Quick facts:The Lamp
The lamp is an in-game decoration which refers to a lamp left on during a livestream.
During the 24 hour livestream of the crowdfunding campaign, which was filmed from the lent office space in Austin, the team went out for dinner and left a table lamp with a paper sign taped to it perched in front of a camera as a makeshift, "We'll be right back" sign.
The Star Citizen team returned around two hours later to find that, in their absence the community had begun building all sorts of lore around the lamp, deifying it, naming squadrons or guilds for it, giving it a personality, addressing direct questions to it in the chat, etc. Members of the development team joined in on the joke.
The Lamp was available as an in-game decoration sold on Voyager Direct from from 2013-08-31 at the price of 5000 UEC each. On 2013-09-06 the price was revised to 2000 UEC, with backers refunded the difference (still as UEC).