Over the past few days, Star Citizen players have been trying to call attention to surge in exploiting, cheating, and duping in the alpha spaceship sandbox. At last, CIG has apparently moved against the problem, dishing out bans to bad actors in the game.

The specific number of players caught in this ban wave wasn’t provided, but the studio promised that it was a large amount of accounts and promised to continue to monitor the matter, while also claiming that recent updates to block cheaters, particularly in relation to third-party tools use and data access, have yielded “a substantial impact.” An official reply to the announcement post also confirmed that the bans were permanent.

“We understand some users may be experimenting, acting out of curiosity, or believe they’re helping expose issues — but even these actions can be disruptive and damaging to the game,” CIG closes. “This behavior can lead to serious consequences, up to and including permanent account closure.”

Surely the Star Citizen fans who accused us of clickbait for covering the original exploit situation last week will be clamoring to apologize, right? Right?

source: official forums Longtime MMORPG gamers will know that Star Citizen was originally Kickstarted for over $2M back in 2012 with a planned launch for 2014. As of 2025, it still lingers in an incomplete but playable alpha, having raised over $800M from gamers over years of continuing crowdfunding and sales of in-game ships and other assets. It is currently the highest-crowdfunded video game ever and has endured both indefatigable loyalty from advocates and immense skepticism from critics. A co-developed single-player title, Squadron 42, has also been repeatedly delayed.