The developer of the popular Star Citizen Game have announced to fans a change in their ‘Roadmap Reveal’ system following claims about fans.
Cloud Imperium Games has been working on Star Citizen for almost ten years. As a development team, they have always been as upfront as they could have been in regards to the development of Star Citizen, and many of the game’s fans have been patiently waiting for the game’s true release after these ten years of waiting.
However, in a recent blog post, Star Citizen developers expressed discomfort about the ‘Roadmap Reveal’ system that was implemented, in which the developers would provide behind-the-scenes looks at the development process. This all seemed well and good, but it seems the developers made many mistakes with this system.
The primary goal of the roadmap was said to be able to “Show players how fluid game development is.” However, this seems to have backfired, as players have seen potential deliverables in the public roadmap and presumed that they were final features that would be implemented, which was not the intention of the developers when the process started.
Later in the post, it is stated that there was still a “very loud contingent of Roadmap watchers who saw projections as promises.” They further stated that “their continued noise every time we shift deliverables has become a distraction both internally at CIG and within our community.” Due to these issues, they stated that the roadmap would no longer continue and the only thing players would see would be deliverables that would arrive in future updates, claiming that “we feel now that it’s better to just not put a deliverable on Release View until we can truly commit to it.”
This statement is understandable. Game Development is not a straight line, especially for games such as Star Citizen that have high ambitions. The number of ideas that are probably flung around their offices is no doubt ludicrously high as they express what the future of the game should be. It is undeniable then, that the developers are becoming “distracted” as showing behind the scenes of a game still in development will, in truth, mean fans will latch onto any news they can get.
However, in a similar vein, calling your fans “loud” and a “distraction” isn’t going to win Cloud Imperium any points in the eyes of the fans, especially considering many of these players have been supporting the game for almost a full decade now. One fan posted this on Twitter:
Ultimately, it’s Cloud Imperium’s decision in regards to the roadmap, so unfortunately, regardless of whatever the fanbase wishes, this is what Cloud Imperium has decided to do. Later in the blog post, it was stated that the “Core gameplay pillar” has been moved to focus exclusively on Squadron 42, another big game in development over at Cloud Imperium. How this will affect the Star Citizen team is yet to be determined, but the excitement for both of these games is palpable as large communities have sprouted up to support both of these colossal projects. We can only hope that soon the fan’s faith does indeed truly pay off.
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