Star Citizen and money: It’s one of MMO players’ favorite topics, right?
Back in December of last year, Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium announced a $46M private investment in the company chiefly to speed up the release of Squadron 42. At the time, it brought the “total money valuation” of the studio to $496 million.
This week, the company has released its Annual Companies House Report to comport with UK law, specifically covering the 2018 period. “In 2018, the Cloud Imperium Group set a new high for revenue, play time, new players, game publishes and releases while also posting a small loss, £818k shown here in the UK filings,” CFO Simon Elms writes. “This was within our forecast as we continue to invest in growing the game, the company and the project.”
“Group turnover has increased in 2018 to £17.9m (2017: £16.96m) with higher engagement stemming from the quarterly releases of Star Citizen, allowing a greater number of users to play more sections of the game whilst it is being developed. Costs have also risen to £21.4m (2017: £18.2m) in line with the longer-term plans of the group, as it continues to progress the development and publishing of the games concentrating upon its release plans relative to its trading and funding position. Despite the £0.82m loss for the year the group still retained profit reserves of £2.9m as of 31 December 2018, and during the year the Company raised a further £17m from a minority equity investment, the UK part of the $46M worldwide investment into the Cloud Imperium Group made in 2018.”
Do note that the document is focused on UK activities, not US, and that a more comprehensive report is expected at the end of 2019.
Of course, the best part of this letter is that people will be “discovering” it five months from now and reporting parts of it as “new,” as they did last year.
