In what might be the first case of public corporate banning, CIG’s Ben Lesnick has posted a message on the official forums announcing that they have refunded Derek Smart’s Kickstarter pledge and disabled his account, effectively telling the veteran developer that he is no longer welcome as part of the community. In a thread discussing the refund on the main forums, a poll has gathered close to 30% support for the option to refund one’s pledge.
Our ToS (or in this case, the Kickstarter ToS) allows us to refund troubled users who we would rather not have interacting with the community. The process lets us entirely disable their accounts, preventing them from playing the finished game. Think of it as the video game equivalent of a ‘we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone’ sign in a restaurant. We’ve used this ability a limited number of times in the past, always with the aim of improving the community.
The action was spurred when Smart first posted his belief that Star Citizen will never be released, as it was promised, leading up to his latest blog post asking for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission as well as offering a list of demands. CIG accused Smart of using Star Citizen as a platform to promote his own game, Line of Defense.
(Source: Star Citizen)