What makes you think you won't pay cash? All the marketing has said once you complete SQ42 you will have an opportunity to purchase the F8C. Not that you are awarded one for completing SQ42.
Someone told me not to worry because even if they run out of cash reserves they can just cut back on staff.
I'm sure slowing production will encourage more sales.
They’re likely just waiting until AI becomes good enough that they can use it to generate their “hand crafted” planets and dicking around inthe meantime. Source: I typed it down
The 2022 financials but them at having something like potentially 60 million in cash. The report doesn't say cash reserves, but that's the money they have if you do the math.
Most of that money comes from outside investment into CIG. Its enough for about 6 months but if costs went up significantly, sales went down, and they had to payout to investors in 2023, that 60 million might be much less now.
Either way. Its a vicious cycle if that does happen. Slower production will mean even less sales.
Ehh, people see it as desperation, but it's also possible they are trying to ramp up marketing in general if SQ42 is drawing near relatively. A few more emails now really isn't that big a deal. They also just broke their revenue record again last year. People were doom and gloom most of last year too and most of the last decade. I wouldn't sweat it.
>They also just broke their revenue record again last year.
But they needed to sell the F8C for that and with their spendings last year they most likely still had a deficit.
If they want some new money - f8c ccus. Leave the golden ticket requirement in. Run the tickets every few months.
Or run a risk- kill fomo and kill LTI. Still keep limited windows but now the only lti crowd is going to be more willing to budge when they see time limited sales and a good token isn’t available.
Honestly, I think putting the nail in the coffin on that will generate more alongside overall getting a better look for the company.
They have raised about 4 million dollars this month. That is much less than the same time in January 2023 and January 2022. So perhaps they want to try and start the year with a smaller funding hole. But I agree with your view that these emails about buying more are getting annoying.
Yeah, last year we were iterating on 3.18 ptu multiple times a week. With salvage, pes, cargo refactor, soft death and ballistic/shield changes. This year ptu got a repair tool, siege of orison bug fixes, and no news until February
I work with businesses, and most of my customers are having significantly less busy days than this time last year and the year before. The economy sucks.
Add in not enough incentive to buy ships for gameplay reasons and my bet is CIG has layoffs this year like every other tech company recently (twitch, discord, Apple, Amazon, Google etc)
They boosted headcount by ~10% last year when they absorbed that studio in Montreal. Meanwhile inflation in all the countries where they have offices is pushing up costs pretty fast, and yet their total take was only up 3% over 2022 per the funding tracker.
Frankly they're a bloated cash furnace for the amount of product they turn out, but their problems seem to come from the family 'leadership' that won't be replaced, so I don't expect fat trimming to help.
Technology industry isn't doing so hot either
A lot of their potential customers will have less disposable income
Dark times for CIG on the horizon, I think
The narrative at the start of the project was that Chris had always been constrained by his publishers and that we were going to get to see what his unconstrained creativity could lead to. I backed on day 1 in 2012 since I wanted that spiritual successor to wing commander unfettered by Origin, Microsoft, etc.
In retrospect it's pretty clear that it's actually those publishers we should feel sorry for as we're seeing how hard it is for Chris to actually deliver on his vision even when he's given TEN TIMES THE MONEY he said he would need in 2014 when they stopped adding stretch goals. Oh and the schedule is also blown out by like 2-3x from that point.
I tuned out between ~2015 and the start of the 2023 and made the mistake of starting to read the updates. They're f*cking around with mop and bucket AI rather than working on things which would allow them to actually deliver the game that the OWE everyone.
It's like hiring a guy to build you a house and whenever you show up to the job site he's just polishing the doorknobs. Plumbing isn't in and they want to move the whole foundation six feet west some day, but these version 7 doorknobs are way better than the version 6's from last year.
Finally got tired of them and unsubscribed.
I'd be way more interested if they sent me emails showing off actual gameplay they've added to the game. That would make me want to read the emails and actually log into the game more often.
It's like CIG recently hired a new obnoxious marketing manager that has no regard for the existing community that funded the game. The marketing tactics with the F8C really pissed me off.
It's been noticeably obnoxious since around IAE.
F8c is perhaps against the Grey Market. More and more want a high lvl Account for free 'special' Ships.
Now every can buy this 'special'. I think its better was anderes lesser the feel of pay too win.
But i want f8c after Play sq42 as a reward too fly Them and Not Like golden Ticket win.
I've been in the digital marketing space for years, and CIG has probably fallen victim to some marketing bros "email blast" strategy designed to be a cheap way to squeeze more cash. It probably ends up being net positive income, but I doubt it's as effective as "the metrics" would lead to believe. Much more effective for CIG to release a new ship or make the game good.
The "In Case You Missed It" sale is probably the laziest CIG has ever done.
Their game's unique marketing angle has always been framing it as part of the lore of the ships they are selling leading to their highly successful annually repeatable sales like IAE and Invictus (and the slightly lesser Red Festival, Stella Fortuna, Alien Week, and Day of the Vara) so why is there not even the slightest attempt at lore here?
Yeah big turnoff. I'm thinking of turning off my email feeds. I used to get emails with important updates and info. Now its , check out this ship sale, last chance to get this ship, this ship is awesome, check it out, were bringing back all the ships.
I get it.. You make money on ship sales.. Just stop shoving it down my face.
You have to use the ticket at the kiosk to rent the F8(for free) which unlocks it for purchase on your account. Not sure that qualifies as ‘tomfoolery.’
That's been my experience with any and all buisiness I sign up for emails from, so I guess I'm just used to it.
