Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been reporting on an apparent wave of layoffs at Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games, starting first with the sandbox’s game director followed by revelations of other lead devs being handed pink slips. CIG has now finally elected to issue a statement to GIbiz, officially confirming what most followers of the project suspected.
“Now that we are back in office and seeing the progress and quality of work when our teams are in-person working together, we have decided to co-locate as much development as possible, which has resulted in some minor staffing changes as we move some development positions closer to their core teams,” reads the statement from CIG. “As a result of this consolidation, a small number of positions were eliminated and we continue to recruit for key roles within the company.”
The location of these “core” teams was not specified, but the prevailing assumption has been workers were being told to move to CIG’s new Manchester, UK, office complex.
The statement notes this as “part of [the studio’s] normal processes” in which it “regularly [looks] for ways to make [its] operations more efficient.” Readers may recall that some workers saw the matter differently; former Turbulent producer Annie Bouffard characterized the move as “a mass dismissal, disguised as a ‘relocation of staff’ (when very few could/wanted to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice).”
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