While Star Citizen is making sure it keeps excitement up for CitizenCon 2024, behind the scenes the devs at CIG are being crunched to make it happen. Internal memos shared with Insider Gaming confirm that the studio is mandating overtime work for the next two weekends “to make sure that once again [the studio can] create an amazing experience for [its] community.”
The mandate states that employees must come into the office on the next two Fridays and Saturdays (October 4th, 5th, 11th, and 12th), and then can elect to work from home on the following two Sundays (the 6th and the 13th), though management “encourages” employees to come to the office then too – the studio is even offering breakfast and lunch at the office as enticement for in-office work.
To further add insult to this forced overtime, CIG will be offering time off in lieu (TOIL), which basically means that employees are not actually getting overtime pay and will instead collect extra time off that can be used later. This use of TOIL has been leveraged by CIG before, as the studio also “pre-approved” 12 hours of TOIL per week for developers to meet Squadron 42 CitizenCon deadlines according to a July memo, but employees will be awarded those hours of vacation time only if they’re still employed by the time the single-player game launches; otherwise those earned hours are forfeited.
Insider Gaming reached out to CIG to confirm the content of the internal emails, and it reports back that it “received acknowledgment but no comment on the matter.” Minutes later, another internal memo was sent to the site that states employees who are being crushed for the next two weekends will get Monday, October 21st, off. “This hopefully will give a little break for everyone to rest after our long Citizencon weekend and the drive towards it,” the memo is quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, CIG has put forth its annual Halloween event with masks to find and a coin to earn for Arena Commander kills, and its September dev report is live with progress details for ship malfunctions, tools for creating NPC AI, and streamlining of mission systems, among other tasks.
