CIG Estimated yearly salary costs

[Nord]

I'm curious, what is the average salary for a developer at CIG?

Doing a quick google search the lowest is around $44k a year to $120k a year for a game developer. This is in the US. CIG has multiple studios around the world which also differentiate the average income. Let's say the average across all studios is $60k a year (a "wild" guess) and they now have around 500 employees. That's $30 million each year.

Do we know how much CIG has used on salaries since 2012? I don't know the math here since I don't know all the numbers, but my wild guess would be around $80-90 million since 2012. If you add properties and other costs I'm thinking we are around $130 million in total. Giving them a $70 million + buffer, which is a 2 year salary guarantee for those 500 employees.  

 

If this is even close, I feel comfort in knowing the funding is still going strong and they have at least 2 years to finish it up if money stops flowing. 

 

[VoA]

33 minutes ago, Nord said:

If this is even close, I feel comfort in knowing the funding is still going strong and they have at least 2 years to finish it up if money stops flowing. 

You really shouldn't be concerned...... since with CIG's proven successful business model there are a bunch of Venture Captialist likely willing to through money at CIG if CR deems it necessary.  As we know CR would rather not give shares or % of the company to others......... but he does have a few Angle Investors and the co-founder and lawyer for CIG....

Besides........ CIG is nearing the completion of S42 (probably 4th Qtr next year) - with Beta for the PU either next year or the following (based on Citizen con's info this year)

[Stahlkopp]

I doubt that they have a buffer of 2 years... prolly a single year. CR is not known for efficiency but more for perfectionism.  Furthermore, people get raises and bonus over the years. Frankfurt btw is the most expensive location in regard of salaries in Germany.

The thing with venture capitalists is... they want a ROI and they want to have a close look on the books before they make their move. Nothing that CR really would like.

[VoA]

1 hour ago, Stahlkopp said:

Nothing that CR really would like.

Because CR landed a few Angles early on before Kickstarter - and has no need for extra cash at the current projections and past performance - and why CIG's keeps hiring more and more people

[Stahlkopp]

21 minutes ago, VoA said:

Because CR landed a few Angles early on before Kickstarter - and has no need for extra cash at the current projections and past performance - and why CIG's keeps hiring more and more people

Yup... and the sales tactics don't look greedy or desperate at all.

Go and buy a couple of new ships!

[VoA]

9 hours ago, Stahlkopp said:

Yup... and the sales tactics don't look greedy or desperate at all.

Go and buy a couple of new ships!

No the sale tactics look brilliant to me........ and to most........ especially since it is the largest crowd funded endeavor ever....

I did........ recently broke Completionist pledge level (was at Wing Commander for a few years)

[Brightmist]

Sales will likely pick up now that optimization has begun tbh. Game really didn't have playable performance last few couple of years and it still lacks a ton of core gameplay mechanics and core tech. They'll likely sort out these issues this year add necessary features like a proper org/party system, server meshing(actual persistence) and more core mechanics like refuel/repair/salvage and PU will likely look way more like a full game in a year.

[Riley Egret]

18 hours ago, Stahlkopp said:

Yup... and the sales tactics don't look greedy or desperate at all.

Go and buy a couple of new ships!

I never got that angle....  sale tactics are obviously greedy and desperate in the eyes of the users, yet they happily buy ships.

CR is bad at managing expectations, yet SC is going strong ( with public, economically and technologically).

CIG is a poor at handling money, yet they keep growing and they're economically solid.

At the bottom of the line, besides the game itself ( which is quite an achievement even now from the technical pow), if you seLL something ( legally) and people keep giving you money, you're  a good businnessman.

 

[CyberianK]

One thing: the math with the Developer salary does not work. Only a minority of their 500 peoples are real Developers/Programmers and they only have maybe 50 senior peoples who will have high salaries. Then they have lots of communits peoples, support, junior artist and all kind of other jobs. In general many young guys and peoples with mixed vita. Also we don't know how many of the 500 don't work fulltime.

I would not be surprised if the average is significantly below 60k across all 500. No way to know until you list all employees and their job description and fulltime or not and make better guesses based on that.

[Nord]

3 hours ago, CyberianK said:

One thing: the math with the Developer salary does not work. Only a minority of their 500 peoples are real Developers/Programmers and they only have maybe 50 senior peoples who will have high salaries. Then they have lots of communits peoples, support, junior artist and all kind of other jobs. In general many young guys and peoples with mixed vita. Also we don't know how many of the 500 don't work fulltime.

