The Nosy Gamer
Monday, December 2, 2024
More Layoffs Reported At Cloud Imperium Games
Sunday, December 1, 2024
Cloud Imperium Games' Sales Down 28.7% YoY In November 2024
While expected, Cloud Imperium Games posted another 25%+ year-over-year decline in cash shop sales in November according to the CCU Game dashboard. Last month's total of $20.3 million in cash shop sales was a 28.7% decline compared to November 2023's figure of $28.4 million. For the year the company's sales revenue is a few thousand dollars short of $98 million, down $11.2 million, or 10.2% for from the first 11 months of 2023.
For those who keep track of new accounts (aka "new citizens"), November's 61,068 was 33.9% less than the total of 92,395 in November 2023. For the year, new account creation is down 30.4% for the first 11 months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $755.3 million since the launch of the Kickstarter in October 2012. But Cloud Imperium has additional funding sources not tracked by the dashboard. Overall, the company has recorded $853.9 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).
- Sales/Pledges: $755.3 million (through 30 November 2024)
- Subscriptions: $33.0 million (through 31 December 2022)
- All other sources: $65.6 million (through 31 December 2022)
In addition, the company has received a total of $63.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2022 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $917.2 million, or $912.4 million when excluding the returned funds.
I started this post with the word "While expected" for a reason. Because after my November update, I found out CIG had shifted some dates for the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo into December. Through the first 9 days of the event, sales this year were $414,000, or 2.7%, ahead of last year's pace.
Here is my take from 7 November upon hearing of the event's shift into December
Cloud Imperium announced the IAE will run from Nov 22-Dec 5. This shifts Star Citizen's biggest ship sale partially into December. Expect YoY revenue in November to drop from $28.4 million to $18-$22 million and rise in December from $8.4 million up to $14-$18 million. 1/2
— Noizy (@noizygamer.bsky.social) November 7, 2024 at 11:09 AM
I'm projecting sales for Q4 to fall between $42 million and $50 million. While not matching last year's performance, it will be CIG's second highest sales quarter in its 12 year history. However, those sales would see CIG either match last year's sales total or fall as much as 7% short of 2023. 2/2
— Noizy (@noizygamer.bsky.social) November 7, 2024 at 11:13 AM
Will CIG's cash shop sales this year surpass those of 2023? The prospect becomes less likely each day. Here are the December sales totals CIG needs to achieve to meet certain metrics of success.
- Match December 2023 sales: $8.3 million
- Match Total 2022 sales: $16.2 million
- Match Total 2023 sales: $19.6 million
- Match Q4 2023 sales: $22 million
- Match 2022 Total spending: $31.5 million
I threw in the final category of matching 2022's total spending to highlight that ship sales don't pay all the bills for CIG. Also, despite news of post-CitizenCon layoffs amongst the QA staff, headcount at CIG is still probably between 15%-20% greater today than in 2022, meaning total expenses probably increased by that much as well.
Friday, November 29, 2024
Renewing My EVE Subscriptions On Black Friday
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Trustbreaker Arrays
In connection with the Vanguard deployment starting on 28 November, the Deathless Circle has deployed Trustbreaker Arrays, which connect to the enigmatic Warden structure in Zarzakh. These arrays scan for crucial passkeys required to breach planetary defenses, enabling Vanguard forces to claim planetary strongholds. However, the arrays are now under siege by Drifter forces, and the Deathless has issued a call to capsuleers to intervene.From 26 November to 2 December, pilots can defend the arrays to earn ISK rewards, or destroy them to seize passkeys as valuable commodities. These skirmishes offer a high-stakes choice: stand with the Deathless or shut their operations down.
- Deathless Trustbreaker Under Attack sites are appearing in pirate Insurgency FOB systems.
- Capsuleer fleets can choose to protect the Trustbreaker Array for the duration to receive a reward from the Deathless. 5 capsuleers are recommended for this challenge.
- Alternatively, those who do not wish to support the Deathless can wait for the structure to generate PDN passkeys before destroying it. Many groups would pay handsomely for any such commodities seized from the wreckage!
- Regardless of their motivations, capsuleers are limited to bringing standard T1 cruisers or below within the site.
