In September 2017, Philipp Schulz requested a refund of more than $24,000 from the team working on Star Citizen. Today, more than 80 days later, he has yet to receive the requested amount in full, or compensation for the legal fees he has incurred since that date, Schulz says.
Over the past few weeks we’ve talked with Schulz about how he came to spend so much money crowdfunding a video game. We’ve also attempted to find out why it has taken so long for him to receive a refund. But, in order to tell the tale we need a quick preamble on why it’s even a story in the first place.
Star Citizen is a collection of spacefaring games by Chris Roberts, the creator of the Wing Commander series, Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries. Roberts’ team has become a target of abuse and harassment these past few years because their game projects, of which there are several, are not yet complete. This is in spite of those projects being supported by the single most-funded crowdfunding campaign of any kind, on any platform, for any thing.
Since its initial Kickstarter campaign, Roberts’ companies say they have raised more than $173 million.
In September, Polygon reported on a particularly nasty hoax perpetrated against Roberts and his team. A Redditor claimed to have requested and received a refund in the amount of $45,000. But, as it turned out, that story was an elaborate fabrication. Nevertheless, it revealed an entire community of people online dedicated to extricating their money from the Star Citizen projects.
Schulz said that he isn’t part of that community per se. However, he has been a backer of the project from the very beginning and in the past several years he’s become dissatisfied with the progress.
Now, he wants his money back.
“It started back in 2012,” Schulz said, “when I somehow got a hint that Roberts was starting a new PC game and I went onto Kickstarter. I hadn’t even heard about Kickstarter before that, but when I saw the videos and all the information there I got so amazed that I started backing the game.”
To date, Schulz said that he has spent well in excess of $25,000 purchasing digital goods like spaceships, jet bikes and fish tanks, all in support of Star Citizen’s ongoing development. Some of that money has gone toward subscriptions and in-game currency, and he agrees that he’s not necessarily entitled to receive all of it back.
Instead, he believes that he is entitled to exactly $24,431.83.
We reached out to the team at Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries, both companies working on the Star Citizen projects. They refused to confirm the disputed amount, or that a refund had been requested at all.
“It’s company policy to not get into specifics of individual customer service requests,” said a representative. “Refunds are always discretionary and are considered on a case-by-case basis.”
Without their cooperation, Polygon has had to rely on Schulz’s own screenshots of the ongoing dialogue with the Star Citizen team as well as a trail of complaints lodged with a court in the European Union and with a consumer advocacy group here in the United States.
Schulz’s initial request was made on Sept. 19, and according to screenshots an initial response was offered on Sept. 21. A concierge support representative — an upper-tier customer support agent given to the high-rollers within the Star Citizen community — appears to have spent the bulk of their time explaining what Schulz would miss out on if he went through with the refund in the first place.
“We understand that this can be frustrating,” said the representative, who wrote under the online handle Azme, “especially when you are wanting to jump in and play as quickly as possible. But you are part of a rare and unique development process and we want you to know that we appreciate your contribution to our project. ... We're happy to provide the refund should you wish, but I wanted to make sure that you are aware of what you will be missing if you decide to continue with your request.”
Schulz reaffirmed his request that same day, but the next substantive response from Azme didn’t arrive until nearly a month later in early October.
Then, on Oct. 26, Schulz gave Azme an ultimatum: Issue a full refund within 14 calendar days, or he would initiate a small claims case in the European Union and hire an attorney. When that deadline passed, Schulz kept his promise.
Adding in court and legal fees, Schulz’s refund request now stands at a total of $25,812.30.
Polygon has seen a record of the small claims case, and is currently working to verify it with the help of the court. We have also reached out to the Better Business Bureau of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Reached for comment, Steve McFarland, BBB president and CEO, was able to confirm that a complaint from Schulz was active and under investigation. He also confirmed that the Star Citizen team was responding to it.
Even after his complaints were filed, Schulz continued to press Azme for updates.
“As previously stated,” Azme said on Nov. 9, “your account is very complex and would take time to review. We are a small team here and therefore appreciate patience in these matters. Each person is given the same amount of attention in the order the requests are received. Therefore, while it will be sad to see you leave the project the escalation of your request was not necessary.”
By Nov. 20, Schulz had received only a small portion of what he had requested, including $1,595.01 from a number of smaller purchases. These came courtesy of PayPal, and only after he requested refunds from that service directly. That’s around the time that he reached out to Polygon.
Since our investigation began, Azme has stepped aside entirely. In their place is now Will Leverett, director of player relations at Roberts Space Industries. Only then were significant refunds issued.
As of Dec. 10, Schulz said that he has received approximately $17,200 back. The remainder of the amount is still in dispute. Schulz is doubtful it will be resolved before the holidays, meaning he will likely be trying to get his money back for another month or more.
“I'm still ready to negotiate,” Schulz told Polygon, “but I'm not willing to wait another two, three, four months. I'm sick of waiting, to be honest. I just want them to process this, to get their information from their legal team, from their billing team and then go on with my life.”
More than anything, Schulz said that he is simply disappointed that it came to this, a cold, clinical fight waged across an online message board. He just wants the games he helped pay for. He said that the unfinished projects, in their current state, are not representative of the grand vision that Roberts pitched players on. The improvements over the years, even those coming in near future whenever the 3.0 update goes live, are incremental at best.
“You'll see fewer and fewer players online there because if you play a game for three years with the same features, only slightly different, we don't see any progress anymore,” Schulz said. “So the graphics aren't great. You have a lot of lag. But nothing changes! They have produced less and less content over the years. More concept videos, more presentations with improved graphics, but nothing has changed in the game itself.”
Most damning, Schulz said, is the fact that the project’s single-player game, called Squadron 42, has seemingly drifted from the development team’s mind entirely. No release date for anything related to Squadron 42, which features the acting talents of Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson and Mark Hamill, has been offered in over a year.
Schulz is not the only one requesting his money back. We’ve reported on individuals before, some who have gone to great lengths, to get their money back. The entire situation raises the question: Exactly how much money in refunds has the team behind Star Citizen given out?
We asked a spokesperson to share those numbers with us. They declined to comment.
Update: A second high-value backer of the Star Citizen projects reached out to Polygon after this story was published. On Sept. 25, 2017 they asked for a refund of $16,700 dating back to pledges made in 2012. They have yet to receive all of the money they were asking for in return.
We’ve confirmed that the case is open with the Better Business Bureau of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
“We wrote to Cloud Imperium,” said Steve McFarland, CEO of the BBB. “‘Certainly, you cannot expect consumers to wait indefinitely for a return on their investment.’ We have not received a response.”
The backer said that he intends to file a small claims case.