EVE Online's Capsuleer Day Now A Month-Long Event

When I started playing EVE Online almost 15 years ago, Capsuleer Day was a one-day event marking another year of the game's operation. By last year the event extended to 28 days (2 May to 30 May). Players chose who to run sites for, the Society of Conscious Thought or the Guri Malakim pirate cooperative. In a move I approve of, not only has CCP extended the event an additional two days, but mixed up the content as well.

In the 20th anniversary event, players chose their faction and then proceeded to interact with 4 sites, 2 combat and 2 hacking. The combat sites limited ship sizes to battlecruiser or smaller. According to the news article I saw on the launcher, the developers expanded the ways players can engage with the event.

For the entire month of May, New Eden will be brimming with exciting adventures. Log in daily for exclusive SKINs, boosters, and a trove of Skill Points. Engage in a spectrum of seasonal challenges—combat, exploration, hacking, manufacturing, and market trading—to accrue points for even more unique and lucrative rewards. Beyond this bounty, Omega pilots gain access to further riches: over 650,000 Skill Points, 26,500 EverMarks, and coveted SOCT ship hulls, among others. Omega status unlocks the full depth of the Capsuleer Day event’s offerings, enhancing your capabilities and ensuring the richest haul of rewards from the abyss.

Yes, I know the event description contains a pitch to upgrade to a paying account. But the last time I can remember manufacturing and market trading being part of one of the major, non-storyline events was the Dr. Who crossover event back in the beginning of 2022. The devs tried introducing a market component into the event, but the crossover appeared in the middle of the unsuccessful effort to convince players that introducing NFTs, blockchains, and play-to-earn mechanics into EVE was a great idea. The idea fortunately failed, Pearl Abyss coincidently named a new CEO in March 2022, and Hilmar's cutting edge ideas were shifted to Project Awakening instead. So a little push for paying players, in comparison, is not so bad.

Over on the event page, CCP gave an overview of the event. I found a couple of hints in the description.

Massive energy discharges emanating deep from within Abyssal Deadspace have prompted The Society of Conscious Thought to raise a call for daring pilots bold enough to venture into the abyssal unknown to recover valuable data and technology. Explore newly surfaced Collapsed Conduits, take on Triglavian or even Drifter enemies for the chance to recover priceless loot and filaments from the battlefield to dive deeper into the abyss.

• Perilous adventures for capsuleers of all experience levels
• Exciting new combat, exploration & manufacturing challenges
• Earn blueprints and rare materials that give access to Abyssal Battlefields

The first thing I noticed was no mention of market trading. Are we already getting a bait and switch? Is the market portion just buying items off the market to get access to the Abyssal Battlefields? I hope not.

Next comes "newly surfaced Collapsed Conduits". From the sounds of the description, players afraid of the crushing cost of defeat (literally) of normal Abyssal sites can get an introduction to this type of gameplay by visiting Treacherous Collapsed Conduits, found on the ship scanner. Players can also scan down Desolate Collapsed Conduits and hack cans for the event goods as well.

What are the Abyssal Battlegrounds? Apparently players will have the capacity to manufacture their own filaments in order to access the top end sites of the celebration.

Of course, players will want to know what the rewards are. For those who don't want to log in, CCP is giving out prizes for those who watch Twitch. I'm not sure if one must watch CCP's Twitch channel or any EVE streamer will suffice. And if anyone from CCP is reading this post, could you please list the members of the Partner Program someplace? Thanks in advance!

The Twitch rewards are a Prophecy Navy Issue Arkombine Arisen SKIN and a mysterious booster crate holding one of the following:

• a random Agency dose
• a random Quafe booster
• a random Starsi booster
• a random Antipharmakon booster

What is an EVE event without login rewards? We don't know the exact rules yet, but the event page does show the following for Omega accounts:

• 650,000 skill points (125,000 for alpha accounts)
• 26,500 EverMarks
• Zirnitra Capsuleer Day XXI SKIN
• Maller Capsuleer Day XXI SKIN
• A variety of boosters
• Capsuleer Day Fireworks

Last, but not least, come the actual event rewards. I'm not going to lie, the rewards don't sound bad. Plus, items that drop in the sites can be sold. That's one thing that irritates me about the daily login rewards. The boosters and ship SKINs are bind on acquire. Now maybe some SKINs will show up on the market. Here's the list from the event page.

