Twenty six minutes of nothing.
Tag: Investor
Shanghai Fukong International Plans To Sell Its Stake In Jagex
Reuters is reporting that Shanghai Fukong International plans to sell its partial or full stock in RuneScape developer Jagex at some time presumably in the near future. Shanghai Fukong International was formed in 2016 and is a venture capital firm that bought all investments from Jagex’s previous investors for a 100% stake in the developer to the tune of $300 million USD.
Previous Jagex investors include Insight Venture Partners, The Raine Group, and Spectrum Equity Investors (source).
Daybreak Game Company Gets New Investor, Mobile Everquest Coming
Daybreak Game Company today has announced strategic investment by NantWorks, a holding company, and some developments have dripped out to the public regarding a mobile Everquest title as well as mobile H1Z1.
“In connection with the investment, NantWorks has obtained a controlling interest in a new joint venture with Daybreak, NantG Mobile, LLC, which has been formed to develop and publish mobile versions of Daybreak’s current games – H1Z1 and EverQuest – and to build and publish video games across all platforms. In addition, the JV will now assume control and management of the current PC H1Z1 Battle Royale game. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, CEO and Chairman of NantWorks and Owner and Executive Chairman of the Los Angeles Times, will join Daybreak’s board of directors.”
“Daybreak’s well tested game engine currently running EverQuest and H1Z1, combined with the proprietary next generation mobile game engine which we will develop and launch in the joint venture, are platforms which will enable unprecedented scale and provide enjoyment to millions of simultaneous players,” said John Wiacek, NantG Mobile’s Head of Game Engine Development.
(Source: BusinessWire)
Destiny 2 Is Not In A Good Place, Says Analyst, Following Microtransaction Controversies
It feels like we can’t go more than a week or so without Bungie being forced to apologize to its community for another dumpster fire of a PR decision, with the promise that they will listen closer moving forward. With each apology centered around either a hard-to-overlook bout of poor design or perceptibly underhanded attempt to cripple game progression to bring player attention to the real money Eververse, it may not be surprising that players starting to turn away from Destiny 2 and Bungie’s investors are taking notice.
In a note to investors titled “Destiny is Not in a Good Place,” Doug Creutz of analyst firm Cowen points to Destiny 2 appearing to have a problem keeping its players engaged, with issues surrounding microtransactions and Bungie’s poor communication and response to criticism being at the forefront of his concerns. Creutz also focuses on Destiny 2 Twitch viewership when discussing player engagement, stating that franchise view counts are at an all time low. Destiny 2 is apparently bringing in 4,000-7,000 views on a Friday afternoon compared to 14,000-17,000 from Destiny 1 a year ago.
Cruetz also believes that Destiny 2 may have a much harder time turning itself around than Destiny 1 did, owing to a more competitive market.
“We do think Bungie still has some opportunity to fix the game’s problems over the next year and recapture engagement, but we’re not sure they have the ability to pull it off at this point. We also note that Destiny currently has more serious competition in its genre from a refurbished Division (Ubisoft) and the indie title Warframe than it did three years ago, when D1 had its own share of player dissatisfaction.”
(Source: CNBC)
Funcom Announces Acquisition Of Conan Property
Funcom has announced that it has approved plans to acquire 50% of the Conan the Barbarian portfolio. The acquisition, approved by the board and pending approval at a general investor meeting in January, would see Funcom benefiting from a 50% royalty reduction on Age of Conan and Conan Exiles while also acquiring 50% royalties for any game developed using Conan and various other properties acquired as part of this venture.
The joint venture company will hold interactive/video gaming Intellectual Property (IP) rights based on the works of Robert E. Howard and classic Swedish pen & paper and board game properties, including attractive IPs such as “Conan the Barbarian”, “Solomon Kane”, “Mutant Chronicles”, “Mutant: Year Zero”.
The acquisition will allow Funcom to secure more frequent launches of games both produced internally as well as co-developed and published from third party partners. Rather than paying cash, Funcom will be paying with shares, reducing risk and increasing revenues. More information on the acquisition can be found at the link below:
(Source: Funcom)
Zynga Recovering With Higher Than Expected Earnings
Zynga’s stock has recovered most of its value following the announcement that CEO Don Mattrick would step down with Mark Pincus taking his place. Zynga’s stock fell heavily with Pincus’ return, down to a low of $2.38 from its $2.90.
Investors are responding well to Zynga’s latest quarterly results, in which the company announced severe downsizing. As part of proposed cuts, Zynga will shut down its $100 million dollar data centers and switch over to Amazon. In addition, the company will lay off 364 employees, nearly 20% of its workforce,
We need to be more resourceful in how we manage our costs in order to fund our investments in new games, people and data and analytics. We’ve overburdened our game teams with complexity and centralized expenditure.