I would not be surprised if the average is significantly below 60k across all 500. No way to know until you list all employees and their job description and fulltime or not and make better guesses based on that.

In that case, it's even better. Wish they'd share more of the economics with us though, as it's very interesting seeing where we're at. But I'm not worried, just curious and hoped anyone else had more concrete information about it. 

[Sky Captain]

500 employees x $80,000 salary average x 1.25 = $50 million a year current staff cost.  

Total raw salaries x 1.25 provides an estimate of total salary cost, with fringe benefits (employee insurance, 401K, vacation, other benefits).

Labor in Austin and Los Angeles is not cheap.  Even if the average is lower, labor costs are likely not less than $40M annually.

Its unclear if the employee count includes general and administrative staff (HR, legal, payroll, contracts, etc.).  I'm guessing most of that is in the cost above.  But there will still be business legal, insurance, real estate, and other external costs.  So say another $5M annually to operate multiple international studios.  

Moral of the story, cash has been burning fast the last few years.  Ship sales as means of fundraising will continue for the foreseeable future.

[VoA]

28 minutes ago, Sky Captain said:

500 employees x $80,000 salary average x 1.25 = $50 million a year current staff cost.  

Total raw salaries x 1.25 provides an estimate of total salary cost, with fringe benefits (employee insurance, 401K, vacation, other benefits).

Labor in Austin and Los Angeles is not cheap.  Even if the average is lower, labor costs are likely not less than $40M annually.

Its unclear if the employee count includes general and administrative staff (HR, legal, payroll, contracts, etc.).  I'm guessing most of that is in the cost above.  But there will still be business legal, insurance, real estate, and other external costs.  So say another $5M annually to operate multiple international studios.  

Moral of the story, cash has been burning fast the last few years.  Ship sales as means of fundraising will continue for the foreseeable future.

Actually a lot of people join SC simply because it is their life-dream to work an a project that is incomparable in the gaming industry.... and they use it as launching platforms into other higher paying jobs.

CR is actually brilliant to play up this angle with employees......... but it has also caused some talented people to leave......... but CR figured that manpower is more important to the development at this stage.   As long as CIG maintains its core exceptional talent CR / ER / Sandi (yes she's a brilliant marketer) / Tony Z / Todd Pappy / + a few others........ +++ cherry pick engineers like the ones they have in Frankfort then the rest can be more "production" personnel at a much lower salary

[Nord]

1 hour ago, VoA said:

Actually a lot of people join SC simply because it is their life-dream to work an a project that is incomparable in the gaming industry.... and they use it as launching platforms into other higher paying jobs.

I'd happily accept a cleaning job at CIG or the Coffee guy's job

[Razdan]

18 hours ago, VoA said:

No the sale tactics look brilliant to me........ and to most........ especially since it is the largest crowd funded endeavor ever....

I did........ recently broke Completionist pledge level (was at Wing Commander for a few years)

This sale got me to Completionist as well... they are doing something right.

[Stahlkopp]

8 hours ago, Razdan said:

This sale got me to Completionist as well... they are doing something right.

Good for you and CIG.

However, I'm sitting on Space Marshal level and did not give them money for at least 2 years although I'm addicted to spaceships. Plus I know a handful of concierge bakers that stopped giving money or requested a refund.

[Brightmist]

That's only normal. They likely expected too much, too fast and didn't get what they wanted. It's not hard to see the progress they made if you look at the progress they made and the pace they're going at it.

[Stahlkopp]

Yep, I can understand that. However, we should have the game in our hand right now and it was promoted as such.

Even after the feature creep and the change of the dimension of that project they kept on giving release date that were extremely optimistic to say so. 

[Brightmist]

Yep, they did change the scope of the project and likely pushed the release date years but the game's still shaping up nicely. Considering we have tons of gaming companies that are shipping unfinished products filled with microtransactions year after year just to make bank, I'd still say they're on the right track. PU gonna start to look like a fully fledged game pretty fast from here on out with the addition and completion of core mechanics.

[Gremlich]

On 11/30/2018 at 4:59 PM, VoA said:

You really shouldn't be concerned

This. Only "he shall not be named" gives a crap about this non-issue.