• Seasonal challenge rewards include a Glamoreux Booster crate, boosters, SKINs and Filament crates
• Loot includes Capsuleer Day boosters, new Capsuleer Day SKINs and more!
• Snag glorious fireworks on the Alpha DLI reward track
• Omega rewards include EverMarks, SKINs, SoCT ship hulls, and boosters
• Filaments, SKINs and boosters found in loot drops from NPCs can be sold on the market
• Amazing new Capsuleer Day XXI SKINs await!

All in all, I think a credible event. The format is the same tried and true seasonal event format, but the content is new. I'm most eager to see what the art department has done with the new Collapsed Conduits. I'm also looking forward to getting more Society of Conscious Thought ships. The ships are a staple of Capsuleer Day events and I'm glad to see CCP maintaining the tradition. I'm also looking forward to seeing if the industry and market elements work out.

I do have one last thing to say. CCP allows content creators (i.e. streamers and YouTubers) in the Partner Program advanced access to the Singularity test shard to create content available for release when the servers come up. Will someone at CCP please list the content creators in the Partner Program so we can watch their videos and streams? By not doing so, the CCP marketing team is working at cross-purposes, promoting streamers on one hand and suppressing the content on the other.

New Blacklist Functionality Coming In Dawntrail

I'm a few days behind catching up on the 80th Producer Live Letter Final Fantasy XIV Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P) presented on Saturday morning's (midnight counts as the next day, right?) live stream. Even with the presentation in Japanese, US-based bloggers like myself have no excuse for falling behind as the Final Fantasy XIV sub-reddit has an official Discord server which does real time translations of events. Okay, the Discord does have a link to Pandemic Legion, but I'm not worried about spy activity as I never was into EVE Online's null sec political play.

One of the last topics from the PLL is one I want to address first: improvements to FFXIV's blacklist. 

The areas of improvement

According to the translations, Yoshi-P provided an introduction to the topic.

I don't really like to have too many rules myself, an example would be supported game pads, I think players should have the freedom to chose their own environment. We have so many players now that use this game as sort of a second world. And I think it is time we implement for features to protect everyone's experience.

In other words, the security and bouncers at all the clubs and venues in the housing areas now have more tools than just asking people to stop being a jerk. And those who have stalkers (yes, that happens) can make their in-game lives easier as well.

I guess the first feature is that phasing has come to FFXIV starting in Dawnwalker.

In addition to the blacklisted character's messages, their character model will now also be hidden. This will apply to all characters tied to the blacklisted character's service account. This new feature is applicable to characters registered from 7.0 onwards. The blacklist will distinguish between characters blacklisted before and after 7.0.

My understanding is that the new mute list will work a lot like the old blacklist. Also, due to the complexity of the duty matching system, the devs couldn't just prevent blacklisted players from appearing in a duty.

Blacklisted characters will be displayed in certain situations where visibility is necessary, such as when partied together in a duty. Even when their character model is visible, their name will display as "Unknown" in the party list and on their nameplate. Furthermore, a notification will indicate when they speak during duties, and players may elect to temporarily see what they've written via the subcommand menu.

Yoshi-P believes the mute list will be used for most things and players will resort to using the blacklist if the situation gets really bad. 

The mute list will hide a muted character's chat messages. The feature is applicable to characters blacklisted prior to 7.0. The mute list applies to all characters on a muted character's service account. Muted characters' names will display as normal. When in the same party or alliance during duties, a notification will indicate when they speak, and players may elect to temporarily see what they've written via the subcommand menu.

The blacklist and mute list do have a difference in where the lists are stored. Blacklists are stored server-side while the mute list is stored client-side. But players can place two hundred characters on each list, making for 400 characters total.

I also learned that FFXIV did not have a term filter. The new term filter filters out the entire message containing the offending word, not just the word itself. The filter only works in  Say, Tell, Yell, Shout, and /emote, but does work in all circumstances, including duties. The term filter will not apply in linkshell, cross-world linkshell, party, or free company chat. And the list of terms to filter for is stored on the client, not the server.