The cuts are expected to save $100 million annually.
For the first quarter of 2015, Zynga’s daily active users remained flat (25 million) while monthly active users fell (100 from 108 million) and monthly unique users grew (73 million from 71 million). Revenue fell further, however earnings were higher than expected.
(Source: Zynga)
NCSoft Q2 2012: Profits Down, Revenue Up
NCSoft has released its finances for the second quarter of 2012, and considering that the major MMO news sites suddenly care enough to report on it, I can only assume that there is some drama to be had. Compared to last quarter, revenues are up thanks to solid Lineage sales and royalties, however NCSoft is in the red on operating profit and net income due to what the company refers to as “one-off labor costs.” Here are the bullet points of important details to explain why NCSoft’s profits sunk so low:
- Lineage sales were strong Korea, however Aion sales tanked due to “scaled back in-game item sales.”
- Labor costs surged 27% this past quarter due to severance-pay.
- Royalty expenses increased 35%
- Marketing expenses were up 112% over last quarter due to Blade & Soul
- D&A increased 28%
- NCSoft’s acquisition of Ntreev also ended up being a major cost.
While sales in Korea and Japan held strong, sales in North America continued a slight decline over last quarter. Europe has been hit the hardest, with sales decreasing to virtually nothing (less than 1% of sales for the quarter).
The launch of Guild Wars 2 is expected to make up for any losses incurred this quarter.
Sulake’s Biggest Investor Returns Shares
If Sulake is looking to take care of the community problems present in Habbo Hotel, they are going to have to act fast. In just the short time since BBC4 ran their investigation into Habbo Hotel, revealing that the game was a breeding ground for child grooming, Sulake lost its second largest investor and both Tesco and WH Smith have taken Habbo cash cards off of shelves. In addition, Sulake dropped a bomb on the community by temporarily suspending all chat function in Habbo until the problem can be taken care of.
But it seems that suspending chat has not yet stemmed the outward flow of support for the company. In a report published today, the BBC has revealed that Sulake’s biggest investor 3i has withdrawn funding due to the accusations that Habbo harbors pedophiles. 3i owned a 16% share in Sulake. A spokeswoman for Sulake had the following to say:
“Since muting the community we have launched an internal review of the site and we will inform our users of outcomes just as soon as we are able,”
More on Habbo as it appears.
Sulake's Biggest Investor Returns Shares
If Sulake is looking to take care of the community problems present in Habbo Hotel, they are going to have to act fast. In just the short time since BBC4 ran their investigation into Habbo Hotel, revealing that the game was a breeding ground for child grooming, Sulake lost its second largest investor and both Tesco and WH Smith have taken Habbo cash cards off of shelves. In addition, Sulake dropped a bomb on the community by temporarily suspending all chat function in Habbo until the problem can be taken care of.
But it seems that suspending chat has not yet stemmed the outward flow of support for the company. In a report published today, the BBC has revealed that Sulake’s biggest investor 3i has withdrawn funding due to the accusations that Habbo harbors pedophiles. 3i owned a 16% share in Sulake. A spokeswoman for Sulake had the following to say:
“Since muting the community we have launched an internal review of the site and we will inform our users of outcomes just as soon as we are able,”
More on Habbo as it appears.
Darkfall's New Investors: InternetQ
Although inevitably someone will come and tell me otherwise, investors have historically had major impacts on MMO development and direction on a fundamental level. For instance, I would never make the direct claim that Insight Venture Partners told Jagex to reverse course and start including exclusive in-game items packaged in with certain vendor cards, but if you look at the history, the two match up. Now, you could also speculate good features coming from such new investors, including the reversal of the free trade restrictions, finally thrashing bots from the game, etc.
InternetQ has announced a €2.6 million investment in Aventurine, affected by a convertible bond set to mature in March 2015, but InternetQ can convert it into equity at any time. If this takes place within 7 months of the Darkfall 2.0 launch, InternetQ will own 40% of Aventurine, with the option to buy more shares to become majority share holder.
The investment is specifically for Darkfall 2.0, the launch of free to play Darkfall in Asia, and development of InternetQ’s AKAZOO network.
With the Darkfall’s sequel launch later this year, Aventurine will have the opportunity to become a successful franchise.
Hold the phone: Darkfall is set to become a franchise? Is InternetQ suggesting that Darkfall 1.0 will continue alongside Darkfall 2.0?
It will be interesting to see the effect InternetQ has on Darkfall’s development. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, the press release tells me that InternetQ doesn’t fully understand exactly what Darkfall 2.0, or for that matter an MMO, really is and may be under the impression that Darkfall 2.0 is a standalone sequel (unless they know something we don’t)
(Source: InternetQ release)
MMO Fallout 