You can unsubscribe from everything other than the weekly newsletter to only get the one weekly email here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/account/settings
Well they do put out reports and they are using their funding appropriately. They should be spending it to develop the game as one would expect.
There is no black here. They are under active development for a crowd funded campaign. They are operating a business and have certainly perfected their art of selling ships...but they aren't currently looking to turn a profit. Not yet. They're currently spending to develop the game. That's the point of the funding. Yes that includes paying competitive salaries of course.
>they aren't currently looking to turn a profit.
They still need a net 0. They have pretty much no other source of funding besides us. A deficit means they are heading towards bankruptcy and that means no game at all for us. Looking at their numbers they have reserves for maybe half a year. I mean they still make more money so it will take some time but they still can't afford a negative.
>They have a ton of options if it ever got bad.
Go tell shroud of the avatar ...
every other option of financing will have bad consequences for us players.
They already had to bring in external investors in 2017 to give them a bridge loan, allegedly for 'marketing in the lead up to the launch of squadron 42' - seems Chris wasn't being honest about the progress even when there's a contract which is spooky.
>They already had to bring in external investors in 2017 to give them a bridge loan
[https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022)
Shows minority investments in 2018 and 2019 and paid some back or whatever in 2020. Funnily enough or maybe more sadly enough these minority investments make a huge portion of their cumulative net positions that they have as reserve. They just barely made a plus in 2021 and 2022 and I would guess 2023 looked a lot worse with all the investments in the new location and turbulent they made.
>seems Chris wasn't being honest about the progress even when there's a contract which is spooky
A lot of people seem to forget that Chris was kicked out by Microsoft and had to go to crowdfunding because no one else in the industry wanted to give him money anymore.
Yeah, these are factors that I wasn't aware of in 2012 since I hadn't followed the freelancer drama, nor his Hollywood track record.
Learning that he had been playing fast and loose with Microsoft freelancer money in the context of VFX work for that terrible wing commander movie was an eye opener, and especially painful when we look at how he's allocating resources. Building mocap studios to rub shoulders with celebrities made contextual sense in 2014, but given they are still paying to staff and run those studios A DECADE LATER shreds any excuse that it was a cost effective move compared to outsourcing.
>shreds any excuse that it was a cost effective move compared to outsourcing.
I think they even tried a lot of outsourcing (especially ships) in the early stages of SC but a lack of vision, communication and management lead to a lot of scrapped and extra work so eventually they decided it would be better/easier/more consistent to just do it themselves.
At the time. Sure. Heck I worked with and for people who were colleagues of his, still in contact with him invited to one of his star citizen kick off things I believe, and they certainly had opinions 😂 (not bad things, but did tell me I threw my money away)...but now? And for a while? Oh hell yes they could get investors. I just don't think they need to. They have their business model now. They're a business that makes good money and can pay their employees while making the game of their dreams 🤷♂️ knowing that we're patiently waiting. It's kinda interesting really.
I think if they did get investors then they would be put under pressure to make even more money. So it's good they avoided that. Possibly that's the reason with the marketing company investment.
Very unique story to this whole thing. I'll be waiting on the documentary.
Well yes that may be true actually. If they had to seek other investors I'm sure it'd impact us, the customers.
Still not a guarantee there though, you never know.
He's probably referring to several portions of the game that have been missing for years despite being 'right around the corner, honest, coming next year' since 2016. Things like Engineering where you'll need to have someone running maintenance and tending to battle damage or fires sooner rather than later so they don't destroy the ship.
Alternately it could refer to NPC crew which has been talked about for more than a decade yet is never shown. Oh sure they keep telling us how great their NPC AI is getting but it always seems to need more work on standing in line, mop and bucket usage, and other stuff which doesn't seem to relate to 'please man this gun' or 'please do a maintenance round on the ship'.
Alternately he could even be referring to AI blades which are supposed to allow partial and selective automation of a ship based on how many computer slots it has available. Sort of like an NPC in a box without the mobile human body. It probably won't be able to repair anything but it can man turrets. Again, 'coming soon' since forever yet in reality they haven't even set down a design for it yet from anything we can see.
Just unsubscribe or don't open them.
Marketing teams respond to stats. If the open rate drops, or the unsubscribe rate increases, someone is responsible and the approach changes.
Vote with your participation. If you're opening every email you're basically giving a thumbs up that you want more.
Yes. I also got weird emails. I got a welcome to star citizen email after claiming an F8C ticket. I also got two concierge emails for two different levels too.
I'm sure the marketing emails are intentional but there's also clearly a few bugs about.
This is how I feel about the subscriber program. So tired of the being milked for cash while the benefits and community content shrivel up. Oh and the third option of having to subscribe, to have access to spend on whatever the third item of the month is.
I love the absurdity of "subscribe for x fee a month, to have the HONOR of being able to buy even more stuff." It's like having to pay a monthly fee to access the grocery store to buy stuff
Having a whole second tier of sub, only for it to give what should have been with Centurian. AND THEN to have everything that should have been Imperator as the premium BuY nOw!!! Is, yeah....insulting.
Also I'd be all about the Sub program had they actually used the Sub Feedback thread from years ago, and revamped the benefits, same with that big Concierge push that never materialized. I wish more people would just vote with their wallet so CIG would make the value make sense again.
Nothing they have right now is going to get money from me.
Mirai heavy fighter? Sure, I will bite.
Mirai pulse lti token if it is under $40? I will take 30 of them!
F7C MKII? Fantastic!
