{"id":1203723,"date":"2026-02-19T21:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/MLmKa7H2n9377hdyrwry8E"},"modified":"2026-02-19T21:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:01:16","slug":"after-raising-over-800-million-from-its-community-star-citizens-developer-delays-the-release-of-a-new-ship-upgrade-as-players-baulk-at-having-to-pay-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/after-raising-over-800-million-from-its-community-star-citizens-developer-delays-the-release-of-a-new-ship-upgrade-as-players-baulk-at-having-to-pay-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"After raising over $800 million from its community, Star Citizen’s developer delays the release of a new ship upgrade as players baulk at having to pay for it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The only thing more astonishing than Star Citizen<\/a>‘s ability to extract funds from its community is the eagerness with which said community has supported it. Across thirteen years, Cloud Imperium Games has raised over $800 million from a convoluted mixture of paid alpha access, subscriptions, merchandising, microtransactions, and selling spaceships that cost hundreds of dollars to players (I suppose you could call these “macrotransactions”).<\/p>\n

While there have been controversies and backlashes to the game in the past, such as complaints over changes to the roadmap<\/a>, the community has rarely revolted en masse at the prospect of paying for stuff. But the recent reveal of an upgrade for Star Citizen’s ships has finally caused to community to raise a finger and say “hold on a minute\u2026”<\/p>\n

The upgrade (or upgrades) in question are flight blades. These are designed to make ships faster or more manoeuvrable (depending on which type of blades you pick). Ship upgrades like this can generally be purchased with both real-world money or Star Citizen’s in-game currency (named aUEC) and Cloud Imperium Games apparently planned for this to be the case with flight blades. However, when these upgrades were initially <\/em>added to the game, they could only<\/em> be purchased with hard cash, costing between $9.60 and $42 depending on which set you bought.<\/p>\n

Combined with the perceived advantage they provided, this led Star Citizen’s community to conclude flight blades were an outright pay-to-win item. The result was an explosive <\/em>backlash, with CIG’s forum post announcing the upgrade racking up almost 2,000 bewildered responses<\/a>. “This is a[n] actual joke, there is 0 reason why these should not be in game,” wrote user Lolman345_, while the fittingly named SaltEMike called the introduction of flight blades “the most embarrassing thing I have seen this company do yet”.<\/p>\n

More interesting, though, are the responses from players who openly admit they’re generally happy with paying for stuff. Many players replying to the announcement refer to their eagerness for the Greycat MTC, a planetary exploration vehicle that costs $45. “I was gonna buy the MTC. I don’t feel good about it now,” user TagariusKhan. Captn agrees. “I was also looking forward to the MTC, guess we are write going back to voting with our wallet.”<\/p>\n

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