[Megathread] Star Citizen

[MrAnderson]

It's data taken from the official funding tracker along with CIG financials:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1694467207

https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/...017-financials

[MrAnderson]

Funding tracker: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

[1001]

Getting $2.6M a month in the begging bowl is impressive. The amount they pull in yearly is around $37M but the operating costs for the year are $45M+ and growing...

[MrAnderson]

They have traditionaly "weaker" months and "stronger" ones. Last quarter of the year is usually their strongest one whille summer months (vacations) or early in the year the slowest ones.

Still compared with prior years this has been their best year yet which shouldn't come as a surprise since the game's performance improoved a lot and more content keeps getting added regularly.

[1001]

They have traditionaly "weaker" months and "stronger" ones. Last quarter of the year is usually their strongest one whille summer months (vacations) or early in the year the slowest ones.

Which doesn't mean shit when we're talking about annual income/expenditure...

[kenn9530]

Getting $2.6M a month in the begging bowl is impressive. The amount they pull in yearly is around $37M but the operating costs for the year are $45M+ and growing...

They do also generate 8-9 million a year through other sources of income, subscription/sponsors/partnerships.

[1001]

They do also generate 8-9 million a year through other sources of income, subscription/sponsors/partnerships.

That's true but they are still running a deficit as can be seen from their own publishings.

2017 income = $43.8M of which $3M in subs and $5.8M other.
2017 expenditure = $48.8M, a shortfall of $5M

The financials show that subs/other remain very linear for 2015, 2016 and 2017 while in house salaries are increasing yearly, $30M in 2017 up from $21M in 2015 with headcount increasing significantly in each subsequent year, 363 in 2017, 475 in 2018 and 530 in 2019.

Using 2017 salaries divided by headcount equals average of $82,500, multiply that by the current headcount equals $43.8M, an increase in salary costs of $13.8M over 2017

[MrAnderson]

It's not that linear, taxes play a big part. Their biggest workforce is based on UK which by coincidence (or not) has also a great tax relief for video-games.

Considering they are making Squadron 42 along with Star Citizen and huge games can usually take thousands of dev's them being (only) at 500~ it's only natural that they keep hiring!

[kenn9530]

That's true but they are still running a deficit as can be seen from their own publishings.

2017 income = $43.8M of which $3M in subs and $5.8M other.
2017 expenditure = $48.8M, a shortfall of $5M

The financials show that subs/other remain very linear for 2015, 2016 and 2017 while in house salaries are increasing yearly, $30M in 2017 up from $21M in 2015 with headcount increasing significantly in each subsequent year, 363 in 2017, 475 in 2018 and 530 in 2019.

Using 2017 salaries divided by headcount equals average of $82,500, multiply that by the current headcount equals $43.8M, an increase in salary costs of $13.8M over 2017

not sure on how many staff are on the payroll these days but there are 103 openings throughout all the areas for CiG, im fairly sure there are good for funding at this point as long as it remains steady, to release both games and development costs should drop massively at that point.

[kenn9530]

Oh yeah, the Christmas sales, fair enough.

Glad you that you point that out though, because it sorts of bring us back to the previous discussion, the more aggressive monetization of the project in this last couple of years, which also needs to be taken into account, the virtual plots of lands, the removal of the in-game credit purchase cap, the re-selling of what was supposed to be exclusive content to Kickstarter backers, the sale of medium-high tier spaceship upgrades... again, I don’t doubt that are new players jumping aboard the project, I just find it hard to believe that this flow of cash that has been going on for… 8 years now? Comes from it, well, not for the most part that is…

what exclusive content are you refering to in the origional kickstarter, there were backing packages which included up to 5 ships and there were like 100 idris sold at some point, all the more expensive ships in any package was the constellation and the idris was just an addon, the project has changed but as long as origional kickstarter backers get what they backed for it shouldnt be an issue.

Like it or hate it this games needs money and im sure the game couldnt be operated with the current staffing levels from game/cosmetics alone or it would take much longer to complete, this is the largest scale project done so far in gaming, some other space genre games coming along may be good but what im wanting is that game that has a little bit of everything in it.

[Mukind]

what exclusive content are you refering to in the origional kickstarter, there were backing packages which included up to 5 ships and there were like 100 idris sold at some point, all the more expensive ships in any package was the constellation and the idris was just an addon, the project has changed but as long as origional kickstarter backers get what they backed for it shouldnt be an issue.

