The latest from our resident Goon accountant over on SA
There wasn't much need for one of these estimated cash-flow forecasts anymore since the jig is up. Everyone knows they ran out of money and needed loans/investment to keep going and now they have that $46m to last them a while but I went ahead and did one anyway. The main takeaway is they had to have run a $10m deficit in 2018 despite it being the best year for funding. It's really just a summary of their own figures and statements.
The blog financials have not been audited and represent a picture as presented by Simon Elms. I have already shown reasons to call into question the reliability of his work. Given the mix and match nature and lack of any balance sheet showing liabilities and other missing items, it seems reasonable to conclude that the figures as presented put the project in the best possible light via creative means that do not veer into outright dishonesty.
Simon Elms writes in late 2018 on the subject of Publishing and Marketing, "Consequently, it is not surprising that costs in this entire cost category are rising, climbing to $7.1M globally by 2017 and are likely to continue in that direction as we prepare for releases." Given that he has direct access to the management accounts, it's likely my estimate for $8m in 2018 is significantly lower than the actual increase.
The current total on Publishing and Marketing is some $33.5m to date. The annual expense is now some $8m+. As a reminder, Elite Dangerous raised £1.6m on Kickstarter and had a production budget in total of some £8m.
It's also worth pointing out that by their own figures, Star Citizen spent $1.15m in 2012. While it seems like a comparatively very small figure now, it's worth considering the budgets that were being thrown around at the time. It also represents about one-two months.
I think anyone can look at the summaries and the amounts and the timings and come to their own conclusions about this mess. If they think it's great project management well then, I got a jpeg to sell you.