CIG reels back Star Citizen’s roadmap because players ‘interpret anything on the release view as a promise’

    
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Yes, that headline is indeed a quote pull from CIG’s February 2022 roadmap roundup post for Star Citizen. The post announces that the game’s public roadmap – specifically the release view section – “will no longer show any deliverables in the Release View for any patches beyond the immediate one in the next quarter,” effectively cutting away future quarterly release cards because backers of the game were misconstruing the message according to the studio.

“It has become abundantly clear to us that despite our best efforts to communicate the fluidity of development, and how features marked as Tentative should sincerely not be relied upon, the general focus of many of our most passionate players has continued to lead them to interpret anything on the release view as a promise. We want to acknowledge that not all of you saw it that way; many took our new focus and our words to heart and understood exactly what we tried to convey. But there still remains a very loud contingent of roadmap watchers who see projections as promises. And their continued noise every time we shift deliverables has become a distraction both internally at CIG and within our community, as well as to prospective Star Citizen fans watching from the sidelines at our open development communications.”

As one might expect, the community reaction to this post has been extremely acerbic, as the front pages of the official forums and Reddit are literally awash with angry threads calling out the post’s communication, along with the usual sprinkling of memes, calls from within the community to not harass the rank-and-file devs, and even a post from a self-described white knight urging players to stop buying spaceships from the pledge store.

sources: official site (1, 2), official forums, Reddit, thanks to MothballShow, Mazty, Felix, Quavers, and everyone who sent in tips!
Longtime MMORPG gamers will know that Star Citizen was originally Kickstarted for over $2M back in 2012 with a planned launch for 2014. As of 2022, it still lingers in an incomplete but playable alpha, having raised over $400M from gamers over years of continuing crowdfunding and sales of in-game ships and other assets. It is currently the highest-crowdfunded video game ever and has endured both indefatigable loyalty from advocates and immense skepticism from critics. A co-developed single-player title, Squadron 42, has also been repeatedly delayed.
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