What are the 400 staff actually doing ?
They actually have some great developers, and some of the best digital artists in the industry, but this is an academic case study in poor project management, and how terrible project management can lead amazing people to produce very little with a lot of money and time.
For starters Chris Roberts has a history of fucking up projects, and got forcefully taken off his pride and joy Freelancer by Microsoft, who had to intervene to actually get the game finished when it was massively delayed and over budget. This is why many many many studios and publishers, including famous names like EA, refused Chris Roberts for years when Chris went begging to get Star Citizen made with their money. In the end he "decided he didn't need a publisher" and used Kickstarter backers, which we now know was a massive mistake, because for a project this size there needs to be a separation of power between the money and the idea people, which is why Publishers are essential.
Next because Chris is such an awful project manager, he doesn't know what virtues to look for in other people to make good managers, and so he's hired a load of school children to lead the development, who probably don't even know what a Gantt chart is before they started working at CIG / Foundry 42. One guy was fucking stacking shelves in a supermarket and now he's second in charge of production at the biggest studio in the UK, literally 2 years later, I'm not even joking. No development experience, and he started at CIG answering customer complaints as a customer service phone agent, then got promoted to second head honcho of project management?
When this does crash Chris Roberts will be seriously screwed, because lawyers will start asking what project management qualifications the staff Chris chose to manage the company had, PRINCE 2? Don't think so, APM Chartered? LOL What's APM? I think maybe Chris chose these young people because they're incredibly naive and wont ask where all the laundered money is disappearing to. They're just star struck to be chosen to have such a prestigious job at a young age and will be left holding the bag when the project implodes.
In business project management is the most essential thing, above all else, even more important than the product believe it or not. Good project managers will lead projects and businesses to thrive, even with terrible staff or products. Bad project managers will kill a golden goose even if it's shitting gold with the best staff in town.
