Developers say a Star Citizen guild did not get $45,000 refund [Updated]

[Update: Cloud Imperium spokesperson Dave Swofford tells Ars that "a lot of the information was fabricated" in the Reddit post discussed the below. Swofford says the account in question was issued an individual refund of $330, not the $45,000 claimed in posted screenshots and videos which Swofford says do not reflect actual complaints requests logged by the company. What's more, Swofford says the refund was handled "in a timely fashion" with "no extended debate over whether we should."

Ars regrets the omission from the original story, which appears below.]

Children that were born when Star Citizen was first announced are now approaching Kindergarten, but the extremely ambitious space simulation is currently struggling to get its third alpha version into backers' hands. Rather than continuing to wait, one group of impatient players has requested and apparently received a $45,000 refund for three of the game's $15,000 "completionist" packages, which included access to dozens of optional ship designs, among other extras.

An anonymous representative of the player group, going by the handle Mogmentum, posted about the refund on the Star Citizen Refunds Reddit group, which includes stories from hundreds of other posters seeking smaller refunds for the oft-delayed game. "We sidelined many other great games and commercial opportunities waiting for Star Citizen, but in the end we can't wait any longer, and a new generation is joining also who have absolutely no interest," Mogmentum writes, alongside photo and video evidence of forum discussions confirming the refunds. Getting the money back took five weeks of persistent requests with support staff, the player said, alleging that the staffers "definitely try to delay you as much as possible in the hope you'll forget or give up."

A $45,000 refund is a drop in the bucket compared to the over $159 million Star Citizen has raised from over 1.8 million paying customers as of press time. That itself is a far cry from the $2 million that Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts initially sought for the game in his 2012 crowdfunding effort.

Those extra funds have caused a major expansion in the project's already grand ambitions, and allegations that project-strangling feature creep has stopped the game from meeting numerous self-imposed deadlines. Roberts has pushed back on those allegations numerous times, saying in 2015 that "there are people out there who are going to tell you that this is all a BAD THING, that it’s 'feature creep' and we should make a smaller, less impressive game for the sake of having it out more quickly or in order to meet artificial deadlines. Now I’ll answer those claims in one word: Bullshit!"

"Star Citizen matters BECAUSE it is big, because it is a bold dream," Roberts continued. "It is something everyone else is scared to try. You didn’t back Star Citizen because you want what you’ve seen before. You’re here and reading this because we are willing to go big, to do the things that terrify publishers."

But after five years of development and only a few limited "alpha" gameplay modules to show for it so far, some backers are fed up. There's even a crowdsourced effort to track Roberts' promises about the game, which currently includes 93 "broken" or "stagnant" promises against 91 that have been "completed" or exist in the alpha. A much larger mass of 316 on-the-record promises continue in a "not implemented" limbo that has been steadily growing over the last five years.

"The final straw was evidence presented [to] the committee of Chris Roberts blatantly lying," Mogmentum writes, possibly referring to these kinds of broken promises. "We don't mind the delays but couldn't handle the lies anymore, and it left us wondering what else he is knowingly lying about."

There are still plenty of Star Citizen true believers willing to give Roberts and his team the time and record-setting amounts of money they're asking for to meet their promises. As more and more time goes on without significant progress, though, some players seem to be wondering if they should cash out of what could be the next Duke Nukem Forever.