Star Citizen Analytics Project

[Flashwit]

Coincidentally, the 30th matches the 3rd as well as the 1st matching the 2nd.  Then it falls off a cliff.  Total BS.

That's not quite accurate. It's just that the chart doesn't have enough resolution to show extremely minor differences.
The y coordinate for the 2nd is the highest at 5. The y coordinate for the 1st is actually 5.1310282.... which ends up being less than a pixel of difference when rendered. If we do some math, the view for today ends up being that each difference of 1 in the y coordinate equals $5,693 (at the time of writing). So technically the difference between the 1st and the 2nd is $746 which might as well be zero.

The difference between the 30th and the 3rd is $10,991. That's at least plausible I suppose.

[dsmart]

Coincidentally, the 30th matches the 3rd as well as the 1st matching the 2nd.  Then it falls off a cliff.  Total BS.

That's not quite accurate. It's just that the chart doesn't have enough resolution to show extremely minor differences.
The y coordinate for the 2nd is the highest at 5. The y coordinate for the 1st is actually 5.1310282.... which ends up being less than a pixel of difference when rendered. If we do some math, the view for today ends up being that each difference of 1 in the y coordinate equals $5,693 (at the time of writing). So technically the difference between the 1st and the 2nd is $746 which might as well be zero.

The difference between the 30th and the 3rd is $10,991. That's at least plausible I suppose.

The amounts are negligible, hence the lack of resolution in the chart

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tMAP0fg-AKScI3S3VjrDW3OaLO4zgBA1RSYoQOQoNSI/htmlview#

[dsmart]

[Kyrt]

Latest info has CIG up to 457 employees.

I'd be interested to know how many were devs and artists, how many sales and support

[N0mad]

Latest info has CIG up to 457 employees.

I'd be interested to know how many were devs and artists, how many sales and support

Good Lord, did they just keep hiring thinking that if they get enough people then a game was going to get made?

I seem to remember reading (probably the Gamasutra articles) that the monthly cost per person for the industry was about £10,000 (overheads aswell as salaries) meaning that their monthly burn rate would be in the region of $4,500,000. They must need get rid of staff desperately by now. I'm guessing that they need to get 3.0 to live before they announce layoffs in the hope that everyone will be too distracted by the 3.0 release (? & holiday live stream) to notice - just a theory.

What's your source for that number anyway?

[dsmart]

All those numbers came from CIG over the years.

[nightfire]

This chart proves that game development didn't really start before 2015, and anyone who repeats that "7 years" stuff is just being a troll. Everything before 2015 was just opening offices, setting up, unpacking boxes, putting the team together and viewing online programming tutorials (the homework assignments of which were subsequently released with names such as "Hangar Module Launch", "Arena Commander Launch" etc., instead of the more common "My First 'Hello World' Script Launch").

[dsmart]

This chart proves that game development didn't really start before 2015, and anyone who repeats that "7 years" stuff is just being a troll. Everything before 2015 was just opening offices, setting up, unpacking boxes, putting the team together and viewing online programming tutorials (the homework assignments of which were subsequently released with names such as "Hangar Module Launch", "Arena Commander Launch" etc., instead of the more common "My First 'Hello World' Script Launch").

I agree.  :smuggo:

[Kyrt]

Good Lord, did they just keep hiring thinking that if they get enough people then a game was going to get made?

I seem to remember reading (probably the Gamasutra articles) that the monthly cost per person for the industry was about £10,000 (overheads aswell as salaries) meaning that their monthly burn rate would be in the region of $4,500,000. They must need get rid of staff desperately by now. I'm guessing that they need to get 3.0 to live before they announce layoffs in the hope that everyone will be too distracted by the 3.0 release (? & holiday live stream) to notice - just a theory.

What's your source for that number anyway?

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Now...as for monthly cost, the typical rule of thumb is about $13.5k per employee per month. That isn't entirely accurate but it should...and does....give a ROUGH ballpark figure of the total cost of a project.

As in...50 employees for 12 months should require a rough budget of $685 k

Now...as for CIG.