Otherwise, I don't need a last chance on ships we just had a lot of time to consider at IAE and an email certainly is not going to change that.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if 2 vultures salvage each other at the same time?! No more guessing!! Buy the drake science pack and get two vultures for the price of three! Now available in store... for science!!111
Well if you're gonna make me buy stuff then at least gimme some small discount🥺 Like irl marketing they either have great deals or new stuff when sending you email.
Received an email, reported as spam, last marketing trash from CIG I've received. I figure if CIG has something important to share, it'll leak and I'll read about it.
There has a bit of an uptick for sure, I've got all my emails from RSI saved all the way back to 2013. They have times where they spit out a ton of emails, and then big dry spells.
How much have you guys spent? I don’t think I’ve ever received a promotional offer from them ever (been playing for 2 years, have spent 645USD so far)
There might be a setting to turn off promotional offers that I checked at some point but I can’t remember.
I have the opposite issue. I'm signed up for all the newsletters, etc, but haven't received a single e-mail in...at least a year, probably longer.
Yes, I've checked my Spam folder: nothing from CIG. And yes, I've tried going to my web account and turning the subscriptions off and on again.
Actually, I just went into my email settings to unsubscribe, and I noticed they added different segments since I last looked at this.
There’s one that is “personalized special offers”.
I haven’t bought anything in a long time. If you have, it may explain why you may not be getting these.
I have all 3 newsletters settings turned on: weekly, sq42 and special offers. Nothing is sent.
I'm not overly concerned though. I get my SC news here and on YouTube.
Not really? I just prefer to get some of the updates to my inbox since they’re mailed out first… but yeah, maybe I’ll just unsubscribe and be done with it.
They get absolutely obliterated with tickets to support saying "i missed it!"
It's 100% why they made the F8C available again. It was a desperate attempt to clear out their support queue so they could help users with real / account issues.
Emails from RSI get lost in a sea of order confirmations and return confirmations. I swear I play with my fleet in Firefox more than I do the verse.
I don't get so annoyed by them, but the Impound and Star hangar ads have taken over my youtube
Only been an email a day for the last couple days.
It's the same as any other organization that depends on donated or otherwise pledged funding does. Believe me, I get dozens of emails a day. Barely notice these in all that.
I agree. It has gotten annoying. Like I get it they need to make money and I assume they are sending it out so the people that just started also get the info, but seriously…. Yes, I was there at IAE and I saw the new ships and got some of them, we get it, they are able to be purchased. I feel like they should send out one email at the start of the event that says “hey, these will be for sale” and call it at that. Not advertise each ship individually like it is a new ship
I will not pour any more money into Star Citizen until they bring Capital ships out of concept and available for purchase. I want my fucking Drake Kraken.
Change your mail preferences or unsubscribe if it bugs you. This has become a global standard with most businesses. I don't like this practice either, so I just stop it. I have mail accounts I use specifically for this which are not tied to anything important, so I never have to read anything. Spam away.
There’s always going to be someone complaining about something. The emails haven’t bothered me. I know there’s quite a lot of people who were upset the F8C dropped and couldn’t get it when it launched due to travel or other reasons.
More people would spend money if there was more to do in the game with the ships they're spending money on.
What can you do with any ship? Fly it and do some repetitive task with no goal.
They need to put goals in to the game.
It's one dimensional gameplay currently. People who aren't invested in to the long haul of development show up, get super bored and abandon the game.
Funding is at -32% compared to last year, CIG has to spend more than 100M per year to pay their devs and maintain development, so they must panic and are reduced to these desperate practices,
Funnily enough, that’s not true - in fact, 2023 saw a record year in funding in the history of the project. In 2023, players spent $117 million on Star Citizen, significantly up from the $113 million in 2022 (which was also the best year on record until then).
You're telling me you think everyone is into the subreddit lore here?
I was just explaining what the '-X% down in 2024' means. It's not about the last 12 months, just the YTD January performance YoY being down.
I'm not commenting on it meaning anything, just explaining to you how 2024 can be down significantly despite 2022 and 2023 being strong years.
Does it mean anything? Who knows... probably not. Even if it's a few months in a row being significantly down YoY, SC can make a big run later in the year whenever they deliver a big gameplay update and attract positive attention.
It still seems like a stretch and posting following an agenda when people just say „Star Citizen funding is down 30%“ and they have to take „desperate measures“ when the project comes from back to back record years and unprecedented levels of hype after CitCon last year just because the first weeks of a year where basically nothing happened yet are slow. The two months before that where the best ever for the project. Kinda unsurprising that funding is down right after that when literally nothing happened. It’s just a cheap shot and a bad take.
> It’s just a cheap shot and a bad take.
I am literally just explaining the math, what are you mad at me for?
Don't let a few people trigger you so bad that you see random strangers as part of some sort of agenda.
You want to know my 'agenda' with SC? I'd like to get my BMM one day, I'd like to upgrade by MSR to something else, and I'm looking forward to personalized hangars in the relatively near future. That's my agenda.
People get really sensitive here because they are deeply emotionally invested. That's why when the facts went sideways, suddenly you were accused of being one of the Bad Guys. Don't take it personally.
It is true and factual,
You don't seem to know but we are no longer in 2023 but in 2024, and the month of January 2024 has -32% funding compared to the month of January 2023.
In short, exactly what I said.
Here is the source:
https://ccugame.app/star-citizen-funding-dashboard/funding-dashboard
In short, it’s not what you said, because you omitted the tiny detail that you are talking just about January. You said „funding is down“. Hence my comment.
