Roberts: Star Citizen refund numbers "very, very low", "definitely the minority"

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games will give you your money back, but says not many people want a refund.

Star Citizen is in kind of a weird position. It has shattered crowdfunding records by accumulating a whopping $87.6 million, but has raised controversy by raising some of that total by selling breathtakingly expensive add-on content. It has expanded its scope considerably in response to increased funding, but the project's timeline has blown out, missing projected launch windows time and time again.

Some players swear by it, and others are mad as all heck. In the midst of all this, some have called for refunds - and Cloud Imperium is processing them. 1,269 refunds have been given out so far, out of 964,995 backers.

"We don't publicize it, but when people reach out to us and talk to us in a rational manner, in most cases we've refunded them," Cloud Imperium founder Chris Roberts said in a lengthy feature on Polygon.

"In general, our refund numbers are very, very low compared to the rest of the industry. It's significantly lower than what you get with e-transactions on most games."

Roberts admitted that there are "some big, vocal people" criticising the game, but said "they're definitely a minority".

Cloud Imperium is not legally obliged to give refunds, he added, and does so at its discretion - but if those vocal players aren't happy, Cloud Imperium just doesn't want them around.

"We don't want to keep people around. We don't want to fight with them," a spokesperson added.

The full feature includes one amazing story of a $980 backer getting a refund after 30 hours of play time, and comments from a player who is pretty happy with Star Citizen, thank you very much. It's definitely worth a read if you've got strong opinions on Star Citizen.