RSI respond to Derek Smart’s Star Citizen demands

The Star Citizen funding drama continued today with RSI now responding to demands laid out by Derek Smart.

Here’s a quick reminder of what’s been happening. A letter was sent to RSI which demanded forensic accounting of the Star Citizen project along with a completion date and refunds for backers unhappy with the progress of development.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that the response from CIG would be along the lines of “yeh whatever!” Part of the response to the demand letter which was penned by RSI’s Founder, Vice Chairmain and General Counsel Ortwin Freyermuth, has been shared by Smart. It reads as follows:

“Your client’s defamatory claims are entirely without merit and include unfounded allegations that the funds raised for the project were used improperly, even fraudulently. In this vain, your client is now asking for a “forensic accounting” to be made available to him. Firstly, there is obviously no legal basis for your client’s request and your letter cites no such authority. Secondly, the ample information provided regularly on our extensive website, including monthly progress reports from each studio, published headcounts and the like, would enable any person familiar with the cost of game development to assess the proper spending of the funds raised. Your client claims to be such an experienced person, so we are a bit perplexed about this demand coming in particular from him.
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“In sum, your client’s allegations and demands are completely without basis and hereby rejected in their entirety.”

So that’s that. For now at least. This initial demand letter and response will likely kick things up a gear as Derek Smart explains in a comment update on the above statement.

“And we’re happy that their statement appears in the letter because they’re basically saying that everything is on the up and up, and that they have **NEVER** used public **crowd-funded** money for **ANYTHING**other than the Star Citizen project.

“If you knew what we knew, or the sourced data we have access to, you would probably be as thrilled by this statement in the letter.”

I have a feeling this could get messy if and when legal action is started by one of the parties involved. RSI has been pushing harder with their game updates but there’s still not a lot to shout about at the moment following the very limited social module release. RSI really need to pull their finger out and start producing meaningful content updates in the next month or so. The more they drag their heels the harder this is going to get.

To keep an eye on what’s been going with all this you can check our updated Star Citizen development/news timeline.