Yesterday one of Star Citizen's major news You Tube channels, BoredGamer, released a video with a leak about the restructuring going on over at Cloud Imperium Games. BoredGamer is I think the longest running Star Citizen news channel going back over a decade. He's very bullish on both Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium without straying into white knight territory. In other words, not someone who's going to just throw something negative up for the clicks.
When a guy has a decade's experience and doesn't have a motivation to spread false rumors, I give him a lot more credibility than some rando from the Star Citizen Refunds sub-reddit. I also find the idea of someone inside Cloud Imperium reaching out to BoredGamer a lot more credible than some anonymous source talking to a writer from Insider Gaming as well. Below is the letter shared in the video, which according to the long-time YouTuber was edited to sanitize the content to protect the source's identity.
Good evening,
I've been watching a lot of your videos over the years, and I have always found it fun to hear your speculation regarding the goings-on at CIG. I have consistently compared your speculation with what has actually been going on at the company. I previously worked at Blizzard and I knew a lot of people who moved to that company. People like Tyler Witkin and EKD. So a few things in regard to your recent videos where you mention upper management speculation:
- EKD (Chief People Officer) has not been working with the company since Q4 of last year.
- His direct report (former VP of HR US) was similarly let go shortly after (Q4 also)
- Carl Jones (formerly the COO, then CSO) may have not left of his own accord, he may have been pushed out by others in his peer group.
- John [Erskine] has assumed the role of Chief Operations Officer
- The chief marketing officer, Elliot, is another C-level who has been informed of their termination and is on their way out the door.
The reason that all of these people "appear" to have left on their own accord is because they all signed agreements that were essentially gag orders by the company, where if they speak ill, they lose their departing compensation package.
How much is true? Hard to say, but I did compare the letter to the information I dug up for my previous post on the subject. Let's take the points one by one.
Eric Kieron Davis - EKD is a reference to Eric Kieron Davis, the Chief People Officer. According to Davis' LinkedIn page, the position oversees all people functions and studio operations. Davis joined CIG in April 2015 after working for Blizzard Entertainment for 8 years. According to the information provided to BoredGamer, Francesca McKibben, the former vice-president of human resources in the U.S., was let go shortly after Davis departed.
The information from BoredGamer's source, if true, narrows down Davis' departure from the company to October 2024. According to McKibben's LinkedIn page, she left CIG in October 2024 and began working as the Senior People & Culture Business Partner for LinkTree in November. Given the speed with which she obtained a new job, I'd assumed she left CIG voluntarily because she'd found a better position.
I have another data point to consider. Looking on CIG's corporate website, the company is not hiring for any positions in either its Austin or Los Angeles locations at this time. If CIG does not have plans to replace Davis and McKibben, I think that strengthens speculation the North American headquarters is moving to Montreal.
Carl Jones - CIG's Chief Strategy Officer announced his departure on LinkedIn on 7 January. The letter speculates he was possibly pushed out. To me, that sounds like office rumors.
On the other hand, when I watched the Star Citizen 1.0 presentation at CitizenCon in October, I felt like the vision of the Turbulent crew had taken over. Gone were the days of vague gameplay goals to attract players to spend money. In were promises of the type of gameplay Star Citizen would hold when the game reached a commercial release and not the semi-live service experience players currently log into. So Jones leaving due to philosophical differences is not something I would have to stretch too far to believe.
John Erskine - Erskine becoming the Chief Operations Officer is an established fact. But I didn't mention the fact in my first post about the leadership musical chairs because I only went back to the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2024.
"Now hold on," I can hear someone say. "At the beginning of October Erskine was listed as the Chief Publishing Officer on the About page." Very true. But as we are finding out, CIG's corporate About page isn't always kept up to date. Erskine's LinkedIn page indicates he became the COO in September.
Does that mean anything? I think so, but I'll wait until the conclusion of the post to say what.
Elliott Chin - The full name of the Chief Marketing Officer is Elliott Chin. According to his LinkedIn page, he is still employed at CIG's Los Angeles office. If the headquarters is moving to Montreal and Chin does not want to relocate, that could explain why he is still around. Also, Chin's status as a lame duck, if true, helps explain the office rumors reported in the Insider Gaming article that Sandi Gardiner, the former head of marketing Chin replaced, is coming back to the role.
Now, for the significance of the information coming from BoredGamer's source. According to the Insider Gaming article, Chris Roberts sent out an internal memo on 19 December that the changes started to be implemented in early December. But according to both to the source and my own research, the changes actually began in October. Or perhaps the Insider Gaming article was only referring to Jones, Davis, and Chin as the "at least three executives with a combined experience of around 25 years" affected. The three's combined experience at CIG is 25 years and 10 months.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure exactly how negative the game of leadership musical chairs going on at Cloud Imperium really is. I think change was inevitable once CIG acquired the rest of Turbulent back in July 2023. Looking at all the information available, the possibility exists we had an old guard verses Turbulent battle occur and the newcomers from Canada won. Whether players like the new vison represented by Star Citizen 1.0 really will determine how these moves are judged.
Oh, and if the moves result is significant workforce reductions later in the year. That's important too.
No comments:
Post a Comment