On 12/1/2018 at 12:00 PM, Sky Captain said:

Total raw salaries x 1.25

the 1.25 value is high.

[Sky Captain]

https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cfo-comment-2012-2017-financials

I guessed $45M to 50M with overhead.  Actual annual costs for the last three years have ranged from 45.0M to 50.4M.   So nailed it.

CIG will have to sell $50M ships (or other goods) annually for the next few years still to keep cash in hand at the current level.  Cash is king for all other decisions.

But whose worried?  That's only $50M cash / 2M backers = One $25 purchase per year per backer, on average for CIG to achieve that.

They could achieve that for a few years just by offering a seasonal 'above average rated ' LTI AI NPC ship crew member (turret gunner, engineer, miner, etc.)

Something everyone with a multicrew ship now needs, knowing some wont buy but others will buy many.

After that, personal customizable space stations with special science or defensive features (just like the Pioneer, but in space).

And that's without selling the normal cool new ships. 

CIG has some tricks left up its sleeve to keep this going a few more years.

 

[Brightmist]

CIG doesn't have to do any changes to their model at all because it's not necessary. They're valued at 0.5B $ now and they can use other avenues for fundraising.

Pledge amount/backer ≈ 96$ so far, they won't be targeting an extra 25$ per backer from sales.

Looking at past crowdfunding data:

01 Jan 2013, 7.23M $ pledged

01 Jan 2014, 35.6M $ pledged (+33M $)

01 Jan 2015, 68.6M $ pledged (+23M $)

01 Jan 2016, 104.6M $ pledged (+36.3M $)

01 Jan 2017, 140.9M $ pledged ( +36.3M $)

01 Jan 2018, 175,6M $ pledged (+34.7M $)

01 Jan 2019, 213.4M $ pledged (+37.8M $)

Amount of money pledged didn't really change in the past few years but game wasn't really playable at all without OCS. It should actually pick up without any changes to their model next year because SC actually looks like a game now.

[Gremlich]

55 minutes ago, Brightmist said:

SC actually looks like a game now

SC actually "plays" like a game now

 

ftfy

[FoxChard]

@CyberianKalready said it, but I want to jump in as well. The majority of their employees seem to be on their first or second real games job after college. They will come to CIG and accept positions for the promise that they can accelerate to a position of higher responsibility faster than normal (CIG doesn't seem to hire many seasoned veterans) and leave with a large and demanding project under their belt. 

The studio directors, key staff (the creative directors and some of the department heads, and the studio chiefs) and the engine guys in Frankfurt are probably the only people that command higher than average pay. Everyone else is probably at their region's mean or below it. 

CIG's marketing and funding approach is enabled by the community. If you don't like it, feel free to not support them in that way. Not handing over cash doesn't mean that you are against the project, it just means that you don't give them money every sale. Essentially, every company does this with its products. You could easily spend the same amount (and many people do) on games with loot boxes and most of those games have lifespans that measure only a year or two before the playerbase moves onto a sequel. CIG just stands out because their asking price is extraordinarily high. And unlike what a lot of the haters say, you should still be able to unlock or buy most everything in the game-or just steal it if it isn't for sale.

[Boildown]

53 minutes ago, FoxChard said:

CIG's marketing and funding approach is enabled by the community. If you don't like it, feel free to not support them in that way. Not handing over cash doesn't mean that you are against the project, it just means that you don't give them money every sale. Essentially, every company does this with its products. You could easily spend the same amount (and many people do) on games with loot boxes and most of those games have lifespans that measure only a year or two before the playerbase moves onto a sequel. CIG just stands out because their asking price is extraordinarily high. And unlike what a lot of the haters say, you should still be able to unlock or buy most everything in the game-or just steal it if it isn't for sale.

Yeah, this.  Until October 2018 I'd gone 23 months without buying anything, because I wanted CIG to show me something. Wasn't interested in implicitly funding delays and feature creep, even when I agree with most of the creep (if they had more money, I might not agree with the next bit of feature creep). With the production schedule out, I felt like we were on the right path at last. Now I'm going to be watching how well they hit their milestones.

[Irres]

Where did the 500 employees number come from?  I thought it was closer to 700.

The number I often see posted in Spectrum regarding burn rate is $70M annually, but that is unofficial from other posters..