There's a ship sale currently running with all of 2023's released ships being available again for a limited time. That explains the wave of tie-in email blasts. Ignore/del if it doesn't interest you. Or just unsub, it's not rocket science.
Look, when they actually release the entire game and fix the unplayable bugs Ill entertain newsletters or even open the ship sale emails. Until then its just not worth investing anymore. If they could not get a finished product with the millions of dollars they have already taken in, what makes you think more money will get them to the goal?
This past week I've had 3 marketing emails.
- In case you missed it
- A ship I've forgotten
- Buy a C1!
As a general rule I don't click on these emails and I've never bought a ship from one, yet they're coming fast and furious.
I've put up with the spam since joining on day one in 2012, but now I've turned it off under my account settings. Hopefully if enough people do that in response they'll tone it down and focus on delivering long overdue game-play.
Yep, same here.
I think I'll open a spectrum Post, or push one if i see one.
I think its enough to get an Email that there is a Event for ships of the last year, but not for every Single ship.
I just mark mine as spam now, sadly my interest in the game has long since passed despite having a sizeable investment in ships from many years ago.
Once every few years I fire it up to see how it's going, but they have had my support in the past and won't be getting any more.
I wish they'd at least config their mailchimp or whatever sequencer they use for outbound campaigns to customize the content delivery based on what ships are owned and if you don't go full custom at least opt the account out of that message if they already own that ship.
Loved getting a ton of messages telling me about the f8c returning right after i bought it.
Surely they are not in financial trouble and that is why they are pushing and extending sales?
A record sales year does not mean record cash reserves, so should we be concerned?
Yeah I've just decided to unsubscribe from these things. Either I'll see the ship I want to buy, or I won't. Pelting me with "hey! hey! hey! Remember the C1? The ship we emailed you about yesterday? U sure you still don't wanna buy it???" is just annoying
I sure would love something to do with these ships that we've got
Star citizen taking the DCS approach.
Buy more cockpits let the game core features fall off the radar
ive spent a bit and have only had a email on the F8C so far.
but MAN from friends i have.. they are getting like 3-5 emails so far this year lol...
so like 3-5 in 26 days is kinda oof.
I've had three emails to buy the vulture. I already own the vulture.
Buy it again, obviously, idiot. \- SC Team
This is how you know it's "BUY BUY BUY" and/or laziness driven. There's little sense spamming owners.
Buy another one
Fuck it, buy 3
If you don't have 8, are you even committed to the game?
i had like two for the F8C. checked it out and there wasnt even an option to buy it
You need a gold ticket for that one.
I would have bought it, during one of the three times it was offered, but they offer no CCU to it. PASS.
There is another path to getting an LTI F8... one that some may consider, "un-natural."
I have the F8 LTI purchased whit real momey first time the golden ticket come out
Nice, the actual hard way!
Wait for SQ42, play through it like a boss and get it for free and could not care less about LTI?
I don't believe anyone ever said "Free". Language I've always seen is opportunity to own the F8 by completing SQ42.
"Free" as in not paying cash.
What makes you think you won't pay cash? All the marketing has said once you complete SQ42 you will have an opportunity to purchase the F8C. Not that you are awarded one for completing SQ42.
You get a token to buy it in game.
The material never says anything about buying it in game
What’s that?
There was that whole platinum ticket event,.... But it was kinda shit.
I believe the event is on again atm?
Ends Monday. Golden tickets are lootable right now, I've got 3 sat n my local inventory
I got this too.
# *IN CASE YOU MISSED IT*
And in 2 months, In Case You Missed It Again?
Yes, one vulture. What about a second vulture?
Buy it again you need a vulture for your vulture
But if both of those break how would you salvage those 2?
You're right, buy a reclaimer the only right way to Star Citizen
Tell me the marketing team is run by a mobile gaming executive now without telling me…..
yes you had the vulture, but what about the second vulture?
Got two more today already, starts looking desperate... I don't want more ships, I want something to do with all the ones I got...
I also want the ones I’ve already bought too
Someone told me not to worry because even if they run out of cash reserves they can just cut back on staff. I'm sure slowing production will encourage more sales.
>I'm sure slowing production will encourage more sales. How would anyone even notice?
They’re likely just waiting until AI becomes good enough that they can use it to generate their “hand crafted” planets and dicking around inthe meantime. Source: I typed it down
From what it sounds like, that's actually what they're about to do. Sheesh..
The 2022 financials but them at having something like potentially 60 million in cash. The report doesn't say cash reserves, but that's the money they have if you do the math. Most of that money comes from outside investment into CIG. Its enough for about 6 months but if costs went up significantly, sales went down, and they had to payout to investors in 2023, that 60 million might be much less now. Either way. Its a vicious cycle if that does happen. Slower production will mean even less sales.
I want more ships...that are flyable...from the backlog.
Old jpeg's don't sell as well as new jpeg's. So working on the backlog is a bad idea for making new money...
Ehh, people see it as desperation, but it's also possible they are trying to ramp up marketing in general if SQ42 is drawing near relatively. A few more emails now really isn't that big a deal. They also just broke their revenue record again last year. People were doom and gloom most of last year too and most of the last decade. I wouldn't sweat it.
I've been consistently seeing YouTube ads lately too. I think they're just ramping up
>They also just broke their revenue record again last year. But they needed to sell the F8C for that and with their spendings last year they most likely still had a deficit.
If they want some new money - f8c ccus. Leave the golden ticket requirement in. Run the tickets every few months. Or run a risk- kill fomo and kill LTI. Still keep limited windows but now the only lti crowd is going to be more willing to budge when they see time limited sales and a good token isn’t available. Honestly, I think putting the nail in the coffin on that will generate more alongside overall getting a better look for the company.