The new estate expulsion feature will give greater granularity to who can enter or leave a player or free company home. Characters added to the no-entry list while within your estate grounds will be expelled from the grounds immediately. Characters added to the no-entry list will be unable to enter the estate for 10 days. And the ban applies to all characters on an expelled character's service account.

Perhaps the biggest part is the ability to delegate authority. Free company masters and estate owners will have access to the estate expulsion feature and can designate up to 4 free company members or housemates to have access to the function. When players with expulsion privileges are in the estate, anyone registered to their blacklists will be automatically expelled when attempting to enter the estate grounds.

Finally Yoshi-P unveiled the enhanced Lodestone privacy settings. Players will now gain the ability to limit who can view certain aspects of their Lodestone character page, including their profile, achievements, and friends. The visibility settings can be limited to friends, free company members, linkshell members, and so on. Players will also have the ability to remove themselves from Lodestone character searches.

The blocklist is also being added to the Lodestone. Notifications regarding the activity and blog entries of blocked players will no longer display. Blocked players will not see the activity of the player who blocked them. And these setting will also apply to characters added to a character's in-game blacklist.

Yoshi-P concluded the section of the PLL by stating the team had decided to implement the blocklist and other privacy features a little over 6 months ago. He also made the following statement:

I believe a lot of a persons time and life is switching towards a virtual world and will keep going towards that direction. I've always been wondering and thinking about how these features will look like in a virtual world. I've had a lot of philosophical thoughts about these features and personally I would hope people don't feel the need to use them, but I absolutely understand when it gets to a point where you have to.

Blizzard Games To Return To The People's Republic This Summer

In a story I missed last week, Microsoft has made up to NetEase for the sins committed by the Bobby Kotick-led Activision-Blizzard-King and Blizzard games are returning to the People's Republic of China. Reading the coverage of the event, the effects of the agreements will definitely expand past the borders of the world's number two economy.

That's right, two agreements. The first returns many favorite games to China. According to the South China Morning Post:

Confirming an earlier South China Morning Post report, the two companies renewed a publishing agreement that will cover games under the previous arrangement, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft universes, according to a joint statement on Wednesday. These titles are expected to start returning to mainland China this summer.

“After continuing discussions over the past year, both Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase are thrilled to align on a path forward to once again support players in mainland China and are proud to reaffirm their commitment to delivering exceptional gaming experiences,” according to the statement.

Last January, the two companies suspended services for all Blizzard titles in the mainland, except for Diablo Immortal, a mobile title co-developed by NetEase and Blizzard, as their 14-year partnership came to an end. Both sides blamed each other for treating Chinese players badly after failing to agree to new terms to extend the deal.

A Reuters report came closest to fingering former ABK CEO Bobby Kotick for the breakdown in relations.

A number of Blizzard's games were taken offline in China in January 2023 after the developer terminated the partnership with NetEase citing disagreement over intellectual property control. The pair subsequently sued each other.

Tension eased after Microsoft's October acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was followed by management changes. Chinese media then reported that Microsoft and NetEase were seeking ways to re-launch Blizzard games in China.

But are Chinese players willing to forgive the pulling of their favorite games away from them for over a year? Not according to The New York Times.

The announcement of the new agreement was shared widely on Weibo, China’s version of X, and the reaction was mostly negative. Some people still seemed upset that the games had not been available for more than a year, while others accused Blizzard of disrespecting Chinese gamers. One person said that were not so “cheap” as to come running back immediately once the games had returned.

But Microsoft and NetEase also signed an agreement about the XBox platform. According to Investopedia:

Separately, NetEase and Microsoft entered into an agreement that would look into bringing new NetEase titles to Microsoft’s Xbox consoles and other platforms.

"NetEase games titles being explored to be brought under Xbox consoles and other platforms is incrementally positive" for the China-based developer and operator of online games, Jefferies added.

One might think the news was good for the stock price of NetEase, which trades on Nasdaq. But after opening at $101.66 on Wednesday, NetEase stock opened the week trading at $93.03 today, a decline of 8.5% in the stock price over 3 business days.