The battle intensifies on 28 November, as war descends to the surface in EVE Vanguard. Insurgency deployments unleash warclones on planets to directly impact the ongoing war in space. In addition, capsuleers get daily rewards for taking flight in EVE Online between 28 November and 1 December: Vanguard-themed SKIN design components, 3,000 EverMarks, and 50,000 Skill Points. Choose your allegiance, shape planetary battlefields, and leave your mark on the EVE Online universe from the ground as well as amongst the stars. Learn more about EVE Vanguard and add the game to your Steam wishlist so you don’t miss a moment of action.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Little Things
CCP Games has faced a problem with the last couple of EVE Online expansions. After the goodies accompanying the launch of an expansion end, so does the attention of many players. The developers have come up with a unique solution. Once the login rewards and free game time run out, drop more free content. And so, I woke up this morning to find a mini-expansion's worth of patch notes waiting on the launcher along with a dev blog. After a quick read, I think the mashup might prove useful. So here's part four of the effort covering the Little Things updates introduced in today's patch.
The Little Things features are something that originated over a decade ago. At a certain point the developers discovered players don't just demand Jesus features. Making our lives easier gets applause also. The dev blog noted:
Today's release also ushers in a few Little Things to improve quality of life. While some Little Things are bigger than others, these are some of our favorite changes to make. If you have any QoL suggestions, head on over to the EVE Online Forums where we'd love to hear from you.
I'm not sure which change is better, making information in contracts more visible or being able to buy from more than one sell order at a time. I'll let you judge.
🤝 The yield, range and cycle time for gas cloud scoops and gas cloud harvesters has been added to the tooltip of the modules.
🤝 Corporations that you have 0 LP within your personal wallet or corp wallet are now hidden.
🤝 Added a dedicated neocom icon for the overview, so you can now more easily see it in the neocom and the ctrl+tab window when you have it minimized.
🤝 The input fields for courier contracts have been made bigger, and the left panel can now be expanded, so you can see larger values more easily.
🤝 Added checkboxes to courier contract filters so you can now more easily search for unfiltered results, without having to delete the info from the filter fields.
🤝 You can now copy names of item types in info windows and the market window.
🤝 You can now edit bookmarks through the radial menu while using the solarsystem map.
🤝 Added the number of jumps a system which is a point in your current autopilot route is if you mouse over it.
🤝 You can now drag and drop items onto the neocom item hangar icon to move them.
🤝 You are now able to buy from more than one sell order at a time from the ‘buy this type’ window.
🤝 You can now deliver corp items to yourself in the ‘deliver to’ right click menu.
🤝 Multiple skills can now be moved around in the skill queue.
🤝 Multibuy can now interpret ‘1x item name’.
EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Factional Warfare and Insurgency Balance
CCP Games has faced a problem with the last couple of EVE Online expansions. After the goodies accompanying the launch of an expansion end, so does the attention of many players. The developers have come up with a unique solution. Once the login rewards and free game time run out, drop more free content. And so, I woke up this morning to find a mini-expansion's worth of patch notes waiting on the launcher along with a dev blog. After a quick read, I think the mashup might prove useful. So here's part three of the effort covering some factional warfare and insurgency changes introduced in today's patch.
The dev blog didn't really have much to say on the subject.
Over in the warzone, changes to Factional Warfare and Pirate Insurgencies ensure more meaningful engagements with improvements to Battlefield sites, shifting the makeup of signatures, buffing deployables, and more.
The patch notes are a lot more descriptive on the changes made and the reasons why. This section of the patch notes sounds more like a dev blog than the typical CCP patch notes.
In Equinox we fixed battlefields being cheesed by holding a single battlecruiser NPC alive, however with that fix, players feel like Battlefields are now too tedious and not rewarding enough and this has caused a reduction in fighting and PVP in and around battlefields. To address this, we are approximately doubling the time between NPC waves.
- Respawn time for NPCs has been significantly increased
Propaganda Broadcast Structures and Listening Outposts advantage deployables are not being used outside of key system sieges. We’re trying to improve this by increasing their availability and effectiveness.
- Drop rates of Encoder Splice and Decoded Packages from FW Operation Centers (Rearguard Data Sites) has been approximately doubled.
- Doubled the effectiveness on advantage of the Propaganda Broadcast Structure and the Listening Post objective deployables.
A key complaint from anti-pirate players in insurgencies is that the Pirate FOBs have such huge tether ranges that it makes it incredibly difficult to siege as pirate aligned players can remain tethered and invulnerable until they want to engage while close to their ships even in long range setups, so we’re bringing it down to a value that should still feel very comfortable for players coming in from the shipcaster, but less powerful as a tool used against players trying to siege the FOB.