Like it or hate it this games needs money and im sure the game couldnt be operated with the current staffing levels from game/cosmetics alone or it would take much longer to complete, this is the largest scale project done so far in gaming, some other space genre games coming along may be good but what im wanting is that game that has a little bit of everything in it.

Ken you're not pure like Mr Anderson. This game isn't good for you

Refund now

[kenn9530]

Oh, sod off Kenn, we already been over this, multiple times, I’ve already linked you the page where Chris even states it, I’m not going to be repeating myself just so you can just keep denying it.



What? Video games require money to be developed? No way….

Hell, if only there were others ways to deal with that without selling in-game advantage even before finishing the game… hopefully some other studio will one day figure out a way to handle that… oh wait… hang on… “oh but SC is special and unique, a true snowflake of video gaming”, yeah yeah….

the only item that can be considered exclusive is lifetime insurance of which origional backers still get all those benefits for all the ships they got, and LTI is still exclusive these days with only rare chances to get it, everyone should have equal access to getting things in a game, i dont have LTI at all and it doesnt bother me in the slightest.

And how much money would they have raised without selling ships, this game probably couldnt be made without all that extra income unless backed by an established studio from the beginning.

Whatever chris decides is best for the game he has every right to do it, good or bad decisions included, time will tell if those decisions benefit the game or not.

Most ships also start of with class C modules, with certain ships already being equiped with B class modules, but any upgrades on the ships are not covered by insurance currently.

[Orange Joe]

"We are aware that the original Kickstarter page states that these ships would not be sold again."

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/c...y-Sale-Details

As I said, we already been over this, feel free to go back to page 416 and remind yourself how it spins out…. also if it bothers YOU or not, it’s irrelevant to the point.

If you are going to link the page you could at least... I don't know... read the whole thing?

Why are you offering the limited ships again?

Although we have offered the limited ships for sale half a dozen times at this point, the subject continues to be raised on the forums. We are aware that the original Kickstarter page states that these ships would not be sold again. Had we the ability to edit this page, we would add the following information: We made a mistake! The concept was that for the ships with a specified inventory (Scythe and Idris-M), we were only ever going to sell that quantity – hence the never sell it again wording, but the other ships that were not quantity limited were meant to be limited in that we would have them for sale for limited durations, so they would be a scarce commodity. Unfortunately our wording did not communicate this and the impression on our original post was that everything offered for limited sale would not be sold again. We subsequently corrected this to clarify that we were really talking about the ships that were offered with finite quantities but the issue has continued to be raised. This is our official stance on this so please bookmark this post for future forum debate!

Or is this another Myobi doesn't agree so it doesn't matter what it says?

[kenn9530]

"We are aware that the original Kickstarter page states that these ships would not be sold again."

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/c...y-Sale-Details

As I said, we already been over this, feel free to go back to page 416 and remind yourself how it spins out…. also if it bothers YOU or not, it’s irrelevant to the point.





Yeah …. no one forced them to develop multiple gigantic video games at the same while mostly relying on crowdfunding, the option to crowdfund the single player game and eventually use its profits to move into bigger and more expensive projects was there… yes, it’s a choice they are free to do, but don’t give me this sort of bullshit like there was no other way as if most other developers out there haven’t been doing it for years now.



Yeah, I’ve already said that, they don’t owe backers a flying shit.

I don’t get it, what are you arguing against here exactly?



…. Okay?

and the origional kickstarter changed massively so what does it matter if they changed things around, the longer you have backed the more things you get of which are mostly cosmetic that cant be earnt by others, im sure wow at one point said it would never sell ingame currency but now it does, companies evolve over time or they would fail and things in the past once said cant be undone.

And where were they going to get that money, no other company would even attempt something like SC its too much of a risk, and other games like ED are much easier to make considering its just mostly a sit in the cockpit game with the occasional planet landing, what other way would you suggest raising money and how long would people contribute for only cosmetic perks, the game would never get enough funding or be completed to the level we want the game to be.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

[1001]

From the subreddit

[MrAnderson]

From imminent collapse fantasies to eternal development ones.

We've gone full circle now.

[1001]

From imminent collapse fantasies to eternal development ones.

We've gone full circle now.

Aww there there MrSensitive.

[MrAnderson]

Oh I'm ok with fantasy jokes because it's implied and understood as being what it is. A funny and innocuous joke.

It's only when people try to pretend their fantasies are real that it stops being a joke to become a farse.

[1001]

Well that's good because that is exactly what Star Citizen is, a fantasy joke