with LTI and are clearly money grabbing.

I guess I have to wait and see if I get to wear the "sucker for backing" hat or not. Only time will tell.

To be honest, my faith in this game diminished well before that article was released.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

Mine's on the way, 5-10 days thru paypal. I feel the same as you, I might back again once the dust settles, but it will only be the minimum package, and not the several hundred dollars I had in before.
It's not because of the escapist either, I jut think it's not going to be the game I originally backed.

They still haven't replied to my refund request ticket I submitted 7 days ago, maybe this Escapist article brought in a flood?

Some funny/interesting legal commentary on the situation here:

https://popehat.com/2015/10/04/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-threaten-lawsuits/

Ooo this is getting spicy. I'm sure some of this stuff is not true, but where there is smoke, there's fire.

The discontentment started long before which just opens them up to attacks later down the line by opportunistic sh!t stirrers like Derek Smart. Then Escapist article decided to jump in as well.

Maybe Chris Roberts ought to have managed public perceptions better instead of engaging so much on all his advertisement fluff.

Don't tell me that ya'll asking for a refund was a direct consequence of that "hit-piece" from the Escapist. You were already asking for the refund on your own accord without being prompted by any journalists....which in itself is somewhat of an indictment on the initial high confidence placed on Roberts, et al.

I asked before the s*it hit the fan. I bet CS are swamped now, and I certainly didn't get asked the questions in the post above as to why I wanted a refund.

Well, I have asked for my money back anyway.... Lets see what happens.

@ harry

No, this is not in relation to the article. I have had star citizen deleted from my machine must be close to or over a year. I really don't have any hopes for this game at present. I am seeing too much money grabbing and the LTI scandal, plus no actual interesting gameplay aside from hyped presentations.

I want to be wrong, and if I am I will pay full price for whatever it is to get back into the game. But as it stood a long time ago, it still stands the same today. And that isn't for me.

You can hack on D(ick) Head Smart all you want, and I personally think he is a waste of space from my interactions with him back in the days of the crappy something cruiser game. But Chris Roberts has not produced anything contrary to stick a big FU in the gob of Mr Smart and that worries me.

You can tell people weren't really convinced to start with, when they ask for refunds and completely lose any trust in a company over a smear campaign run by the most incompetent monkey, Derek Smart. He has it out for Star Citizen and these bait articles by The Escapist, which is a rubbish site to begin with I might add, are clearly just an elaborate attempt at stirring the pond by Derek.

This is the latest garbage Mr. Smart has released;

Anything to do with Derek smart will not work properly. Plain and simple. Delusions of grandeur and no talent to pull even a remote bit of it off.

I got Battlecruiser 3000AD free with a DVD drive, The DVD drive still works... but I was overcharged for the BC 3000 AD



On a similar note it was published in a German magazine today that Foundry 42 (Germany) just took out a 5year lease on their office space.

Original Article:
http://hessenschau.de/kultur/teile-des-videospiels-star-citizen-entstehen-in-frankfurt,neues-entwicklerstudio-in-frankfurt-100.html

Google Translate version:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhessenschau.de%2Fkultur%2Fteile-des-videospiels-star-citizen-entstehen-in-frankfurt%2Cneues-entwicklerstudio-in-frankfurt-100.html

Hmmm 5 year lease on a new building, they must be just about to release another concept ship with LTI ;-)

They are actually lol. They have the current one on sale till next monday and at citizen con they plan to sell a brand new never before shown military ship.

All the fanboi's are going *squeeeeeeeeeeee* on the official forums trying to figure out what ship it is. I just hope its a smaller cheaper ship...

Derek Smart is a douche, I remember him from the days he trolled USENET and I wouldn't put much weight on what he says, but he seems to have gotten the attention he seeks with his trolling of SC.

I've been unhappy with how long SC is taking and have wanted a refund for a while because it's giving me a bad attitude about SC... but I didn't know it was possible until Raw posted his refund success story here, and then I requested it same day, the Escapist stuff broke the following few days.

BTW I've gotten a similar bad attitude about ED recently when I found out the first expansion will cost me another $60 on top of the $75 I already paid them to be an early beta tester of their shallow at launch game.

At this point I think I'm going to give up on space games, that makes 3 recent space games I stupidly bought into early only to regret later (XRebirth, SC, ED), 3 strikes and I'm out, I'll wait for these things to show up on Steam sales from now on.

Interestingly since the escapist article funding has risen 10x the normal amount. Guess what they say is true. There is no such thing as bad publicity.