Another Record Breaking Sales Month For Cloud Imperium Games

Last week the gaming industry experienced a lot of bad financial news. Everything from Activision Blizzard missing its expected sales of $1.8 billion by $320 million in the first quarter, to a 30% drop in stock price for Pearl Abyss, the news was poor. But the week ended with Cloud Imperium Games bringing in historically high revenue for the month of April.

The figure on the Roberts Space Industries funding page increased by almost $7.7 million in April, finishing the month at $454.2 million. The figure was the best April for CIG in its 10-year history, surpassing 2020's $4.1 million. Total revenue for the first four months of 2022 was $27.7 million. According to the unofficial Crowdfunding Development Spreadsheet, CIG raised nearly $97.5 million from 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2022 for the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

Readers have asked why concentrate on the funding amounts. What about the game play? The features? The vision. Let's face facts. All of those things are nice to know when a game is about to launch. But currently we are looking at a possible release of Squadron 42 in 2024 and Star Citizen in 2026 or 2027. We don't know the development status of Squadron 42, and Star Citizen is still in early alpha.

One thing we do know is that CIG does not have enough money in the bank to complete development of the project. Here is the amounts raised by CIG so far.

• Ship/equipment sales and game packages: $454.2 million (thru 30 April 2022)
• Subscriptions: $22.8 million (thru 31 December 2020)
• Other income: $44.7 million (thru 31 December 2020)
• Outside investment: $63.2 million (thru 31 December 2020)

At the end of 2020, CIG had $63 million in the bank, but had spent $80.8 million that year. For all the dreams of players to come true, the company needs to continue cranking out ships to sell at very high rates. Currently, CIG is on pace to reach $100 million in sales in 2022. Hopefully that is enough to forestall layoffs until the company can open up another revenue source by launching Squadron 42. But watching the coffers fill up in real time is a bit of slow motion drama I find interesting.