Tag: Revenue

App Annie Reports Top Mobile Spending For 2018


App Annie, a company that provides analytical data for mobile apps, released a list this week of the top companies of 2018 by worldwide consumer spending. The top members of the list might not be all that surprising, with game companies including Tencent, Activision Blizzard, and Netmarble topping the charts.

  1. Tencent
  2. NetEase
  3. Activision Blizzard
  4. Bandai Namco
  5. Netmarble
  6. Sony
  7. Supercell
  8. Mixi
  9. Playrix
  10. Giant Network

App Annie did not include specific data on how much each company brought in in revenue, but considering the market surpassed $92 billion last year, it’s bound to be a truckload.

Com2Us Posts $106.7 Million In Sales


Com2Us this week posted its third quarter revenue for 2018 and the results are positive.

Third quarter sales amounted to $106.7 million USD with $33.8 million in profits, beating out the previous record of $26.5 million. Overseas sales accounted for 83% of revenue with North America and Europe accounting for 50% of those sales.

For the future, Com2US is looking to expand its popular Summoners War title from the mobile gaming scene and into cartoons, comics, and other merchandise. They have also opened up pre-registration for Skylanders Ring of Heroes on mobile devices.

(Source; Com2Us press release)

Nexon Announces Biggest Third Quarter Ever In Earnings Release


Nexon has released its third quarter revenue results and the times are looking pretty good for the developer/publisher. Driven by strong performance of its top titles including Dungeon & Fighter, Fifa Online 3, and the Maplestory 2 test in China, Nexon enjoyed a 36% increase in revenue over last year with net income up 157% over the same period.

Q3 was a great quarter for Nexon, with revenues, operating income and net income well above our expectations. It was also the biggest Q3 ever. These strong results reflect continued growth in our key existing titles in China and Korea, as well as strong starts in new games both PC and mobile.

Over in North America, Nexon placed blame for lower than expected revenues squarely on the shoulders of Lawbreakers, which launched in August and never managed to develop a following. The earnings call indicates that Nexon is writing off Lawbreakers as a loss, as its impairment made up a majority of the losses for North America for this quarter, meaning that development will either be ceasing or there are plans to divest Nexon from Boss Key Productions.

Our results in North America in the third quarter were below our outlook, mainly due to the sales from LawBreakers being below our expectations. LawBreakers is a unique FPS developed for core users. We had very high expectations for its launch; however, the timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers.

Nexon expects these fortunes to turn around in Q4 with the acquisition of Pixelberry Studios.

Nexon’s good fortunes are expected to continue into the fourth quarter and beyond with a strong schedule of games launching worldwide.

(Source: Report, Earnings Call)

Mobile Drives Explosive Sales For NCSoft In Third Quarter


NCSoft’s third quarter results are in, and the results are incredible. Thanks to strong performances in the mobile sector, the Korean developer/publisher has posted record sales and profits, as can be seen in the chart above. Mobile gaming now makes up 82% of NCSoft’s sales figures, posting 551 billion won in sales ($491 million USD) in just one quarter.

The popularity of NCSoft’s mobile titles in Korea has driven its sales up over 260% over the last quarter while Guild Wars 2 saw revenue increase 50% from sales of the latest Guild Wars 2 expansion. Lineage II, Aion, and Blade & Soul all saw their revenues drop slightly while Lineage experienced a small increase in sales. Lineage II Revolution expansion overseas and strong performance of Blade & Soul in China also helped with royalty revenue.

(Source: NCSoft)

Funcom Boasts Best Half Ever As Conan Exiles Propels Profits


Funcom’s second quarterly revenue report is out, and the results are as expected, positive. The combined success of Conan Exiles and Secret World Legends has propelled the Oslo developer to its best half in the history of the company, nearly halving their debt and increasing equity by 40%. Sales of Secret World Legends have exceeded company expectations, although the sales had little effect on this quarter’s revenue due to its late release and will not be seen until the next release. Overall revenue increased 79% over last year.

To complement its success, Funcom has rebranded as Funcom 2.0, with a brand new logo of a screaming face on a burning flag, to convey the developer’s passion, ambition, and history.

Two new games are currently in production at Funcom, with the Oslo studio working on a new Conan game and the Durham studio in the concept stage on a game that will be dependent on the success of Secret World Legends. In addition, Funcom has announced that it is partnering with Bearded Dragons to produce a new game for 2018. Funcom had previously revealed that Johnny Depp will be involved in a TV series based off of The Secret World.