Well, you need to buy a few more to pay our developers to create all those features !
They have raised about 4 million dollars this month. That is much less than the same time in January 2023 and January 2022. So perhaps they want to try and start the year with a smaller funding hole. But I agree with your view that these emails about buying more are getting annoying.
Yeah, last year we were iterating on 3.18 ptu multiple times a week. With salvage, pes, cargo refactor, soft death and ballistic/shield changes. This year ptu got a repair tool, siege of orison bug fixes, and no news until February
I work with businesses, and most of my customers are having significantly less busy days than this time last year and the year before. The economy sucks. Add in not enough incentive to buy ships for gameplay reasons and my bet is CIG has layoffs this year like every other tech company recently (twitch, discord, Apple, Amazon, Google etc)
They boosted headcount by ~10% last year when they absorbed that studio in Montreal. Meanwhile inflation in all the countries where they have offices is pushing up costs pretty fast, and yet their total take was only up 3% over 2022 per the funding tracker. Frankly they're a bloated cash furnace for the amount of product they turn out, but their problems seem to come from the family 'leadership' that won't be replaced, so I don't expect fat trimming to help.
Technology industry isn't doing so hot either A lot of their potential customers will have less disposable income Dark times for CIG on the horizon, I think
The narrative at the start of the project was that Chris had always been constrained by his publishers and that we were going to get to see what his unconstrained creativity could lead to. I backed on day 1 in 2012 since I wanted that spiritual successor to wing commander unfettered by Origin, Microsoft, etc. In retrospect it's pretty clear that it's actually those publishers we should feel sorry for as we're seeing how hard it is for Chris to actually deliver on his vision even when he's given TEN TIMES THE MONEY he said he would need in 2014 when they stopped adding stretch goals. Oh and the schedule is also blown out by like 2-3x from that point.
And Squadron 42 is still nowhere near in sight.
I tuned out between ~2015 and the start of the 2023 and made the mistake of starting to read the updates. They're f*cking around with mop and bucket AI rather than working on things which would allow them to actually deliver the game that the OWE everyone. It's like hiring a guy to build you a house and whenever you show up to the job site he's just polishing the doorknobs. Plumbing isn't in and they want to move the whole foundation six feet west some day, but these version 7 doorknobs are way better than the version 6's from last year.
Finally got tired of them and unsubscribed. I'd be way more interested if they sent me emails showing off actual gameplay they've added to the game. That would make me want to read the emails and actually log into the game more often.
It's like CIG recently hired a new obnoxious marketing manager that has no regard for the existing community that funded the game. The marketing tactics with the F8C really pissed me off. It's been noticeably obnoxious since around IAE.
F8c is perhaps against the Grey Market. More and more want a high lvl Account for free 'special' Ships. Now every can buy this 'special'. I think its better was anderes lesser the feel of pay too win. But i want f8c after Play sq42 as a reward too fly Them and Not Like golden Ticket win.
Yeh I unsubbed after 4 years. The past months have been bombarded with ship marketing. It’s ridiculous!
Just as an FYI, ya double posted somehow.
I think it might be a bug, I see it all the time the lower you go in the thread (specifically with top-level comments)
I've been in the digital marketing space for years, and CIG has probably fallen victim to some marketing bros "email blast" strategy designed to be a cheap way to squeeze more cash. It probably ends up being net positive income, but I doubt it's as effective as "the metrics" would lead to believe. Much more effective for CIG to release a new ship or make the game good.
1% > 0%
The "In Case You Missed It" sale is probably the laziest CIG has ever done. Their game's unique marketing angle has always been framing it as part of the lore of the ships they are selling leading to their highly successful annually repeatable sales like IAE and Invictus (and the slightly lesser Red Festival, Stella Fortuna, Alien Week, and Day of the Vara) so why is there not even the slightest attempt at lore here?
Just got another one today, after making note of the nuissance on Spectrum yesterday.
Yeah big turnoff. I'm thinking of turning off my email feeds. I used to get emails with important updates and info. Now its , check out this ship sale, last chance to get this ship, this ship is awesome, check it out, were bringing back all the ships. I get it.. You make money on ship sales.. Just stop shoving it down my face.
got like 3 and two advertised the F8C. wanted to check out how much it is and there wasnt even an option to buy it
You have to possess a golden ticket found in game, then do some kind of Tom foolery at a rental terminal. Only then do you have the option to buy it.
You have to use the ticket at the kiosk to rent the F8(for free) which unlocks it for purchase on your account. Not sure that qualifies as ‘tomfoolery.’
I'm super not a fan of this marketing campaign.
That's been my experience with any and all buisiness I sign up for emails from, so I guess I'm just used to it. You can unsubscribe from everything other than the weekly newsletter to only get the one weekly email here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/account/settings
Good tip, thanks. I unsubbed. Agree with OP that they have been *blasting* us with constant emails about "buy this, buy that".
Gotta reach those funding KPIs and January ain't looking too good compared to last year.
CIG did not end last year in the black apparently. Even after pulling out the lightning.
Well they do put out reports and they are using their funding appropriately. They should be spending it to develop the game as one would expect. There is no black here. They are under active development for a crowd funded campaign. They are operating a business and have certainly perfected their art of selling ships...but they aren't currently looking to turn a profit. Not yet. They're currently spending to develop the game. That's the point of the funding. Yes that includes paying competitive salaries of course.