- Tether Radius on the Pirate FOBs has been dropped from 100km to 50km
Another common complaint with FW and Insurgencies is the amount of multiboxing destroyers in the warzone. We’re trying to address this by shifting the FW sites back towards 1-man sites and the insurgency 5-person sites away from Smalls and into Mediums and Larges. We’re doing this because it’s fairly difficult to contest 5 Destroyers inside smalls with less than 5 pilots, but much easier in Mediums and Larges where 2-3 Navy Cruisers/HACs or 1-2 BCs can engage them. Having slower responding but larger, more rewarding 5-person sites will hopefully also increase the number of them that are contested.
- Reduced the number of Factional Warfare Small NVY-5 and Small ADV-5 sites. A slightly increased amount of Small NVY-1s and Small ADV-1s will appear in their place to keep the potential number of victory points generated per day the same.
- Reduced the total number of the insurgency Small ADV-5 sites, their chance to spawn has been rolled into increasing the number of Medium and Large ADV-5 sites which spawn instead.
- The Respawn time of all insurgency ADV-5 sites has been increased (slowed down) to keep LP and Corruption generation rates similar with an increased number of Medium and large ADV-5 sites spawning.
And finally a change I don't really think needs an explanation.
- Added appropriate salvage to the Angel and Guristas FOB wreck.
EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Ship Rebalancing
CCP Games has faced a problem with the last couple of EVE Online expansions. After the goodies accompanying the launch of an expansion end, so does the attention of many players. The developers have come up with a unique solution. Once the login rewards and free game time run out, drop more free content. And so, I woke up this morning to find a mini-expansion's worth of patch notes waiting on the launcher along with a dev blog. After a quick read, I think the mashup might prove useful. So here's part two of the effort covering additional ship rebalancing in Revenant.
The dev blog briefly mentioned some of the changes made to ships in today's patch.
A few ships, like the Ferox Navy Issue and the Eos were overperforming, which has been addressed by making them more engageable. Heavy assault cruisers have regained their MWD signature radius bonus to make them a bit more viable in the current meta, and various other ships, like the Ashimmu and Maulus Navy Issue, have been improved.
This update also introduces several changes aimed specifically at mining. Resources can now be compressed through the right-click menu instead of the compression window, exhumers and barges have improved locked targets, and excavators are now faster.
Normally I don't use quote boxes for patch notes. But for the explanations of the ship changes I'll change the format, at least for this post.
Ferox Navy Issue
The Ferox Navy Issue is overperforming, so we’re increasing the signature radius back up to the regular T1 Ferox amount and then nerfing the agility and targeting range slightly. We’re hoping the combination of sig and agility reduction will make them a bit more vulnerable to battleships and stealth bombers in fleet encounters. The Ferox Navy Issue loses the optimal bonus the regular T1 Ferox has so we are shaving a bit of max targeting range off as well.
- Signature Radius increased from 300m to 325m
- Agility nerfed from 0.66x to 0.69x
- Max Targeting Range reduced from 67500m to 60000m
Eos
Toning down the Eos somewhat. It has 11 mid-slots and low-slots combined, unlike all other Command Ships which have 10, which is even more powerful when you consider it is a drone ship. Seeing it start to become a little unhealthy in some places so we’re reducing the power of sentry drone fits slightly.
- Drone Optimal range per level reduced from 10% to 5%
Heavy Assault Cruisers
In the Uprising expansion, we made significant changes to HACs by removing or reducing long range bonuses and completely reworking the Muninn which was the most dominant ship in the game at the time. We feel like the meta has shifted now with more Battleships and Navy Battlecruisers being viable so that we can now add back the 50% MWD signature radius role bonus to HACs which we removed in early 2021.
- 50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty Role Bonus added back
Ashimmu
The Ashimmu has lower usage than the other pirate cruisers, so giving it the ability to field 5 medium drones, or 2 flights of light drones. And giving it some small speed improvements.
- Drone Bay and Drone Bandwidth increased from 40 Mbit/sec to 50 Mbit/sec
- Max Velocity increased from 208 to 215m/s
- Agility improved from 0.58x to 0.55x
Scythe
The Scythe has fitting issues, especially since it’s an entry level support cruiser so giving it a small amount of love there. Also boosting the mobility of the Scythe a bit to try and help it stand out from the Osprey more by improving its strengths.
