The year 2021 is coming to an end, so it’s time to take stock of the Star Citizen Project. For this, two sources of information are at our disposal: the funding statistics available on the RSI site and the financial data for the year 2020, freshly published.
Net growth in income
Since 2017, revenues from ship sales have been steadily increasing. But 2020 particularly stands out as revenues increased 60% from the previous year, reaching $ 77 million ($ 1.4 million per week on average). According to Cloud Imperium, this increased enthusiasm for the project can be explained by the health situation that pushes people to consume video games, but also by the improvements in the quality of life of the project, with better stability and dynamic events. .
If we refer to the RSI site, 2021 revenue for pledges (purchases of ships and packs, excluding subscriptions) exceeds $ 85 million, another 10% increase.
Expenses
The expenses are only known through the financial data published annually, and which stop at year N-1. So we only have the data up to 2020.
Compared to 2019, three expenditure items are increasing (figures in millions of dollars):
- Salaries go from 39.71 to 43.95 (+ 11%), which corresponds to the increase in the number of employees working on the project, from 604 to 695 (+ 15%).
- The costs of operations, marketing and community go from 11.40 to 15.37 (+ 35%), which corresponds to the increase in server traffic by players. As a reminder, CIG rents the server hosting service from Amazon AWS.
- Investments go from 2.42 to 6.07 (+ 150%). This significant increase corresponds to the purchase of a perpetual worldwide license for the CryEngine.
Subcontracting items, operating costs for premises, and various expertise (legal, financial, accounting, insurance, etc.) are controlled or reduced.
Employees
Between 2019 and 2020, the number of employees was increased by 91, divided into the following categories:
- 7 (+ 14%) on support and management functions
- 40 (+ 46%) for operations and marketing teams
- 44 (+ 9%) on development teams
The increase in the number of active players explains the sharp increase in the operations and marketing teams. However, Cloud Imperium highlights the difficulties encountered in recruiting developers during this time of pandemic. Many positions are open and cannot find takers.