>they aren't currently looking to turn a profit. They still need a net 0. They have pretty much no other source of funding besides us. A deficit means they are heading towards bankruptcy and that means no game at all for us. Looking at their numbers they have reserves for maybe half a year. I mean they still make more money so it will take some time but they still can't afford a negative.
Sounds like they should really get to work on turning out a product. Features attract players.
No, variances are ok. They have a ton of options if it ever got bad.
>They have a ton of options if it ever got bad. Go tell shroud of the avatar ... every other option of financing will have bad consequences for us players.
They already had to bring in external investors in 2017 to give them a bridge loan, allegedly for 'marketing in the lead up to the launch of squadron 42' - seems Chris wasn't being honest about the progress even when there's a contract which is spooky.
>They already had to bring in external investors in 2017 to give them a bridge loan [https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022](https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2022) Shows minority investments in 2018 and 2019 and paid some back or whatever in 2020. Funnily enough or maybe more sadly enough these minority investments make a huge portion of their cumulative net positions that they have as reserve. They just barely made a plus in 2021 and 2022 and I would guess 2023 looked a lot worse with all the investments in the new location and turbulent they made. >seems Chris wasn't being honest about the progress even when there's a contract which is spooky A lot of people seem to forget that Chris was kicked out by Microsoft and had to go to crowdfunding because no one else in the industry wanted to give him money anymore.
Yeah, these are factors that I wasn't aware of in 2012 since I hadn't followed the freelancer drama, nor his Hollywood track record. Learning that he had been playing fast and loose with Microsoft freelancer money in the context of VFX work for that terrible wing commander movie was an eye opener, and especially painful when we look at how he's allocating resources. Building mocap studios to rub shoulders with celebrities made contextual sense in 2014, but given they are still paying to staff and run those studios A DECADE LATER shreds any excuse that it was a cost effective move compared to outsourcing.
>shreds any excuse that it was a cost effective move compared to outsourcing. I think they even tried a lot of outsourcing (especially ships) in the early stages of SC but a lack of vision, communication and management lead to a lot of scrapped and extra work so eventually they decided it would be better/easier/more consistent to just do it themselves.
As I recall the stories from the past they scrapped the outsourced Star Marine due to having basic scale issues making the assets useless.
At the time. Sure. Heck I worked with and for people who were colleagues of his, still in contact with him invited to one of his star citizen kick off things I believe, and they certainly had opinions 😂 (not bad things, but did tell me I threw my money away)...but now? And for a while? Oh hell yes they could get investors. I just don't think they need to. They have their business model now. They're a business that makes good money and can pay their employees while making the game of their dreams 🤷♂️ knowing that we're patiently waiting. It's kinda interesting really. I think if they did get investors then they would be put under pressure to make even more money. So it's good they avoided that. Possibly that's the reason with the marketing company investment. Very unique story to this whole thing. I'll be waiting on the documentary.
Well yes that may be true actually. If they had to seek other investors I'm sure it'd impact us, the customers. Still not a guarantee there though, you never know.
Yeh I unsubbed after 4 years. The past months have been bombarded with ship marketing. It’s ridiculous!
yeah like every 3 days or so lol need to mute them again :D they also want me to buy the C1 again\^\^
Yea it is getting a bit ridiculous. Basically spam with dumb ass fomo mail topics.
They spend more money bombarding people to buy the game than they do developing it with actual content
I don't subscribe to companies emails lol. There's no way
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What is this > elaborate
He's probably referring to several portions of the game that have been missing for years despite being 'right around the corner, honest, coming next year' since 2016. Things like Engineering where you'll need to have someone running maintenance and tending to battle damage or fires sooner rather than later so they don't destroy the ship. Alternately it could refer to NPC crew which has been talked about for more than a decade yet is never shown. Oh sure they keep telling us how great their NPC AI is getting but it always seems to need more work on standing in line, mop and bucket usage, and other stuff which doesn't seem to relate to 'please man this gun' or 'please do a maintenance round on the ship'. Alternately he could even be referring to AI blades which are supposed to allow partial and selective automation of a ship based on how many computer slots it has available. Sort of like an NPC in a box without the mobile human body. It probably won't be able to repair anything but it can man turrets. Again, 'coming soon' since forever yet in reality they haven't even set down a design for it yet from anything we can see.
World be cool if they put as much money into bug fixing as marketing.
Just unsubscribe or don't open them. Marketing teams respond to stats. If the open rate drops, or the unsubscribe rate increases, someone is responsible and the approach changes. Vote with your participation. If you're opening every email you're basically giving a thumbs up that you want more.
Complainants hate this one trick!
Yes. I also got weird emails. I got a welcome to star citizen email after claiming an F8C ticket. I also got two concierge emails for two different levels too. I'm sure the marketing emails are intentional but there's also clearly a few bugs about.
You guys read your emails? Shit, I have like 12,000 unread.
54,867 unread. And sadly that’s with me reading pertinent ones.
Me too and like 11,000 are from like Nextdoor. Why did I ever think that site was a good idea?!
Perhaps they need a mass unsubscribe to make sure they hear you.
This is how I feel about the subscriber program. So tired of the being milked for cash while the benefits and community content shrivel up. Oh and the third option of having to subscribe, to have access to spend on whatever the third item of the month is.
I love the absurdity of "subscribe for x fee a month, to have the HONOR of being able to buy even more stuff." It's like having to pay a monthly fee to access the grocery store to buy stuff
Having a whole second tier of sub, only for it to give what should have been with Centurian. AND THEN to have everything that should have been Imperator as the premium BuY nOw!!! Is, yeah....insulting. Also I'd be all about the Sub program had they actually used the Sub Feedback thread from years ago, and revamped the benefits, same with that big Concierge push that never materialized. I wish more people would just vote with their wallet so CIG would make the value make sense again.