- CPU increased from 285tf to 300tf
- Powergrid increased from 345MW to 375MW
- Max Velocity increased from 250m/s to 260m/s
- Agility improved from 0.6x to 0.57x
Vengeance
The Vengeance has low usage, so we’re giving it a small facelift with some extra damage (But still keeping the Hawk on top with kinetic damage missiles) and a bit more powergrid to help give it some more options.
- Rocket Damage Per Level of Amarr Frigate increased from 5% to 7.5%
- Powergrid increased from 43MW to 46MW
Cruor
The Cruor is underperforming relative to its peers. We’re giving it an extra drone to bump up its damage potential a bit, but have that DPS be destructible. We are then improving the Cruor’s mobility so it can better use the long-range web for catching kiting ships.
- Drone Bay and Bandwidth increased from 5m3 to 10m3 and 5 Mbit/sec to 10 Mbit/sec, respectively.
- Max Velocity increased from 330m/s to 340m/s
- Agility improved from 3.6x to 3.4x
Maulus Navy Issue
The Maulus Navy Issue currently has 1 less total slot than the other Navy EWAR Frigates, so we’re correcting that by giving it an extra high slot. The hope here is that this will improve its versatility and open up options like triple neut setups that its brother in spirit Tristan is capable of. Small PG boost to help fill that high slot, and then a small mobility improvement since it currently is the slowest navy frigate.
- Highslots increased from 2 to 3
- Powergrid increased from 35MW to 38MW
- Max Velocity incrased from 315m/s to 325m/s
We’re giving all mining barges and exhumers an extra few locked targets to improve quality of life when mining. Specifically, the Procurer and Skiff are getting a significant agility buff, which will bring down their align times by several seconds each, and an extra midslot. During the 2022 rebalance, the Procurer and Skiff both lost a slot each total, while the Covetor and Hulk gained one, when we rebalanced them around all having the same total number of slots. The Procurer and Skiff also had their agility nerfed a bit too much and so we are now correcting this and giving them back the slot they lost. Finally, we are improving the speed of Excavators to increase their effectiveness when mining, especially when mining further away asteroids, since the Rorqual is now a more supporting role and excavators are balanced around high wastage.
- 'Excavator' Mining Drone base velocity increased from 175m/s to 250m/s
- ‘Excavator’ Ice Harvesting Drone base velocity increased from 90m/s to 125m/s
- Max Locked Targets improved from 6 to 8
- Agility improved from 0.8x to 0.64x
- Midslots increased from 4 to 5
- Max Locked Targets improved from 5 to 6
- Agility improved from 0.8x to 0.64x
- Midslots increased from 2 to 3
Small buff to navy fighters doing longer PVE encounters like the Forsaken Sanctums and Teeming Hordes. Without obsoleting T2 Fighters which still have slightly higher DPS.
- Heavy Rocket ability charge count increased from 12 to 15.
Was being abused by new freshly injected characters to take advantage of the 20% damage boost in ships like Marauders and Dreadnoughts, or PVP smurf accounts rather than being used by new players. Removing the damage bonuses and increasing the attributes on it from +3 to +5, to compensate it, which should make it actually more useful for new players and remove the abuse cases.
- Removed 20% turret damage boost and 20% missile rate of fire boost.
- Increased attributes from +3 to +5.
EVE Online: Revenant Thanksgiving Patch - Mercenary Dens
Since the launch of Revenant, capsuleers have been hard at work constructing and destroying mercenary dens all over nullsec space. Today, Mercenary Tactical Operations (MTO) have been introduced to these dens, enabling capsuleers to seize control of their systems’ destiny. Upwell has lobbied for a crackdown of the transportation of the encrypted infomorphs of workers in breach of their work contracts, but the Deathless Circle has found a way to remotely transmit infomorph applicants using infomorph decryption keys, unlocking the same kind of remote consciousness that capsuleers use when they die. The production of these keys can be further stimulated through mercenary site activity and they can be delivered to the Deathless for handsome rewards. Dive into MTO today to drive development and reduce anarchy by completing operations, boosting production of infomorph decryption keys that can be traded for valuable rewards, and eliminating potential workforce disruption.The above sounds great. Or confusing. Definitely confusing without some details. Thankfully the patch notes supplied a lot of details.
