Are you among those fed up that Star Citizen can sell concept ships — internet spaceships that haven’t even materialized in the game yet but can still be sold for hundreds of dollars — with no recourse? You’re not alone, even among backers of the game, apparently. One Redditor by the name of Mazty received an email advertisement alerting him that one of these concept ships — the Gatac Railen — would be leaving the pledge store soon, which was apparently the final straw for this particular backer.
“Fed up of CIG and the constant lies, I reported their Gatac Railen ship email as being misleading to consumers to the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) as there is no mention that the ship does not exist and might never exist.”
Sure enough, the ASA replied back agreeing that CIG’s email was indeed misleading, that it went against the UK’s Advertising Code of Practice, and that CIG would be informed of their malfeasance. In response, CIG has now put some legal copy at the end of its email, outlining in fine print that concept ships aren’t in-game yet, noting that pricing may change and features like lifetime insurance or other extras may not be available later, and explaining that concept ship sales fund Star Citizen’s development.
So this hasn’t really stopped CIG’s sale of concept ships, just forced its legal team to do a bit more work while also keeping backers informed and not misled. Swings and roundabouts.