Not all of that 457 figure will be devs. Or even artists. It would include support staff...mods, PR and marketing for example. We can also posit that $10k per man month...accounting for tax breaks and swapping prestige for decent pay and conditions is indeed reasonable, giving CIG the benefit of the doubt.

That $4.5 million however probably represents a fair estimate of the upper range of their average monthly costs but it is likely too high for most months. I'd put the lower bounds at about $2.5 million, with $3 million a month being a plausible rough guide but depending on a number of factors we don't know, the real figures may be higher or lower.

[dsmart]

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Was also in a newsletter which I wrote about here

[Scruffpuff]

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Was also in a newsletter which I wrote about here

Derek, I hope you've considered that Chris Roberts owes you directly for sending him at least $50 million of his windfall so far.  Had you not become involved and invoked as the evil "other" to overcome with pledging, Star Citizen would have faded into oblivion as the irrelevant brain-fart of a failed ex-developer over a year ago.  Instead, it soldiers on, money-furnace kept stoked with anti-Derek cash.

You should offer your services to new Kickstarters.  Offer to publicly bash their games during the fundraising period for a percentage of the cash generated by the hype.

[nightfire]

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Was also in a newsletter which I wrote about here

Derek, I hope you've considered that Chris Roberts owes you directly for sending him at least $50 million of his windfall so far.

Hey, what about us forum members here who help to keep the hype alive with our salty posts? We deserve at least $45 base salary per user account, plus $15 if the user criticized Squadron42 or its delays, plus $10 for posts regarding 3.0 PTU, plus an extra $100 for each JPEG uploaded!

[Kyrt]

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Was also in a newsletter which I wrote about here

Hmm...maybe it was just 428. I can't recall now...I thought the interview I saw said 457, but I'm not motivated enough to go dig out the interview.

I did see the Clive Johnson interview where he states that there are 60 engineers, and just 6 network engineers -  with 3 network coders working on the backend in Austin, and another 3 working on the netcode stuff in Manchester.

[Aya Reiko]

Good Lord, did they just keep hiring thinking that if they get enough people then a game was going to get made?

I seem to remember reading (probably the Gamasutra articles) that the monthly cost per person for the industry was about £10,000 (overheads aswell as salaries) meaning that their monthly burn rate would be in the region of $4,500,000. They must need get rid of staff desperately by now. I'm guessing that they need to get 3.0 to live before they announce layoffs in the hope that everyone will be too distracted by the 3.0 release (? & holiday live stream) to notice - just a theory.

What's your source for that number anyway?

CIG did an interview a few weeks back. The figure of 457 employees came up.

Now...as for monthly cost, the typical rule of thumb is about $13.5k per employee per month. That isn't entirely accurate but it should...and does....give a ROUGH ballpark figure of the total cost of a project.

As in...50 employees for 12 months should require a rough budget of $685 k

Now...as for CIG.

Not all of that 457 figure will be devs. Or even artists. It would include support staff...mods, PR and marketing for example. We can also posit that $10k per man month...accounting for tax breaks and swapping prestige for decent pay and conditions is indeed reasonable, giving CIG the benefit of the doubt.

That $4.5 million however probably represents a fair estimate of the upper range of their average monthly costs but it is likely too high for most months. I'd put the lower bounds at about $2.5 million, with $3 million a month being a plausible rough guide but depending on a number of factors we don't know, the real figures may be higher or lower.

Don't forget to factor in the "executive" salaries of CRoberts and Friends & Family.  That alone could have eaten up nearly half of the backer cashpile, and, at the very least, a third of it.  Thanks to them for not being transparent with their fiscals (which is contrary to one the their original promises), we'll never know for sure how much they've been paying themselves until the whole thing implodes.

[dsmart]

It's time for a 2.6.3 leaderboard update, Skadden edition! Here we compare the leaderboards between December 13 ~17:30 and December 16 ~06:30 (both times UTC). Usually I like to use a longer baseline for comparison, but oh well. Another caveat is that more of the hardcore users are probably playing 3.0 PTU, which doesn't show up on the 2.6.3 leaderboards. With that said...

Average concurrent player count...
...for Star Marine: 7.5
...for Arena Commander: 12.6
...for racing: 2.2

...for all EA modules (does not include the PU): 22.2