- Mercenary Dens now have 2 new attributes, Anarchy and Development. Both Anarchy and Development values will slowly increase over time, approximately 5 levels per day (24 hours). Eventually, when the level hits a certain threshold, the Anarchy or Development for that mercenary den will level up, which can have certain affects.
- While a Mercenary Den is reinforced, passive Anarchy and Development are paused.
- Added a dedicated window for viewing all your mercenary dens which can be found via the neocom under Industry, or from the mercenary den agency page.
- Anarchy Amount: 0-19 - Level 0 - 0% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
- Anarchy Amount: 20-39 - Level 1 - 0% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
- Anarchy Amount: 40-69 - Level 2 - 10% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
- Anarchy Amount: 70-99 - Level 3 - 20% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
- Anarchy Amount: 100 - Level 4 - 40% reduction to Skyhook Workforce
- Development Amount: 0-19 - Level 0 - Regular Informorph Production rate
- Development Amount: 20-39 - Level 1 - 15% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
- Development Amount: 40-69 - Level 2 - 25% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
- Development Amount: 70-99 - Level 3 - 35% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
- Development Amount: 100 - Level 4 - 50% bonus to Infomorph Production Rate
Monday, November 25, 2024
A Slow Start For Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo in 2024
On Friday Cloud Imperium Games launched the beginning of Star Citizen's Intergalactic Aerospace Expo. Star Citizen's biggest event, the IAE has two purposes. The first is to attract as many new players to the game as possible. The second is to make as much money as possible. Lasting this year from 22 November to 5 December, the first weekend of the event is now in the books. According to the statistics available at the CCU Game dashboard, the event is down compared to 2023.
One of the concerns I had was whether the announcements at this year's CitizenCon would negatively impact the IAE. In October, CIG openly declared Star Citizen will be a full loot, PvP sandbox. Perhaps most importantly in terms of ship sales, the company announced AI crews to help solo players fly multi-crew ships was not a feature Star Citizen would possess at launch.
In other words, solo pilots could not expect to use AI crews until the four systems not yet in the game -- Pyro, Nyx, Castra, and Terra -- were fully complete and in the game. Pyro will enter the Persistent Universe with the launch of Alpha 4.0, but the other planets? Even if CIG completes one system per year, the soonest solo players can expect to hire AI crews is sometime in 2028. And given CIG's track record, the year is probably closer to 2032.
The 1st weekend's performance |
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
EVE Vanguard x EVE Online - Groundbreak Runs From November 26 To December 9
REYKJAVÍK, Iceland – November 19, 2024 - Today, CCP Games announced a public limited-time access event for EVE Vanguard, the in-development MMOFPS that directly connects to the legendary EVE Online Universe. From November 28 to December 9, players can descend onto diverse planetary battlegrounds as technologically immortal warclones, engaging in intense ground combat that directly impacts the largest player-driven war in gaming history. To obtain an access code visit the EVE Vanguard Discord server.In YC126.11.28: Groundbreak, players will join live insurgencies that reach from ground to orbit, shaping the future of New Eden. With every deployment, you have the chance to align with a faction of your choice and dive into intense 9v9 battles, capturing artillery cannons to bombard enemy fleets from the surface. Each victory strengthens your side's grip on planetary zones in EVE Online, driving opposition forces out of contested airspace and having real-time impact on the ongoing war in the cluster.
CAPSULEER REINFORCEMENTSThe Deathless is making his presence known all over New Eden – on planets and in space. He has put out a call to the capsuleers of the cluster to join in the fight against Drifter forces, in part to aid Vanguard forces in planetside operations. The Deathless Circle has deployed special towers connected to the newly revealed Warden, which scan local networks for passkeys needed to break planetary defense systems, allowing Vanguard warclones to fight for key positions in insurgencies. These towers are under attack from Drifters, and the Deathless has asked capsuleers to help defend them. There is of course nothing stopping them from destroying the towers and stealing the passkeys for themselves, should they prefer to support suppression-aligned forces.
Between insurgency deployments you can hone your power by raiding planetary zones for rare resources and blueprint parts. Face off against brutal NPC militia and rival warclones, scavenging for materials to craft tactical chipsets and blueprints. Use them to build your own custom arsenal and gain an edge for the next objective. You have the freedom to formulate your own goals, strategies, and fragile alliances, with myriad methods of achieving what you set out to accomplish. Decide where you wish to deploy, manufacture an unbeatable armory, and destroy your rivals.