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Tag: Report
NCSoft Sales Drop 30% In Q1 2021
Funcom Q2 2019: Conan Exiles Strong, Unconquered Not So Much
Funcom this week published their second quarter results for 2019 and they are pretty much okay.
Funcom’s CEO Rui Casais referred to 2019 as a transition year for Funcom between the turnaround and growth phases of the company where those changes may not be immediately visible. Presumably he is referring to Funcom’s revenue and profit for the second quarter which despite boasting a 53% increase from last quarter is moderately over half of last year’s numbers. $8.9 million in revenue in Q2 2019 compared to $15.2 million in 2018 as well as $600,000 in profit compared to $5.8 million in 2018.
The numbers makes sense as 2018 brought in Conan Exiles and Mutant: Year Zero and Funcom didn’t have as big of a title to publish this year outside of Conan Unconquered which didn’t quite live up to expectations. On the plus side, the company has shed its $3.4 million in debt since last year and is in a strong, growing cash position.
With Conan Unconquered we saw an opportunity to experiment with a low budget game in a new genre for Funcom, “Real-Time Strategy”. We worked with a developer with a long track record in the genre to create a small game that isn’t a classical example of the genre, but a twist on it. Unfortunately, the reception from the players was not as positive as we hoped for. We are grateful for their feedback and based on that feedback we have made free updates to the game and have a larger update ready to go out soon. We are improving our processes based on this experience and we still believe in this genre, but it’s clear that the budget and quality of this game was not high enough.
Conan Exiles continues to be the strong performer in terms of revenue and funding Funcom’s other projects. The report does note that the success of Conan Exiles showing the company’s strength in multiplayer games as a service, that the Conan single player game has been put on hold in order for the Oslo team to focus on continued content for Exiles as well as the Dune open world multiplayer game set to release soon™. The Funcom North Carolina team is working on a multiplayer shooter that they hope to bring to market in 2020, while the company is also publishing Moons of Madness and Conan Chop Chop, as well as other titles yet to be announced.
Dune is currently listed as in pre-production while the coop shooter based in the Mutant: Year Zero IP is in production. Moons of Madness, a game set in the Secret World universe, is on track for a Halloween 2019 release with Conan Chop Chop to come in 2020. Funcom is also engaged in joint operations surrounding the Kult RPG franchise, Solomon Kane, Mutant Chronicles, and Doom Trooper along with other lesser known franchises.
Source: Report, Presentation
NCSoft Releases Quarterly Earnings, Lineage M Sees Lower Demand
NCSoft’s quarterly earnings have been made available and the results are not so bad. Sales fell 1% over the same time last year thanks to early recognition of Lineage 1 promotion sales with NCSoft pointing to lower demand than expected for Lineage M, the mobile release of Lineage. Operating profit and income plummeted 60-70% year over year due to incentives paid on the back of high earnings last year, meaning NCSoft players should not see these figures as the end times.
To put it into perspective, NCSoft’s net income dropped from 66,804 (million Korean Won) to 17,394 (49,410) over the past quarter. Labor cost increases due to increased headcount and incentives rose 33% by 33,175 while royalty payments exploded 398% over last quarter by 2,261. In short, while sales fell 1% over last year, operating costs increased 24% due to said overhead costs.
On the games front, Lineage sales plummeted by more than half, however much of that is due to the aforementioned early sales recognition is unknown. Lineage II and Aion similarly dipped in revenue, although not by nearly as large of a margin, while Blade & Soul grew compared to the last two quarters and Guild Wars 2 remained relatively stable. Wildstar, as mentioned in the previous release, is no longer listed on NCSoft’s quarterly reports.
NCSoft Sales Boom, Wildstar Flounders In Q1
NCSoft has officially released their first quarter financial documents, and there is plenty to be happy about (providing you are not a developer on or player of Wildstar). Sales hit a boom with a 28% increase over the same time last year while profits over the same period jumped 70%. Pre-tax income flew up 67% while net income soared to a grandiose 86% increase.
