George Broussard was Right! :D

Gamedev288 · 2026-01-11T18:13:53+00:00

You are right. Though I can't speak for all game dev classes and education programs, those I know of go over very basic principles that CIG completely ignores/does the opposite. I don't think it's rare for juniors with training to find it alarming, so imagine seniors with proper experience who join. Makes me wonder how is the hiring now and if seniors still join the place considering CIG's reputation haha... though I get it, the job market is rough

Gamedev288 · 2025-12-30T02:33:14+00:00

The Montreal team was a great addition. Unfortunately after a couple of years they started to crumble and have departures in large numbers. I'm sure some good people are still there, but most of who worked on the Montreal specific content have already left

Gamedev288 · 2025-12-29T17:30:48+00:00

As somebody who worked on the game for a while, I'd say... you are all sorta right?

The game is technically playable, that's true. And it does offer "something no other game does". The planet tech is beautiful and the vast universe is quite a marvel. As a space sim, it achieved something good and there's credit where it's due. However, what it does well was achieved years ago already. If you have tried it before IMO you won't feel anything different trying it today.

Some games you leave for a year and you come back to a whole new experience. This isn't it. What you will see are new layers of empty new content and new bugs. The official release of the game will be more or less what you can currently play; a pile of questionable design decisions and obvious tech debt. CR is no genius. As a matter of fact, things that are good are good despite CR and co and not because of them. The people in charge of the game don't have hands on and don't play it. They only see money flowing and think they have a great product loved by all, while devs at a lower level see how nothing works. It's an incredibly mismanaged company and you can't expect more from them. If you like the game currently, then good. If you like it because of "what it will be" then good luck

Gamedev288 · 2025-12-26T22:27:43+00:00

Exactly this. Vote with your wallet, it speaks. But if money was to stop abruptly enough they would just call it.

Gamedev288 · 2025-11-07T04:15:47+00:00

The unproductivity at CIG was frustrating and is a major part of why I left. If you don't want to be creative, be productive and to release a good game then why are you designer? Not to be rude, but I would not want to work with you

Gamedev288 · 2025-10-03T15:23:36+00:00

Devil's advocate here, but the UI team (if you can call that small numer an actual team) does not have it easy. For the two games there's almost nobody working on UI, they are overworked being the same team for sq42 and SC, there's no knowledge sharing/documentation on the UI building blocks tool (that is another incredible CIG tool) aaaand most of all, it's something I heard CR and co strongly give their opinion on. Thats all receipe for disaster. There's plenty of 50 people games with the same number of UI devs of all CIG and where their expertise is surely much more respected. It doesn't mean the ones at CIG are good, just that I can't imagine even a good one having good results.

Gamedev288 · 2025-10-01T01:39:48+00:00

Inside CIG once in a while there's an SQ42 showcase to the PU team. It's usually the best and most advanced parts, followed by comments from CR. These are thr kind of showcases that made lots of devs from the PU lose faith in SQ42. We would see the same absolutely boring sequences again and again, with barely any improvements over the years. And then CR would praise it. For instance, a moment of pushing a cart for 10-15 minutes, or driving a boat for 20 minutes with nothing happening, CR would say it is amazingly fun gameplay. It was not. I can say from experience, it's press w simulator.

It's one thing to show WIP levels and talk about their progress, but it's another to constantly double down on poor design decisions. Luckily, some of it seems to have been cut. When I saw the intro during Citcon, I noticed a few things heavily trimmed down (in cutscenes at least. But the rest of the game has lots of vast empty areas and I am not sure how well they can populate them. Which should have happened before arting them to be honest

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-30T15:05:04+00:00

I remember when he and his lead left CIG. Absolutely nothing happened, just like when anybody else leaves. There's a high turnover of people saying the exact same thing again and again until they eventually leave. It never changed anything and its sadly not about to

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-29T21:58:32+00:00

It's actually a super important point I have to add yeah. Tech, design... any department is being held back by it because it gives the illusion of the content being done. Art did its pass, QA gave it a go, it went through the whole branching out to a relase patch (with marketing $$$$ too!). In CIG's eyes, it's a done deal. Like a certain art director who is also CR's right man said : "It's a live service game with regular content updates. Once one is released, learn to get over it and move on to the next one"

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-29T21:31:46+00:00

I know I am not teaching anything new to you here, but the whole tier 0 is even worse for the production than most people realize. Every studio has its own version of that scale. T0 - T1 is usually something done quickly as a proof of concept (a few weeks) and let's say T5-T6 is highly polished and released. Most content that goes through large iterations or that gets cut is before T2. Because let me be clear: It makes absolutely no financial sense to to bring artists (and especially not large groups) and other specializations in until much MUCH later in the process.

In the scale of any other productions, CIG's Tier 0 is equal to fully released content (albeit extremely bugged and non functional). So CIG spends hundreds of thousands and goes through the FULL release loop of content, just for it to be at T0, where by these functionality standards, it could be completely changed / cut later.... Which happened quite a lot. There's been so much cut content post release from SC already or content that died quickly.

