Star Citizen studio was “highly toxic” according to former Cloud Imperium Games producer

Former producer for Cloud Imperium Games, Annie Bouffard, has spoken frankly about her experience working with the Star Citizen studio, alleging there is a “highly toxic” culture at the company.

Layoffs have been a focus in the video game industry of late. Multiple companies have seen shrinking staff numbers already this year, including Blizzard and Unity.

Staff losses at Star Citizen developer, Cloud Imperium Games, were originally attributed to the company’s restructuring plans. It was assumed they occurred due to the studio’s move to Manchester.

However, comments made by former producer, Annie Bouffard, suggest there is more to the story than meets the eye.

In a comment translated from French on LinkedIn, Bouffard described resigning from a “highly toxic company”. She also claims she was “gaslighted” after expressing “concern about potential layoffs,” in the wake of the Manchester move.

“At the end of January, a mass layoff, disguised as a ‘relocation of staff’ (when very few were able/willing to move to other countries/continents with little or no notice) occurred,” Bouffard writes.

She also discussed her treatment at an evaluation in November last year. According to Bouffard, despite being told she was meeting all her required objectives, the superior conducting the evaluation spent an hour nitpicking her character, and “mocked her in a condescending way”.

While Bouffard is the only former staff member to take aim at CIG’s workplace culture, the studio did lose a slew of long-term employees recently.

Lead producer Jake Ross also posted about leaving CIG due to the restructuring on LinkedIn, as well as a lead designer, Dane Kubicka, previously based out of the company’s Austin office. Other employees from the Austin office’s QA team also seem to have been part of the layoffs.

Reports of these layoffs also arrive after the news Star Citizen’s live game director, Todd Papy, left the company after nine years.

It’s worth noting when a former employee spoke about being affected by layoffs at the company last year, CIG were quick to deny the claims.