Cloud Imperium Games, makers of the under development video games Star Citizen and Squadron 42, maintained the revenue growth in the third quarter of 2024 according to statistics found on the CCU Game dashboard. The company followed up a 13.1% year-over-year growth in sales in the second quarter with a 13.7% increase in the third. September played a big part of the increase posting $6.9 million in sales, a 36.9% increase from September 2023's total of $5.0 million. For the first nine months of 2024, sales revenue as measured by the funding counter is $68.4 million, up 3.6% from last year's figure of $66.0 million over the same period.
For those who keep track of new accounts (aka "new citizens"), September's 19,243 was 70.2% smaller than the total of 64,682 in September 2023. For the quarter, CIG attracted the creation of 83,521 new paid accounts, an 80% decrease over Q2 2023's total of 150,383. For the first half of 2024, account generation is only down 31.4%, 346,062 accounts over the first 9 months of 2024 vs last year's number of 504,789.
Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $725.9 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 $824.5 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).
- Sales/Pledges: $725.9 million (through 31 September 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 $887.8 million.
Since the launch of Star Citizen's patch 3.23 in May, the company has experienced double-digit revenue growth from its cash shop. For the third quarter, the $1.7 million YoY revenue growth exceeded the 5-year average of $1.4 million. The company will need to continue that level of sales as average year-over-year revenue growth in the 4th quarter over the past 5 years has only been $6.5 million. Maintaining that level of growth would result in a rise of 12.7% in year-over-year sales. I have the feeling CIG is looking at the average year-over-year growth rate of 24% from 2019-2023, or almost double that amount, in order to pay all the bills.
