Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Remember these early days models?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSIOR84_Zbo&t=400s


Just doing some archive digging and found the old 2018 emails quoting £30,000 for a citcon-style Dragonfly model. The Kracken of the time would have been more...

TQJaoKt.png

C2W50Uj.png


That's from CIG's old friend JDRF who still handles the Manchester office installations (including the models by Mangostone) and does CIG's third party ship models to this day.

None of this stuff is coming cheap, that's for sure.
 
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LeSabre

LeSabre
Mole HD said:
To be honest, the majority of us as long term backers (barring the proper Koolaid drinkers) having chucked the cash at it are just resigned to seeing it out one way or t'other. Nothing more complicated than that 🤷‍♂️
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Oh absolutely, I was aiming more at those who continue to throw silly sums of money at it after everything, rather than folks such as yourself who are just riding along without "selling the farm" to give to CIG, to coin a phrase.

I think there was a guy who did actually sell his family farm to throw money at SC once :)
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Oh they finally let lose the blog of war!

Cloud Imperium Financials for 2023

CIG's Chief Financial Officer Presents Our Accounting for the 2023 Financial Year
cloudimperiumgames.com cloudimperiumgames.com


Hot Take TLDR: $20m loss for the year, LA Citcon was a big cost, they dedicated resources to SQ42 in 2023 so it could progress, US headcount was down 30% at that point, Star Engine is out of the prototyping phase 😁. (And they're still trying to pretend that starter packages are their main earner ;)).

Some immediate pull quotes...

Our costs, including capex, increased 26% to $163M driven by:

· Increased UK-led development.

· Dedication of resources to Squadron 42 to push to feature complete.

· Acquisition of Turbulent and adding those c.200 people and overhead to our cost base.

· Largest CitizenCon ever in Los Angeles to showcase improvements coming to the game.

Thus, despite increasing our top-line income by $12M, we delivered a ($14M) loss before capex and a ($20M) loss after for the year, using our simple ‘cost accounting’ basis.
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At the beginning of the year, we made the decision to move Star Citizen onto our StarEngine so we could take it to the next stage in its development and add and improve more features and content that we knew our community and customers were and are keen to see realized. Internally we marked this as the end of the long prototyping phase we had been going through and, whilst not changing our open development philosophy, we recognized this change in our development focus as a further step on the roadmap to commercial release.
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In 2023, we experienced another year of sales growth, with sales increasing by 5% to $119M. However, this growth was not as predicted or uniform, probably unsurprisingly for a game being developed and released pre-alpha
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As set out in my last report, we also made the decision at the start of 2023 that we needed to dedicate and ringfence more resources for our Squadron 42 game in order to get that game to feature complete by the end of the year
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Again a significant step on its roadmap to full commercial release. Hitherto it was all too easy to divert resources earmarked for Squadron onto Star Citizen to tackle live issues raised by our customers and community stemming from our latest releases, but this was at the expense of the Squadron development plan. So, although an expensive commitment, the decision was taken to devote these planned and required resources to Squadron 42 in the interests of making solid progress towards our ultimate goals.
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US salary costs decreased by 20% following a 30% reduction in US development headcount
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This old favourite bit of squirrel text is back of course:

The vast majority of sales are of starter pack sales granting access to the Star Citizen alpha game, as well as spaceships and digital items immediately delivered and playable in the game [my emphasis]. A smaller fraction of sales came from pledges for concept ships, which all come with an included “loaner” ship for immediate use and playability within Star Citizen alpha.
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HansAcker

HansAcker
VR Golgot said:
Some immediate pull quotes...
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Internally we marked this as the end of the long prototyping phase we had been going through
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So, development really began in earnest in 2023. Got it.
Hitherto it was all too easy to divert resources earmarked for Squadron onto Star Citizen to tackle live issues raised by our customers and community stemming from our latest releases, but this was at the expense of the Squadron development plan.
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Bug-fixing the PU delayed Squadron 42. Aye.

Also, a "minority investment" pulled out ~$1.8mil in 2023. That doesn't seem to be enough for the Calders' share in CIG US, though, does it? They weren't due before 2025, assuming the same arrangement as in UK.
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Skizomeuh said:
What?!!!?
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That one made my eyes bulge. Are they saying they never actually migrated SC from Lumberyard? It says they took the decision this year, not that they did it. So, is SQ42 on StarEngine? Are the two games on two different bases?

The vast majority of sales are of starter pack sales granting access to the Star Citizen alpha game, as well as spaceships and digital items immediately delivered and playable in the game [my emphasis]. A smaller fraction of sales came from pledges for concept ships, which all come with an included “loaner” ship for immediate use and playability within Star Citizen alpha.
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Weasel words. Reads like they are pushing a starter package narrative, but it actually includes all flyable ships, so to reword it, its basically most sales are on flyable ships and other immediately usable items, sales of concepts lag behind.