The New Scope Video And The High Sec Drone Event

Over the last week or so real life, especially work, has gotten in the way of my gaming. I've barely logged into Final Fantasy XIV and only briefly roamed once in EVE looking for high sec drone sites. Apparently a lot of players haven't run drone sites since the next step in the road to the expansion launched last Thursday. Why do I think so? Because CCP dropped a new Scope video today.

The video pretty much covers the information released last week. Some additional information came across the news scroll at the bottom of the video. The scroll did get cut off as the information gathered by players was presented.

• ...mobile tractor unit destroyed in ritual scholars are calling "previously unrecorded kind of heresy" 
  
  
• President Aguard praises Upwell's "innovative use of technology"
  
  
• Deathless custodians reportedly acquire kidnapped Chemal Tech geneticist offered by Fraternity
  
  
• Tribal Council to review Upwell leak in rare public session.
  
  
• One trillion ISK worth of assets destroyed in a capsuleer battle in Ahbazon, Genesis.
  
  
• Fears of mass hysteria as belief in secret wormhole conspiracy theory on the rise.
  
  
• Intaki Autonomists hold economic ...

A couple of player events were noted including Fraternity's previous involvement in the current storyline. But for the most part not one of the better Scope videos. Which is another reason I think today's video was in reaction to player actions, or rather, inaction. Videos done in connection with on-going storylines are usually pretty good. Today's was, well, meh.

I'll try to log in for a few hours over the weekend, but I still have to do my taxes. Perhaps increasing the spawn rate for drone sites will help.

The New Rogue Drone Event In EVE Online

On Thursday, CCP pushed an unnamed event onto EVE Online's Tranquility server. I call the new content an "unnamed event" as EVE live events are usually released on Thursdays instead of the normal Tuesday release day. According to the patch notes, the Upwell Consortium is up to something.

Universe:

• The Upwell Consortium are calling for capsuleer assistance providing materials for a project at their Applied Gravitation Research Center in the Auviken solar system.
  
  
• Upwell are asking for capsuleers to bring them Rogue Drone Components contained in the wrecks of advanced sentient AI rogue drones that have been spotted throughout the known cluster.
  
  
• In particular, Upwell are seeking Drone Graviton Emitters. Sentient rogue drone strains throughout high-security space have recently started adopting and using them.
  
  
• Upwell will reward capsuleers who donate a selection of these components with reward crates containing loyalty tokens that are exchangeable for ISK at any station belonging to a member corporation of the Upwell Consortium. Additionally, crates may include new limited prototype blueprint copies for small tractor beams, capital tractor beams and a mobile tractor unit that have been enhanced by Upwell thanks to their latest discoveries in graviton research.

Yes, another community gathering event, this time located in high sec. The drop-off location is a new Upwell station orbiting Auviken VI. Auviken is a 0.8 security system located in the the Caldari State owned region of The Citadel, five jumps from the game's primary trade hub of Jita. A news article published on Thursday spelled out the requirements for obtaining reward crates. The amount sounds like a lot.

• 1x Drone Graviton Emitter
• 10x Drone Cerebral Fragment
• 60x Drone Capillary Fluid
• 40x Drone Tactical Limb
• 100x Drone Synaptic Relay Wiring

I don't know the drop rates for the items, but I do hope the conjunction used was supposed to be "or" instead of "and". The reward crates contain Upwell Consortium Loyalty Tokens. Before groaning about yet another currency introduced to the game, these Upwell tokens are tradable for the tokens for other groups. The crates may also hold new blueprints, specifically for the Consortium Tractor Beams, both small and capital-sized, and the Consortium Mobile Tractor Unit. 

Between work and getting my replacement PC up to speed, I'm just getting around to looking at new EVE content. I just hope the hand in items are not too bulky. I have a Caldari character that flies blockade runners really well I can send into the Caldari State to participate in the event. On the other hand, waiting until my PC is ready should result in some good screen shots.

