As it so happens, the initial means of pursuing refunds had originally been removed from Star Citizen’s June 6, 2016 terms of service update, but it wasn’t until December 2017 that Cloud Imperium Games Corporation decided to stop issuing them completely in December 2017. This led to a Reddit user going by the handle “Firefly212" filing a lawsuit against the developer in US small claims court in early June 2018, with the Star Citizen studio handily winning the court case on the very same date it took place, July 13, 2018.

According to Firefly212, the judge in the court case declined to hear anything regarding the TOS’ “conscionability or lack of consideration,” while Cloud Imperium Games Corporation’s representative was able to successfully argue the company’s position for the win. It all came down to the Star Citizen developer arguing that the arbitration clause present in the current TOS should be retroactively applied to other transactions before its existence, even though the first sentence of the crowdfunded project’s TOS declares otherwise.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first instance of Cloud Imperium Games Corporation having been tied up in a legal dispute, as Crytek filed a lawsuit against the Star Citizen developer that accused it of breaching its contract over the alleged use of CryEngine code. In this instance, Crytek sought damages from the studio, as well as a permanent injunction to prevent Cloud Imperium Games Corporation from continuing to use code from Crytek’s copyrighted game engine.

Taking all of this into consideration, there’s no doubt that many backers for Star Citizen will be disappointed to learn of the court case’s verdict, as it effectively strips them of the ability to get their own money back for any number of reasons, even if Cloud Imperium Games Corporation never actually delivers the final product. What’s more is that the situation will likely cause plenty of folks to generate concerns about crowdfunding games in general and lead them to second-guess whether or not they should support any other fan-supported projects out there.

Star Citizen is currently in development, but lacks an official release date.

Source: Reddit