Star Citizen "Pay-To-Win" Ship Upgrades Cause Fan Revolt

Star Citizen, the spaceship-combat game with a never-ending crowdfunding campaign, is currently undergoing a wave of backlash from players. Developer Cloud Imperium Games recently rolled out components that improve ship movement that were originally exclusive to the real-money store--a change that has caused fans to revolt.

As reported by PC Gamer, CIG's addition of flight blades in a recent update, which improve ship maneuverability or speed, has caused significant anger among the community. The particular issue at hand here is that CIG rolled these out only to the Star Citizen Pledge Store, where the studio sells in-game items like ships, cosmetics, and upgrades.

Selling an item like flight blades isn't on its own unusual--the pledge store is a core method that CIG crowdfunds its game. However, Star Citizen has long had a norm of allowing players to purchase upgrades either with real money or with in-game currency (called aUEC). While the studio promised that they would be made purchasable by in-game currency later in the summer, they were launched early to players willing to shell out cash. Gating the flight blades exclusively behind a real-money paywall struck many fans as a bridge too far. The Star Citizen forum thread announcing the flight blades has accumulated over 2,000 replies, way more than the average thread, and most of these are quite negative.

"Selling performance altering modules and keeping them locked behind this paywall even for a short period is still the definition of pay to win and not ok CIG," the top-voted comment from user Vraxer declared. User Morphologis wrote, "So if we're now separating out new features into sellable website commodities, where does this go next? Exclusive Jump Gate keys to Nyx 3 months early? Special exclusive new mission coordinate keys? This is a step too far."

The fan revolt came so quickly and with such intensity that CIG had to post a revision of its approach to flight blades. In this new thread, which itself has garnered over 1,100 replies and a huge number of negative reactions, the studio admitted that it had "missed a step" due to "moving faster than ever" to complete a packed docket of game updates this year. Instead of launching them into timed exclusivity to the pledge store, CIG stated that it would delay the release of the components until later in the summer and launch them simultaneously for both real money and in-game currency. CIG also committed to concurrent releases in the future, stating, "For future gameplay kit introductions, we’ll ensure these items are obtainable in-game on day one."

Perhaps not surprisingly, this slight backtrack has not calmed the frustration of Star Citizen players. Many of whom have continued to express dismay and anger at the expansion of components for sale that are seen as "pay to win"--that is, components that significantly improve or otherwise alter the behavior of ships in normal gameplay situations. As the top-voted poster, SaltEMike, wrote, "This is a bandaid to calm people down, but the root issue here is that you continue to sell more and more items in the game that have a wider impact on what a player would do day to day."

Part of the reason why this change has caused such ire among fans is likely that Star Citizen has raised a tremendous amount of money from early adopters since it began its crowdfunding campaign back in 2013. According to its own website, CIG has brought in well over $800 million, an astonishing sum for a game that is still technically in early access. Correspondingly, Star Citizen is considered one of the most expensive games ever made.

However, despite the game's astronomical price tag, CIG has had a rocky track record of development practices. Last year, reports claimed that employees at CIG were being forced to work brutally long hours and crunch seven days per week on the game and its first-person shooter spinoff, Squadron 42.