A Look At March 2024's Active ISK Delta

CCP Games published EVE Online's monthly economic report (MER) for March 2024 today. In an effort to keep the EVE Online community team from labeling me a "tardy capsuleer", I dug into the report to gather the latest information on the Active ISK Delta.

From the March 2024 MER

Before continuing, I do want to make note of a change to the way the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is calculated. The following items were removed due to them really only consisting of trade between players and NPCs and thus are fixed.

• Overseer Personal Effects
• Sleeper Components
• Triglavian Data
• Rogue Drone Analysis Data
• Bounty Encrypted Bonds

These items consist of some of the biggest ISK faucets in the game. While not directly affecting the Active ISK Delta, they do have an impact on inflation, or lack thereof, in New Eden. Removing these items with fixed costs should result in a small increase in the CPI. At least, I assume so.

Post pandemic Active ISK Delta

The Active ISK Delta, as defined by CCP, is the net effect of ISK coming and going with player accounts, including all GM actions. If the number is positive, players are returning to the game. If the numbers are negative, then players are leaving the game with more money than those returning to the game. The number also counts the ISK that left the game from those who did not log in for the past 30 days.

After three months of near historic negative Active ISK Deltas, March saw the metric rise to only -29.2 trillion ISK. While an improvement, the Active ISK Delta dropped 62.2% compared to March 2023. For the first quarter of 2024, a total of 166 trillion ISK left the New Eden money supply compared to the 54.2 trillion ISK that did so in the first quarter of 2023.

One item of note is that players leaving the game was not the biggest ISK sink in March. Transaction taxes exceeded the amount of ISK withdrawn from the game, 35.1 trillion ISK to 29.2 trillion ISK. As a result, the money supply grew 1.2% up to 2.1 quadrillion ISK. To keep the money supply from growing, the Active ISK Delta needed to reach -54.2 trillion ISK.

Jester's Average Concurrent User graph, April 2023 to March 2024

For April I will keep an eye on whether both the number of average concurrent users and the Active ISK Delta increases (i.e. turns positive). In the month before Viridian, the Active ISK Delta was -3 trillion ISK before increasing to 104.5 trillion ISK during the expansions launch month. Will EVE experience something similar in the lead up to the next expansion?

March 2024 Activity In EVE Online

With the end of the first quarter, gaming companies will begin preparing briefings for investors. We won't know the financial numbers for EVE Online until May, but we can perhaps get a sense of direction from the activity in the game.

The number of players logged in leveled off

The first step is to look at the average concurrent number of players as tracked by Jester. The number of players logged in remained fairly constant in March, so much so that the 30-day moving average is closely tracking the 7-day moving average of players logged in. The approximately 22,500 accounts logged in at any one time still exceeds the approximately 19,500 logged in during March 2023. Just from the logged in numbers, the EVE IP is looking at a year-over-year upswing in the Q1 2024 earnings call.

Year-over-year comparison

Over the six categories of explosions in known space in New Eden, the only one which declined was player ship deaths in low sec. The 16.1% decline is probably explained by The Shadow War event which occurred in March 2023.

Overall, player ship losses have exceeded 200,000 ships for 15 of the 17 months since the launch of the Uprising expansion in November 2022. Perhaps more surprising is the current 4 month streak of players killing more than 10 million NPCs in low sec from December 2023 to March 2024. In the records going back to the start of 2010, players had never killed that many NPCs in low sec as many as three months. The last time players killed more than 10 million NPCs in consecutive months was December 2022 and January 2023.

The other key area to check is ratting in null sec. While the major wars in null sec draw eyes to EVE, the carebears in null pay the bills. The 33.7% year-over-year increase in rats destroyed in March wasn't an aberration. Over the course of the first quarter of 2024, players killed 36.4% more NPCs in null sec than they did in the first three months of 2023.

So from a quick look at player activity, I think the health of the game, while not as good as 10 years ago, isn't bad for a game that began development in the 20th century. I also expect to see games from the EVE universe continue to shine on the next Pearl Abyss investment call in May. But what I really want to see is if the next expansion can keep the good news flowing.

