Cloud Imperium Games Posts A 13.1% YoY Revenue Gain In Q2 2024

After a horrendous first quarter of revenue, Cloud Imperium Games pulled ahead of last year's sales numbers in the second quarter of 2024. The company closed out Q2 with $7.3 million in sales in June according to the CCU Game dashboard, a 7.4% year-over-year increase over June 2023's $6.8 million. For the quarter, this year's Q2 revenue of $37 million was 13.1% greater than the $32.8 million posted in the second quarter of 2023. For the year, CIG recorded $54.4 million through the first half of 2024, a 1.3% increase over the same period in 2023.

For those who keep track of new accounts (aka "new citizens"), June's 21,554 was 37.5% smaller than the total of 34,504 in June 2023. For the quarter, CIG attracted the creation of 141.453 new paid accounts, a 55% decrease over Q2 2023's total of 219,223. For the first half of 2024, account generation is only down 25.9%, 262,541 accounts over the first 6 months of 2024 vs last year's number of 354,406.

I have the feeling we can put to rest any link between account creation and sales generation. However, for those who feel account generation is a sign of health of the company, I'll continue reporting the number.

Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $711.7 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 $810.3 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $711.7 million (through 30 June 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 $866.4 million.

While CIG has increased year-over-year revenue, the company has not pulled itself out of financial concern. Over the past 5 years, sales have grown an average of 27% per year. Back in February, I calculated (aka guessed) CIG would need to keep up with that average revenue increase to keep up with costs. We also know CIG does not have enough cash in reserve to cover paying out the Calders if they decided to exercise their put option in the first quarter of 2025. Due to the way the deal is structured, I believe the Calders will wait until the first quarter of 2028 in order to get a piece of Squadron 42 sales. Still, that's a minimum of a $130 million hanging over the heads of the owner of Cloud Imperium Games in three years with the need to keep the company funded and functioning in the meantime.