Star Citizen Charges $20 to View Con Live Stream, Cites Budget Concern

Controversy surfaces again with popular space-faring game Star Citizen. Details regarding the upcoming CitizenCon reveal that those wanting to watch the official live stream event will have to purchase a $20 digital ticket.

Developers Cloud Imperium games have announced their plans for the upcoming convention, which includes a digital ticket, which "Includes live streaming access to all presentations, exclusive digital items given away at CitizenCon."

The Star Citizen community has reactive negatively to this decision, particularly from Kickstarter backers who had previously invested in the game's development:
 

"As a backer I paid money to help CIG make this game and I think it's absurd and insulting that I have to pay even more just to get updates on the project and its progress." Reddit User Timboron

Quickly after this, a CIG staff member came out to offer an explanation. Christopher Roberts states that the idea to live stream the event was his idea. He claims that this year's con has a significantly larger audience than last time, and their budget struggles accordingly. While he pushed for an official live stream, there were concerns over the cost of such an idea.
 

"Now of course this doesn't help with the budget because what I just asked about adds a low six-figure amount to the cost of the event. We really try to spend the money we raise on game development not community content or events. For that we use our subscriptions and try to defray the costs with sponsors like Intel last year."

 
It's no secret that live streaming is an expensive hobby, and even more so when done on a convention scale. But few have found solace in this response, believing that subscriptions and major sponsors would have been enough to finance the feature. Others argue that "a low six-figure amount" is still an unusually high budget for convention live streaming, and question why it couldn't have been accomplished with lower.

The staff statement concluded with a clarification that "the opening keynote and my closing available for everyone that has a Star Citizen account, no digital pass required," while everything else will require a digital ticket.

The Star Citizen project has raised over $6 million in funding online. But sure, they need $20 a person to afford a live stream.