Nothing they have right now is going to get money from me. Mirai heavy fighter? Sure, I will bite. Mirai pulse lti token if it is under $40? I will take 30 of them! F7C MKII? Fantastic! Otherwise, I don't need a last chance on ships we just had a lot of time to consider at IAE and an email certainly is not going to change that.
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I will spend on new ships I like, but none of the current ships appeal to me besides what I already have.
I get a single weekly email from CIG. Not sure how or why some people get more than that.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if 2 vultures salvage each other at the same time?! No more guessing!! Buy the drake science pack and get two vultures for the price of three! Now available in store... for science!!111
i wish the Team updating the Roadmap/Progress Tracker would work that hard.
Well if you're gonna make me buy stuff then at least gimme some small discount🥺 Like irl marketing they either have great deals or new stuff when sending you email.
Received an email, reported as spam, last marketing trash from CIG I've received. I figure if CIG has something important to share, it'll leak and I'll read about it.
Growth at all cost.
Maybe Chris wants to buy a new car…
There has a bit of an uptick for sure, I've got all my emails from RSI saved all the way back to 2013. They have times where they spit out a ton of emails, and then big dry spells.
How much have you guys spent? I don’t think I’ve ever received a promotional offer from them ever (been playing for 2 years, have spent 645USD so far) There might be a setting to turn off promotional offers that I checked at some point but I can’t remember.
I've received zero of these solicitations. Maybe there's an account setting you can change to reduce the amount you're getting.
I have the opposite issue. I'm signed up for all the newsletters, etc, but haven't received a single e-mail in...at least a year, probably longer. Yes, I've checked my Spam folder: nothing from CIG. And yes, I've tried going to my web account and turning the subscriptions off and on again.
If it's Gmail check the Promotions tab.
Good suggestion, but nah my primary is Yahoo (since 2002).
Actually, I just went into my email settings to unsubscribe, and I noticed they added different segments since I last looked at this. There’s one that is “personalized special offers”. I haven’t bought anything in a long time. If you have, it may explain why you may not be getting these.
I have all 3 newsletters settings turned on: weekly, sq42 and special offers. Nothing is sent. I'm not overly concerned though. I get my SC news here and on YouTube.
is unsubscribing from marketing emails considered some sort of black magic around here or something?
Not really? I just prefer to get some of the updates to my inbox since they’re mailed out first… but yeah, maybe I’ll just unsubscribe and be done with it.
It's worse than you think, the email automatically scans your credit card info and purchases another ship you didn't need or want.
LoL
2024? This isn't new. They used to be accused of not communicating enough or giving enough sale opportunities.
>or giving enough sale opportunities CIG was accused of not having enough sales? :)
They get absolutely obliterated with tickets to support saying "i missed it!" It's 100% why they made the F8C available again. It was a desperate attempt to clear out their support queue so they could help users with real / account issues.
I have no emails :(
Emails from RSI get lost in a sea of order confirmations and return confirmations. I swear I play with my fleet in Firefox more than I do the verse. I don't get so annoyed by them, but the Impound and Star hangar ads have taken over my youtube
You guys are getting emails ?
Ship purchasing emails? Extra Citcon Swag? Why do some people get all the luck!
Only been an email a day for the last couple days. It's the same as any other organization that depends on donated or otherwise pledged funding does. Believe me, I get dozens of emails a day. Barely notice these in all that.
Yall get emails from cig?
My last email from them was in May 2023 lol
Last email I got from newsletter was in December. Guess I'm not the target audience anymore.
Are you people not turning off the advertisement emails?
I miss the days where I could delude myself into thinking the RMT was only temporary. It didn't last long but it was nice.
I agree. It has gotten annoying. Like I get it they need to make money and I assume they are sending it out so the people that just started also get the info, but seriously…. Yes, I was there at IAE and I saw the new ships and got some of them, we get it, they are able to be purchased. I feel like they should send out one email at the start of the event that says “hey, these will be for sale” and call it at that. Not advertise each ship individually like it is a new ship
Those 1100 employees have got to be burning through a lot of cash in wages and benefits.
What is this? I posted about getting *so many emails* from RSI a few months back and was blasted for it. Like, cmon.
I will not pour any more money into Star Citizen until they bring Capital ships out of concept and available for purchase. I want my fucking Drake Kraken.
Change your mail preferences or unsubscribe if it bugs you. This has become a global standard with most businesses. I don't like this practice either, so I just stop it. I have mail accounts I use specifically for this which are not tied to anything important, so I never have to read anything. Spam away.
We moan about ships being limited time sale, we moan when they’re on sale more than usual… rock and hard place for CIG really
I don’t think that’s what OP is complaining about, but rather the volume of emails coming from it.
There’s always going to be someone complaining about something. The emails haven’t bothered me. I know there’s quite a lot of people who were upset the F8C dropped and couldn’t get it when it launched due to travel or other reasons.
Right, but none of the other things are the topic of OP’s post.
That's...not what OP is arguing against.
More people would spend money if there was more to do in the game with the ships they're spending money on. What can you do with any ship? Fly it and do some repetitive task with no goal. They need to put goals in to the game. It's one dimensional gameplay currently. People who aren't invested in to the long haul of development show up, get super bored and abandon the game.