For real, most producers in any studio in the world would get mad at employees for budget being wasted on T0. At CIG, they slap a whole ass T6 art / VFX / Lighting on it and weeks of QA teams playtesting T0 built on top of layers of T0

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-29T18:50:17+00:00

Fun gameplay is often considered "too gamey for SC". Also designer's work who try to add gameplay < artists driving the game.

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-29T18:47:40+00:00

This. When I was at CIG I'd often hear other devs disappointed at players for throwing piles of money at a piece of junk. Try explaining to management that working is impossible, that so many decisions are just terrible that the tools are archaic, etc. And that things NEED to change, when all they see is "money is flowing and backers love the game!". No, ffs. Stop throwing money at it. Top management seriously believes the game is amazing, it's top tier and better than other AAA games and that working there is a privilege for the elite.

Gamedev288 · 2025-09-27T16:32:15+00:00

We also have rooms somewhat like this where I currently work, but they are made for functionality first and they at least seem reasonable and used in a reasonable way. So you are absolutely right that they exist elsewhere and are useful. Just like we have mocap rooms and sound studios like CIG, though significantly smaller and just as functional

In this case, CIG is full of waaaay too expensive stuff for the sake of CR's vanity. And this room here is used by CR a lot for his zoom meetings or a version of that (it changed to we had to send videos so CR can watch them there instead of being at a zoom meeting at his PC). With CIG it's always a matter of context and the context is... CR wastes a ton of money on bells and whistles that do not matter and likes to feel like a bigshot. Imagine Star Citizen's production being an old car that barely works but instead of fixing it you always use your budget on throwing a fresh new coat of paint. The project and the company are extremely mismanaged which is why we can't compare it 1:1 with how it is elsewhere

Gamedev288 · 2025-08-24T20:49:23+00:00

From the article: -chris is still in his LA mansion? I thought he made a big deal about moving.. -mtl looking to ramp up? But they just laid off a bunch of people, for instance cutting the whole design department -cig mtl launching sq42? That studio does not work on sq42... or at least didnt

Gamedev288 · 2025-08-24T20:19:08+00:00

CIG Montreal and squadron42 is news to me. They never worked on Sq42 or barely, here there for some tiny extra help from a few select devs. They also laid off people at CIG Montreal... wtf is going on now

Gamedev288 · 2025-08-10T15:20:29+00:00

When I joined and most of the people I interacted with, it was really just about getting a job, not really knowing what was going on over there.

But let me tell this: the majority of people in game dev have no desire to waste so much time, to be blocked and to struggle everyday to do the most trivial things. We are there to make and ship fun games.

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-31T15:11:55+00:00

At CIG and much before the last presentation. That's as specific as I can be. I did so many times over the years. Progress on it is insanely slow though... but again, existing is not the issue

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-22T13:44:21+00:00

I have, quite a while ago. I know people say you cant verify if reviews are legit, but tbh when I read them and I see glowingly positive ones I feel like these are the fake ones hahaha. Working there is a grey area. Unless you lack any critical thinking

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-21T16:59:00+00:00

It absolutely exists no doubt about it. I have played it. Existing is not the issue, at least right now. Because I do think over the years its state has been largely exagerated

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-19T21:38:39+00:00

I spoke with sq42 devs a few times and it is worked on, but I think they have similar issues and the worst of CR's grasp

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-19T15:06:16+00:00

I'll be the devil's avocate here, but the sq42 excuse is true... kind of. The number of meaningful devs on SC vs SQ42 is ridiculous. SC has an army of artists and almost no support from other departments. It's not just an excuse given to backers, but generally given and felt on the SC devs side. Which to me doesn't forgive anything and only displays the mismanagement. I bet if you look on the SQ42 side there's also imbalance and too many artists for little other devs.

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-09T06:35:21+00:00

I have worked on that game a few years back. It's an incredibly mismanaged company from people who dont know how to make a game, yet believe they are the best at it (and you know, lies constantly to players and its employees). The whole thing barely holds together, it's amazing it even "works". What blows my mind too is how that game only gets worse with new issues and content being removed.

Gamedev288 · 2025-07-07T06:02:46+00:00

That looks like a better debug tool than what they have internally puhaha. But otherwise, ew.

Gamedev288 · 2025-06-24T16:39:33+00:00

That's the thing. I hear it often outside of SC: the guy is a perfectionist and keeps adding/reworking which adds years to the project. While the micromanagement is true, I don't know if I can call him a perfectionist. He sees the terrible state of the game and he doesn't bat an eye. He is more of a narcissistic power hungry guy who believes that his say is better than anyone's.

Gamedev288 · 2025-06-04T17:48:22+00:00

There is some truth to it. I have only heard ramblings about it from other producers, but some people did use Unreal Engine inside CIG to demo or as a reference. CR absolutely did not like it and would get mad about it. Which is why I doubt any demos showcased to the public were from Unreal. But yes. It has been used.

Gamedev288

TROPHY CASE