Star Citizen developer mandates 7-day work weeks, with no promise of overtime pay

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium is reportedly mandating its staff work seven days a week leading up to a major event this month.

Insider Gaming reported this week that Cloud Imperium management emailed staff instructing the studio’s workforce to “double down over the next 18 days to make sure that once again we create an amazing experience for our community.” The “doubling down” apparently means mandated seven day workweeks for the next two weeks for anyone working on CitizenCon, which is scheduled for Oct. 19 in Manchester, England.

Cloud Imperium management reportedly said in an email that all staff are required to work both Saturday and Sunday for the next two weeks. All staff must be in-office — Cloud Imperium has locations in Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Manchester, England; and Frankfurt, Germany — except for Sunday, for which being in-office is still encouraged, according to Insider Gaming. Breakfast and lunch will be served on the weekend. In exchange for that time worked, Cloud Imperium will give the workers time off in lieu (TOIL) instead of overtime pay. Insider Gaming reported that Cloud Imperium had been letting its employees work 12 “pre-approved” hours of overtime in exchange for TOIL since July 2024. The time off, however, will be granted only once Star Citizen’s single-player game Squadron 42 is released. If an employee leaves the company before that, they forfeit their earned time off.

Cloud Imperium declined to comment.

The problem is that Squadron 42 was announced in 2012 (but split off from Star Citizen in 2016) and has seen lots of delays in the decade since. There’s no expected release date, which puts into question the likelihood of that earned time off ever coming to fruition. In the U.K., there’s no legal requirement to pay hourly employees time-and-a-half, as it is in the U.S. due to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Salaried employees are not guaranteed overtime compensation in either the U.S. or the U.K., per their respective labor laws. Employment Lawyers Association chair Caspar Glyn told Polygon that for salaried employees, the use of TOIL would just be an additional benefit. But its legality comes into question depending on a person’s contract.

“Whether the TOIL terms are lawful would depend on a close read of the contract,” Glyn said. “Normally TOIL would be banked and then paid if the contract is terminated or granted as time off. The contingent element attached to hours already worked may breach the contract depending on how pay is structured and may offend the minimum wage depending on pay levels.”

Similarly, its legality in the U.S. offices depends largely on the type of contract a person is on. Salaried workers in the U.S. who make less than $43,888 annually are eligible for overtime pay, as are hourly workers. Come January 2025, however, U.S.-based workers with salaries lower than $58,656 annually will become eligible for overtime pay.

U.K. employers must abide by the Working Time Regulations, which is why Cloud Imperium management mentioned in its email (as reportedly by Insider Gaming) that U.K. employees “need to be mindful of the hours they work and are asked to have 11 hours outside of work in each 24-hour period.” To put it simply, U.K. workers can work a maximum of 13 hours every 24 hours before they must take 11 hours off. (The U.S. has no laws that regulate how many hours a person can work in a single day.)

If there’s an emergency or a workplace uses a shift-based system, this doesn’t apply. But Glyn told Polygon that a “work deadline is most unlikely to be viewed as an emergency.” Similarly, U.K. workers can’t work more than 48 hours per week, averaged over 17 weeks, Glyn said — unless they opt out in their contract. Working Time Regulations require that workers have one day off every seven days, but that can be averaged over two weeks, meaning that workers would need two days off after working two weeks straight.

Star Citizen, as you may have guessed by the long development time, has had some troubles along the way, despite having raised $726,452,503 from its players. It also has at least $64 million in private investments. The multiplayer Star Citizen is available to play in early access, but its big update from 2023 was “embarrassingly bad,” per PC Gamer. This year, the studio laid off an unannounced number of staff before it lost a discrimination claim in 2024 and was made to pay more than £27,000 ($35,000) to a disabled employee.