Beta Testing For EVE Online's Play Science App Announced

Apart from Project Awakening, CCP hasn't publicized any development efforts apart from EVE Online. But that doesn't mean new features and applications are not in development. Players have playtested the new EVE: Vanguard FPS module for a few months now. Now a previously announced application, the Play Science app, is about to undergo public beta testing.

In a news article today the Icelandic game maker announced how players can sign-up to participate in the beta test. Play Science is a mobile app that allows EVE players to play Project Discovery, a citizen-science mini-game inside EVE Online. The app, first mentioned at Fanfest 2023, I think is planned to launch at the same time as the Spring expansion and the fourth iteration of Project Discovery.

The Project Discovery presentation at Fanfest 2023

For those unfamiliar with EVE, the article provided a brief description.

Developed in collaboration with Swiss start-up Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), Project Discovery is a unique mini-game that is quick, easy, and rewarding to play, with the substantial benefit of advancing real science. Capsuleers have already contributed in a significant way to the research into exoplanets and COVID-19, and the scope of Project Discovery will soon expand to include critical immune system diseases, including cancer. This initiative has been recognized globally, winning the Webby People’s Voice Award for contributing to science and society​​. This collaboration between EVE players and the scientific community exemplifies the potential of virtual worlds to contribute to our understanding of the real one​​. 

The article concentrated on EVE, but during the talk at Fanfest the application will also connect to other games, such as Borderlands Science. So those participating in the beta test may receive a wider exposure to all of the games MMOS has teamed up with, not just EVE.

Or perhaps not. But with the app now about to undergo public beta testing and a new EVE expansion just a couple of months away, I can imagine people doing citizen science just about anywhere.

Cloud Imperium Games Sales Revenue Down 17.2% In Q1 2024

With the beginning of April I can look back at Cloud Imperium Games' sales for the first quarter of 2024. What I found wasn't pretty. Year-over-year, sales as recorded on the CCU Game dashboard fell by 17.2%. The $17.3 million posted in 2024 was $3.6 million less than that recorded in the first quarter of 2023. The month of March was particularly bad, with revenue falling compared to March 2023 by 20%, from $9 million in 2023 down to $7.2 million in 2024. Still, the decline was not as great as the 30% year-over-year decline in January 2024.

For those wondering if the decline is due to failure to attract new players or veterans not spending as much money, I would say the answer is a little of both. The number of new user accounts created declined by 10.4% year-over-year, from 135,173 in Q1 2023 to 121,088 this year.

Overall, the recorded sales tracked on the CCU Game dashboard is $674.7 million since the launch of the Kickstarter in October 2012. But Cloud Imperium has additional funding sources not tracked by the dashboard. Overall, the company has recorded $773.3 million in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2022 financial report) .

• Sales/Pledges: $674.7 million (through 31 March 2024)
• Subscriptions: $33.0 million (through 31 December 2022)
• All other sources: $65.6 million (through 31 December 2022)

In addition, the company has received a total of $63.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2022 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $831.8 million.

Before people start using the first quarter sales to indicate the death of CIG, remember that many commentators believe the company will begin pre-sales of Squadron 42 at CitizenCon in October. So while the company may experience some cash flow issues, as long as pre-sales come in strong, the company should wind up 2024 in decent financial shape. In the mid-term, however, we learned of a looming deadline in the first quarter of 2028. For those interested in how the story evolved, I created a timeline here.

A Timeline of Cloud Imperium The UK's 2022 Financial Accounts Saga

I am starting to see some of the information from the 2022 financial accounts of Cloud Imperium UK Ltd. begin to make its way into the content of Star Citizen YouTube creators. As I kind of suspected might happen, the journey of the financial accounts kind of gets twisted along the way. As an aid to explain what has occurred so far, I thought I would put together a little timeline covering some of the events that have occurred over the past few months as well as the stories I've published. At the very least, I can provide a link to any interested parties as to what has occurred so far.

1 January 2024: The financial accounts for Cloud Imperium UK Ltd. for the year 2022 officially become late. According to PwC, Cloud Imperium's outside financial auditor, "The tax return needs to be filed within one year from the end of the accounting period." The UK Companies House website would refer to 31 December 2023 as the due date until the accounts were finally filed and posted on 11 March.