(Source: Funcom)

Jagex Reports Double Digit Growth In 2016


Things are looking up for Jagex, as the UK developer announced that revenues hit double digit growth for the second year. In a press release sent out today, Jagex unveiled their 2016 annual revenues, announcing a 28% increase to £74.4 million. Growth was driven due to the release of NXT, a new game client for RuneScape 3, while Old School RuneScape similarly saw major growth partially due to the eSports aspect of the annual Deadman tournament.

Acting CEO Phil Mansell had the following to say:

“2016 saw RuneScape celebrate its 15th anniversary and we placed a razor focus on evolving and growing both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape. Through investment in big ticket content, technology, marketing and strengthening the relationship we enjoy with millions of players that form our deeply-engaged community, the team delivered landmark performance by growing active users, conversion rates and subscribers.”

(Source: Jagex press release)

Electronic Arts Posts Growth In Q4 2016


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Electronic Arts has posted its year end results for the fiscal year 2016, and everything is coming up profit. The publishing behemoth raked in $4.5 billion in revenue this past year, up from the $4.3 billion in the fiscal year ending in 2015. According to the company’s own projections, the next year should continue the trend with an estimated $4.9 billion.

As sales of digital goods climb, packaged games continued to lose market share. Digital revenue has taken over physical media by a growing margin, $2.5 billion compared to $2.0 billion, while EA’s profit margin has increased to an eye-popping 82.7%. PC gamers make up 26% of EA’s revenue while consoles account for 51% with mobile making up the rest. The console market had the strongest growth the past year, a 22% increase in revenue year over year.

Gamers hoping to see the end of downloadable content will have to wait another year, as customers spent $1.1 billion on “extra content,” a separate figure from the $570 million spent on mobile. Subscriptions and ad revenue made up $339 million while full game downloads accounted for about half a billion.

Fiscal year 2017 sees the launch of several big name titles, including Battlefield 1, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, and Mass Effect Andromeda.

There was no mention of The Old Republic that we could find in any of the documents.

(Source: EA)

NCSoft Sales Boom, Wildstar Flounders In Q1


ncsoft2

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)

NCSoft Posts Q4 Report: Wildstar Revenues Climb


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NCSoft has posted their fourth quarter reports for 2015, and the results are a general mixture of the good and the bad. As you can see from the chart above, while figures were pretty solid across the board over the third quarter, revenue and profit dropped notably over the same period last year. NCSoft pits the majority of the loss on overseas royalties, but that overall the company is growing in profit thanks to a balanced growth from overall IPs.

On the games front, every single title in NCSoft’s library saw growth in the last quarter, including Wildstar. Lineage and Lineage 2, as well as Blade & Soul, grew thanks to content updates and strong in-game item promotions. Guild Wars 2 drove in plenty of new revenue thanks to the sale of Heart of Thorns.

sales2

Thank you to NCSoft for plotting out each game on an individual basis, it saves me a lot of time. As you can see from the chart above, while Wildstar’s income grew in the first quarter of free to play, it didn’t grow all that much. Revenue is still far down from where it was when the game launched, and it brought in only $2.23 million USD in its initial free to play rush.

At this point in the timeline, it looks like the upcoming China launch may be Wildstars best, and only, bet at salvation. Assuming NCSoft is willing to shoulder the title to that milestone, we’ll likely be hearing in 2017 about whether or not this title goes on the chopping block. As for Guild Wars, it looks like the Heart of Thorns quarter brought in a bump of $14 million. According to the earnings call itself, while sales were good for Heart of Thorns, they did fall below expectations. This lines up with earlier predictions of Daewoo Securities that Heart of Thorns would sell less than expected.

The first quarter earnings for NCSoft won’t be out for another few months, but they will have some very important information going forward: How has Blade & Soul fared with its western launch? How will Wildstar hold up after its free to play transition?

NCSoft Q3 2015 Drops Across The Board


q315

NCSoft has released their third quarter financial reports and the results are pretty much negative across the board. Sales were down 8% under the same time last year, while profits fell nearly forty percent and net income dropped sixty percent across the same period. NCSoft has pointed to a drop in in-game promotional items for Lineage 1 and Aion as the culprit behind a majority of the drop in sales in Korea, although every game in their library saw a loss in sales over the second quarter.

The only game that seemed to be doing better in the third quarter is Blade & Soul, whose continued success in China brought in increased royalties. Blade & Soul’s sales in China are not reflected in the game’s bar on the chart above. The news also does not take into account the shift of Wildstar to free to play and the launch of Guild Wars 2’s expansion Heart of Thorns. Wildstar’s earnings for the third quarter dropped to $1.5 million, while Lineage 1 still makes up just under half of the total game sales.

(Source: NCSoft)