Not really surprising i guess. People are now wary of buying concepts when you have no idea when they will be delivered. Plus most of the outstanding concept ships are on the bigger side with no gameplay developed for them.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Agony_Aunt said:
Stuart's on the case posting it on Spectrum.

robertsspaceindustries.com

Cloud Imperium Financials for 2023 - $20m loss, income increased by $12m - Star Citizen Spectrum

https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2023 Foreword I am updating our followers and community on the 2023 Accounting. Consistent with previous years, we follow...
robertsspaceindustries.com robertsspaceindustries.com

Be interesting to see the copium it generates.
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The sub will probably triumph there. They're already on a 'the $20m loss is an accounting trick' kick ;)

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1kdtjis/cloud_imperium_games_2023_financial_report
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1kdtjis/cloud_imperium_games_2023_financial_report/
 

HansAcker

HansAcker
Skizomeuh said:
What?!!!?
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They switched from Star Engine to Lumberyard and back again.
In 2016:
"It's all done in -- we don't call it 'CryEngine' anymore, we call it 'Star Engine.' It's quite detached now from what the base CryEngine is."
https://web.archive.org/web/2016092...-citizen-procedural-planets-alpha3-citizencon
Later that year:
"(CIG) announced today the company is using the Amazon Lumberyard game engine to create its ground-breaking space sim games"
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...dron-42-utilize-amazon-lumberyard-game-engine

Amazon abandoned Lumberyard in 2021, it took CIG only the usual two years to rename it back to Star Engine then.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
Agony_Aunt said:
Weasel words. Reads like they are pushing a starter package narrative, but it actually includes all flyable ships, so to reword it, its basically most sales are on flyable ships and other immediately usable items, sales of concepts lag behind.
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It´s very simple: Star Citizen is a released game for which most of the sales are just regular sales. "Starter packs granting access to the ... game" are just regular copies of the game, and "digital items immediately delivered" are just regular DLC for that game.

As we have mentioned many times, the game has been released and it is therefore fundamentaly based on regular sales. SC is sold as is, without any obligations or commitments to improve or add to it, lime many regular products out there.

The only bit that may still be considered as "crowdfunded" and subject to some obligations/committments, and for which CIG would not be able to state as regular sales but as a deferred revenue liability, are perhaps concept vehicles or ships etc not yet in the game. And which, by CIG own´s admission, represent the minority of sales.
 
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VR Golgot

VR Golgot
During the middle of the year this created technical issues (many not of our making), which impacted on the gaming experience and customer engagement
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towards the end of the year we held the biggest live CitizenCon event in our history to 3,000+ people in Los Angeles
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This goes to explain the 26% increase in our expenditure, including capex, over 2022 with all cost categories up on 2022 except for capex
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Salaries and people grew as the acquisition of Turbulent took us to slightly over 1,100 people at its peak before settling down to 1,085 by the end of the year.
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Other group costs include expenses for studio operations such as office rental, maintenance, travel, accommodation, IT, and other costs not included in the other cost categories. In 2023, these costs rose by 80% to $33.1M.
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· The Turbulent transaction during the year, which added almost 200 people to our group and over 13,000 sq ft of office space in Montreal, Canada.
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· The improved office facilities of over 30,000 sq ft in Frankfurt, referred to in my previous report, which came fully on-line during 2023.
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And the same only more so with respect to Manchester, to which we added an additional 35,000 sq ft floor during 2023 to accommodate the planned growth expected there
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In 2023, contracted game development costs rose to $12.4M, a 15% increase. [Despite the Turbulent purchase]
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Publishing Operations, Community, Events, and Marketing
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These costs are associated with running the game, deploying online services, and providing customer support. It also includes the costs of running our platform, publishing, data hosting, and server costs. It includes sales collection, customer liaison costs, and the costs of our marketing and community events. Many elements of this cost line correlate closely with income and user engagement but in 2023 we also had two additional factors driving the 33% growth in this cost category to $39.7M.
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· From July, the acquisition of Turbulent added 98 people in this area of the business (although this includes web services for third parties – generating incremental sales as noted earlier) now employed but supplying those services that were hitherto invoiced to the US.
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· The CitizenCon event in Los Angeles, which attracted over 3,000 people to witness the unveiling of StarEngine and showcased what was therefore coming shortly to the Star Citizen game as a consequence of this technological advancement. [...]
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It should not be surprising that this spend category is increasing as our game reaches a wider audience, despite, from our perspective, it only just getting out of the prototyping phase.
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Employee numbers increased by 225 (25%) to 1,085 worldwide by the end of 2023.
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This investment bore fruit [re the reserves use] in the latter part of 2024 when we released Star Citizen 4.0, which included the initial phase of the Server Meshing technology we demonstrated at the 2023 Los Angeles CitizenCon event. But, this was at the expense of regular releases throughout the year and, whilst it allowed us to end the year well, sales were only comparable with the prior year [in 2024].
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At the 2024 CitizenCon in Manchester, we were also able to demonstrate the roadmap and plan for what we believe will be the 1.0 version of Star Citizen. We also showed the progress made on Squadron 42 by playing through live a chapter in the game and announcing a 2026 release date.
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Yet all these factors require investment at a time when the macroeconomic environment is unfavorable and the games industry is demonstrating it is not immune to these economic headwinds. Thus 2024’s results,
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So, 2023 involved significant expenses and similar costs are anticipated for 2024.
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Heavily foreshadowing that '2024 will have bad numbers too' at the end there.

(Will be interesting to hear the reasons why next year ;))
 
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