12 January 2024: I write my first blog post on the story, Cloud Imperium Games Faces £150 Fine For Failure To File 2022 Accounts. The story was amusing, if for nothing else than Star Citizens' fans continued boasting of how transparent the company was in its finances. I anticipated CIG would file the paperwork in the next few days, I'd write about CIG being good citizens after all, and the story would die.

15 January 2024: MassivelyOP's Chris Neal picks up the story. I loved his headline, Star Citizen’s CIG was hit with a measly $190 fine for… not filing its 2022 financial report on time. Honestly, the amount of the fine is so small compared to the money CIG rakes in, it's almost an irresistible story. But that kind of got Chris roped into covering the story as well. But at the time, I would have asked, "What story?"

6 February 2024: The first word of layoffs at Cloud Imperium Games' US Studios was picked up by VideoGameLayoffs.com. I included the information in a post titled Notable Video Game Industry Layoffs - 1-13 February 2024. At the time I did not realize the possibility of a connection.

15 February 2024: Over at MassivelyOP, Chris Neal posts about Star Citizen Lead Director Todd Papy leaving CIG in Star Citizen’s live game director vacates position after nine years at CIG.

26 February 2024: I noted in a post titled Cloud Imperium Games' Potential Fine Rises To £375 that Cloud Imperium UK Ltd. had failed to submit its 2022 financial accounts by 1 February, thus subjecting itself to a larger fine. At this point, I started wondering what was happening in Manchester.

Also on the 26th, Chris Neal writes an article at MassivelyOP titled Star Citizen followers uncover additional layoffs at CIG that reference relocation and restructuring. I still didn't see the connection to the tardy financial accounts.

29 February 2024: Cloud Imperium Games contacted GamesIndustry.biz about a story covering the layoffs, blandly titled Cloud Imperium hit with layoffs. CIG replied to the story, confirming that "a small number of positions were eliminated."

1 March 2024: The date Erin Roberts signed the yearly report and 2022 financial accounts on behalf of the board of directors.

5 March 2024: The date the financial accounts and report were received by UK Companies House.

11 March 2024: The date UK Companies House posted the 2022 financial accounts and yearly report to its website.

12 March 2024: I post my long anticipated article Cloud Imperium UK Ltd (Finally) Posts The Company's 2022 Annual Report and Financial Statement. At this point, I noted the presence of a new financial auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (aka PwC).

13 March 2024: The introduction to the financial accounts included information about the purchase of Turbulent Media, which I wrote about in a post titled The Final Price Of Cloud Imperium's Acquisition Of Turbulent Media: $9.8 Million Canadian. The link between the layoffs and financial reports became apparent at this point.

Also on the 13th, Chris Neal posts at MassivelyOP about the annual report, with a few additional details in his article Star Citizen finally posts its 2022 fiscal report, acknowledges Squadron 42 can’t be in ‘part finished form’. It was in the comments of this article a user named cloverfield70 pointed out the importance of the put option for the outside investors.

14 March 2024: Chris Roberts publishes a Letter From The Chairman. On the following day, Chris Neal writes a comprehensive article about the letter for MassivelyOP, Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts confirms development is moving to a full 1.0 release. I continued focusing on financial matters in a post titled Chris Roberts On The Cloud Imperium Layoffs.

19 March 2024: I explored the importance of the put option in the outside investment into Cloud Imperium Games in a post titled New Details About The Calders' Investment In Cloud Imperium. Later that morning, MassivelyOP published Chris Neal's article on the same subject, Star Citizen’s 2022 financials offer additional information about investors and their expected returns. Both Chris and I noted the built in time periods in which the investors could cash out by invoking their put options.

27 March 2024: A Star Citizen YouTube creator named Morphologis created the first video I'd seen on the subject of the payout to the outside investors titled Star Citizen and Squadron 42 May Have Deadlines.

Just a note. I've mentioned Chris Neal of MassivelyOP a lot in this post. I want to note I don't know Chris and have never met him or held any conversations online with him. He has been nice enough to mention me and my blog in his articles and so I thought I should return the favor, especially since I linked to him so much in putting together this timeline.