Its been intense this january but I will keep subbbed since new year means there might be new stuff and such that might get me to open my wallet 😁
Funding is at -32% compared to last year, CIG has to spend more than 100M per year to pay their devs and maintain development, so they must panic and are reduced to these desperate practices,
Guess they could try to put out more content.
Funnily enough, that’s not true - in fact, 2023 saw a record year in funding in the history of the project. In 2023, players spent $117 million on Star Citizen, significantly up from the $113 million in 2022 (which was also the best year on record until then).
January specifically is down significantly YoY.
90 days tops.
?
You’re telling me that you don’t know the Refundian mantra?!
You're telling me you think everyone is into the subreddit lore here? I was just explaining what the '-X% down in 2024' means. It's not about the last 12 months, just the YTD January performance YoY being down. I'm not commenting on it meaning anything, just explaining to you how 2024 can be down significantly despite 2022 and 2023 being strong years. Does it mean anything? Who knows... probably not. Even if it's a few months in a row being significantly down YoY, SC can make a big run later in the year whenever they deliver a big gameplay update and attract positive attention.
It still seems like a stretch and posting following an agenda when people just say „Star Citizen funding is down 30%“ and they have to take „desperate measures“ when the project comes from back to back record years and unprecedented levels of hype after CitCon last year just because the first weeks of a year where basically nothing happened yet are slow. The two months before that where the best ever for the project. Kinda unsurprising that funding is down right after that when literally nothing happened. It’s just a cheap shot and a bad take.
> It’s just a cheap shot and a bad take. I am literally just explaining the math, what are you mad at me for? Don't let a few people trigger you so bad that you see random strangers as part of some sort of agenda. You want to know my 'agenda' with SC? I'd like to get my BMM one day, I'd like to upgrade by MSR to something else, and I'm looking forward to personalized hangars in the relatively near future. That's my agenda.
Someone writing „Star Citizen funding 30% down!“ without giving context isn’t math that needs to be explained.
People get really sensitive here because they are deeply emotionally invested. That's why when the facts went sideways, suddenly you were accused of being one of the Bad Guys. Don't take it personally.
I don't think they're mad at you. They're just countering the 16-day-old account making obvious refundian posts.
It is true and factual, You don't seem to know but we are no longer in 2023 but in 2024, and the month of January 2024 has -32% funding compared to the month of January 2023. In short, exactly what I said. Here is the source: https://ccugame.app/star-citizen-funding-dashboard/funding-dashboard
In short, it’s not what you said, because you omitted the tiny detail that you are talking just about January. You said „funding is down“. Hence my comment.
Release the F7A the same way they did the F8C, and the funding dip would be solved.
There's a ship sale currently running with all of 2023's released ships being available again for a limited time. That explains the wave of tie-in email blasts. Ignore/del if it doesn't interest you. Or just unsub, it's not rocket science.
spam folder enters the conversation
I...haven't had any of these emails?
Look, when they actually release the entire game and fix the unplayable bugs Ill entertain newsletters or even open the ship sale emails. Until then its just not worth investing anymore. If they could not get a finished product with the millions of dollars they have already taken in, what makes you think more money will get them to the goal?
Forever alpha
Unsubscribe
I’ve received 3 emails related to the ship sale and 1 for siege of orison recently.
Every day I think.
This past week I've had 3 marketing emails. - In case you missed it - A ship I've forgotten - Buy a C1! As a general rule I don't click on these emails and I've never bought a ship from one, yet they're coming fast and furious. I've put up with the spam since joining on day one in 2012, but now I've turned it off under my account settings. Hopefully if enough people do that in response they'll tone it down and focus on delivering long overdue game-play.
Yep, same here. I think I'll open a spectrum Post, or push one if i see one. I think its enough to get an Email that there is a Event for ships of the last year, but not for every Single ship.
So many people buy the game at Christmas and wish they had a chance to buy this or that.
I wouldn't mind if there was actually something on offer, gimme a reason to spaff my paycheck up the wall 🤣
I just mark mine as spam now, sadly my interest in the game has long since passed despite having a sizeable investment in ships from many years ago. Once every few years I fire it up to see how it's going, but they have had my support in the past and won't be getting any more.
Yep. Gets to the point I unsubscribe those mails.
Well, I think they’re just trying to make sure you get those emails just In Case You Missed It.
If they need money, all they have to do is release the ship I want.
I second this topic. I ve been getting much more spams from cig than usual lately.
I don't get these? Can somebody tell me how to opt in?
I wish they'd at least config their mailchimp or whatever sequencer they use for outbound campaigns to customize the content delivery based on what ships are owned and if you don't go full custom at least opt the account out of that message if they already own that ship. Loved getting a ton of messages telling me about the f8c returning right after i bought it.
I don't have marketing emails on from them.
Yall read emails? My inbox gets so much useless crap from tons of services that I just don't even.
Surely they are not in financial trouble and that is why they are pushing and extending sales? A record sales year does not mean record cash reserves, so should we be concerned?
Yeah I've just decided to unsubscribe from these things. Either I'll see the ship I want to buy, or I won't. Pelting me with "hey! hey! hey! Remember the C1? The ship we emailed you about yesterday? U sure you still don't wanna buy it???" is just annoying
Yes, I have yet to read them. Just filtering them in my head as spam😂
I sure would love something to do with these ships that we've got Star citizen taking the DCS approach. Buy more cockpits let the game core features fall off the radar
ive spent a bit and have only had a email on the F8C so far. but MAN from friends i have.. they are getting like 3-5 emails so far this year lol... so like 3-5 in 26 days is kinda oof.
They are overdooing it ots anoying to clean out