The kind of activity I’m seeing among the Wildstar community is pretty similar to those of other MMOs when they were either in the process of being shut down, or at heavily speculated risk of being shut down. So none of what I’m about to discuss is of any surprise to me, and I don’t want people thinking that I’m just singling out the Wildstar community for behaving in such a manner. Thank you.
First of all, you can read my analysis of NCSoft’s first quarter report at MMORPG.com. I’m no trained expert in finance, but I’ve been doing these quarterly reports for five years, and in the months that I’m not regurgitating income and revenues, I’m doing research and chatting with real investment bankers. So I have at least a good grasp on what I’m talking about and the charts the present are all mine, so you know I’ve actually read them.
The unfortunate side effect of this being a somewhat complicated topic is that articles like this usually end up with a lot of gotcha questions from fans and “haters” alike, statements you know are wrong but can’t really refute with the proper level of confidence.
I decided to compile a few of the most common things I see concerning quarterly reports, particularly for this one.
- The graph shows box sales, not total revenue.
Incorrect. The figure reported by NCSoft is total revenue per game, from box sales to subscriptions and cash shop purchases. No, this isn’t directly stated on the quarterly report sheet, but it is discussed in more detail over the conference call. Also, just consider this from a logical point of view. There are games on this list that don’t exist in a boxed form anymore, in any region. Sales for titles like Aion and Lineage II would be zilch if the figure only counted box sales.
- But my guild is growing, the game must be growing too!
A nice sentiment, but anecdotal and ultimately meaningless, not to mention demonstrably false given we know for a fact that Wildstar’s sales are dropping. Also consider how small the game’s population would need to be in order for one guild’s numbers to be indicative of the overall population.
- Who cares what the revenue is as long as the game is profitable?
You should, at least fans of the game should. While some developers might be happy with just profitable, it doesn’t take an expert to know that NCSoft is not that kind of developer. If NCSoft was happy with a game being somewhat profitable, we’d still be playing City of Heroes.
- Your sources are unaudited and therefore inaccurate.
Half true. The figures provided are not audited, meaning they are in their form as NCSoft has submitted them. While it is possible that a mistake was made and the numbers are wrong, you would need some hard evidence to prove why the numbers should be doubted.
MMO Fallout 