Cloud Imperium finished off a record quarter yesterday by finishing the month of March with $10 million in cash shop sales for the first time in the company's 13 year history. The $10 million, according to the CCU Game dashboard, represented a year-over-year increase of 40.2% over the $7.3 million in sales recorded in March 2024. For the first three months of 2025, CIG finished with $25.5 million in sales, a 47.3% YoY increase over Q1 2024's $17.3 million.
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| First quarter 2025 cash shop sales |
The $799.5 million displayed on the Roberts Space Industries funding page at the end of March was not a comprehensive accounting for all of CIG's revenue since the project's Kickstarter in October 2012. Overall, the company has recorded $898.1 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report).
- Sales/Pledges: $799.5 million (through 31 March 2025)
- 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 $961.4 million, or $956.6 million when excluding the returned funds. An additional $5 million in shares sold in January 2025 are not included in the total.
The Funding Plateau - Over the last three years, Cloud Imperium has faced a sales plateau in the company's sales of virtual good like internet spaceships. Sales have fallen withing 3% of the average of $115.9 million between 2022-2024. I believe the shakeup of upper management that began in Q4 of 2024 is designed to break through and increase revenue for the company. So in addition to providing year-over-year metrics I will also comparing the sales figures from 2025 to the average sales for the years 2022-2024. I believe if sales continue to fall within the range of $112.4 million and $119.4 million the C-Suite at CIG, if not the board of directors, will not be happy.
In March the Marketing Masters In Manchester had a lot to smile about. Not only did sales rise 40.2% for the first quarter YoY, but increased over the previous 3-year average for the quarter by 31.4%. Sales really benefitted from both the continued effects of the release of Alpha 4.0.2 on 28 February and the final sales associated with the launch of Alpha 4.1 on 27 March.
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| March 2025 cash shop sales |
Over the first seven days of March, the company recorded $1.6 million in sales, a $790,000 increase over sales in the first seven days of March 2024. Over the final five days of the month CIG received $4 million in sales, or an increase of $3.1 million over the same period in 2024. These two periods offset the disappointing performance of the annual Fortuna event which only brought in $3.4 million, a $1.4 million YoY drop from the event's sales in 2024.
New Account Creation - From 2022 to 2024 CIG saw the number of new accounts created each year fall by 44.5%. I'm assuming that part of the shakeup is aimed at improving that performance as well. So I came up with a simple predictive formula to estimate how big of a drop in new player account creation is expected based on historical trends. For the year, my formula comes up with a 19% drop in new user accounts created in 2025, which is twice as much as I predicted at the beginning of the year.
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| Q1 2025 new account creation |
Overall in Q1, the number of new accounts created fell by 29% year-over-year, from 121,088 accounts in March 2024 down to 86,008 last month. I often get asked how sales revenue can increase to record heights while the game itself attracts less and less new people. The answer, as always, is any correlation between sales numbers and new account creation is purely coincidental. The marketing team is concentrating on sales to long term players with a proven track record of spending a lot of money (aka "whales").
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| March 2025 new account creation |
However, for the first time since August 2024 CIG experienced a year-over-year growth in the number of accounts created in March. Account creation increased by 6.1% to 25,496 last month. While not a large amount compared to the over 40% cash shop revenue increase in March, the rise does represent the first uptick in the metric for the new leadership team.
Ongoing Concerns - March has come and gone and we do not have any indication if the Calders exercised their put option during the quarter. As the only remaining period to exercise the option is Q1 2028 the submission of Cloud Imperium's accounts to UK Companies House should provide a clue.
Speaking of UK Companies House, CIG had not submitted its financial accounts to the government body as of the writing of this post. From past experience a 7-10 day lag does exist before the paperwork will show up on the site. But as of today, the fine for late filing increases from £750 to £1500. If the accounts are not filed in April I'll begin to think something suspicious is occurring instead of just the regular Cloud Imperium shuffle.
We do know that the Cloud Imperium page is active on UK Companies House as back in February the company posted the required information, on a timely basis, on the allotment of $5 million in shares to as yet unnamed purchaser. The company probably will not reveal the buyer's identity until required by Companies House. The next deadline is in September.
Observers are still awaiting the traditional reveal of Cloud Imperium's 2023 financial report on CIG's corporate website. I believe, if not legally required in the UK, is traditionally seen as a bad sign by investors if one is not present. I'm still trying to track that piece of information down. Honestly, I didn't expect CIG to fall behind this late.
Finally, for a quarterly review, I cannot forget the shutdown of CIG's Los Angeles facility. In March 2024 Cloud Imperium CEO and co-founder Chris Roberts issued a "Letter from the Chairman" in which he announced game development work would cease in California but the office would remain a main administrative hub. Last month we learned differently.