Much of the increase is thanks to Blade & Soul, driven by the US/EU launch the title is now NCSoft’s second highest grossing product below the original Lineage. US/EU sales jumped 136% over last year thanks primarily to Blade & Soul while the title also grew revenues in China by 15%.
Aion saw a small boost in sales while Guild Wars 2, Lineage II, and Wildstar all saw a loss of revenue. The boost in profit is even more amazing when put alongside an increase in labor costs, box and merchandise production.
And now the bad news: Wildstar’s sales have officially dropped to its lowest point, 1,282 KRW in MN or $1.09 million approximately USD. The game’s income is, at this point in time, virtually negligible for NCSoft as a company, and the switch to free to play has clearly just delayed the inevitable. With the cancellation of Wildstar’s Chinese launch and the allegation by Polygon that NCSoft confirmed the game’s imminent closure at the last round of layoffs, both fans and the developers should start prepping their resumes if they haven’t already.
I want to put this into perspective for the “Wildstar is fine” comments that will show up here and in reference to this article on other websites. NCSoft’s revenues for Q1 came to 204,848 KRW in MN, that is 204.8 billion Won. Wildstar made up 1.282 billion of that, or 0.6258% of the total revenue. The three month period in the report runs from January to March, a period that has 91 days. 91 days translates to 2,184 hours.
Wildstar was worth 13.66 hours of NCSoft’s time over the last three months. It is worth less than half of City of Heroes (2,855) at the time NCSoft shut down Paragon Studios and fired the team with barely any warning. Just a fraction more than Guild Wars (1,277) was when NCSoft halted development. Increasingly less than Tabula Rasa (2,007) when it was delisted and the servers were shut down.
It’s over, folks.
(Source: NCSoft)
See Rust Bans In Real Time
Rust is the open world survival game by Facepunch Studios, makers of the popular sandbox game Garry’s Mod. As a game that relies heavily on player vs player combat with heavy ramifications for death, it should come as no surprise that cheating has become prevalent in servers. To combat this, Rust employs its own anti-cheat system that bans players on a continual basis. We know this because the Rust Hack Report Twitter account is constantly being updated.
In the time it will take to publish this report, more than a dozen new bans will be reported through the account. Many of the accounts banned appear to be throwaway accounts (new accounts with only one game played) and others are repeat offenders with additional game bans and VAC bans from other titles. Some have tallied more than 100 hours on Rust in the past two weeks, some haven’t even bothered setting up a community page. A few are set to private, while one or two are normal accounts that seem to have large libraries and varied gameplay.
If you’d like to follow the Rust ban list, check out the Rust Hack Report Twitter.
Webzen Posts 67% Drop In Annual Profits
Webzen has released their 2013 earnings release, and the results are a mixture of bad and probably salvageable. Despite a 26% rise in revenue over last year, operating profits dropped by 67%. To put the loss into better perspective, Webzen’s 2012 revenue amounted to $53.6 million USD (approximately), with $45.6 million of that going toward operating expenses, leaving around $8 million left as operating profit and that doesn’t even factor in taxes. In 2013, while revenue gained 26% to $67.47 million, operating costs surged even higher by 42% to $64.87 million. So while revenues grew during the year, operating costs resulted in the final operating profit plummeting.
With a number of titles still in development, Webzen’s portfolio is looking rather slim at the moment. The last year saw the shuttering of Archlord, SUN, and Arctic Combat, with only two of the four games currently listed on Webzen’s global website actually being playable. Games like R2 and Mu Rebirth are still “upcoming,” with development continuing on other titles including Archlord 2. Also worth noting is that revenue from domestic sales fell slightly while overseas grew by a wide margin to 73% of Webzen’s total revenue.
Another factor of operating cost could be related to Webzen’s 100% acquisition of gPotato.com back in February.
(Source: Webzen Earnings)
MMO Fallout 