NCsoft Q1 2010 financials out: ouch.
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2010-05-06 19:41 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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City Of Glee?|
Originally Posted by UnSub
I don't know what it will be - CoH 2.0 or Positron's Grand New Musical MMO Spectacular - but it is underway.
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Dr.Positron's Sing-A-Long TF?
...we should be told. I'm rolling a Defying Gravity/Cat Summoning controller.
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
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This is an excellent point that I left out of an analysis a while back.|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
I do think the timeline needs to show adjustments for currency exchanges because many (most?) buy from NC in US dollars and if the exchange rate adjusts they get less KRW or more based on that.
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NCsoft reports all financials in South Korean Won (KRW), whereas most of the income and expenses of the game are in US Dollars (USD). The KRW is down right now against the USD, which means that when you pay them USD $15, that is not as much on the books today as it was a year or two ago.
That's the bad news. The good news is on the flip side of the equation. Expenses such as wages and salaries, marketing in their primary market, physical production of media (game packages, etc.), hosting and maintenance costs of the U.S. servers--those are all also cheaper in the reported currency as well.
To paint a truly accurate picture, you'd need to map the numbers against the exchange rate. Ideally, you'd break it out by percentage of players using the different currencies, but even just tying it to the USD instead of the KRW, since most income and expenses are in USD, would be more informative than looking at the raw numbers.
I'm also not saying that there wasn't a drop. Q1 was a pretty big lull in between issues, and a pretty major competing game (Star Trek Online) did launch right in the middle of that lull, so it wouldn't surprise me if NCsoft took a hit last quarter. But don't panic yet. I suspect the true situation could be summed up, like it probably could be for the past couple of years, as not as good as they want it, but better than people are probably thinking.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
All MMOs took a hit first quarter not only NCSoft. I suspect that a lot of people who had stopped playing in 2009 didn't renew their subs when the bill came. People who in previous yrs may have continued to pay thinking "that game is fun, i'll probably get back into it in two or three months, I'll let the CC autopay another yr" now decided "i dont play that game anymore, although its fun, Im cancelling".
[url="http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/User:SaintNicster"]ParagonWiki User Page[/url]
[url="http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/214#list"]City Info Tracker[/url]
Wonderful thread
Especially when you contrast it with prior threads on this topic. As usual says more about the people posting than anything else.
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I spent 5 months laid off in 2009. If I hadn't already bought 6 months just prior to that, I wouldn't have contributed any money to the game either. I was re-hired thankfully, but business is still way down. I know where I live unemployment is still very high.|
Originally Posted by Clouded
Is anyone really surprised by these numbers? I personally have had to make monetary sacrifices in my household to account for the loss of business in my field.
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No, not surprised at all.
Regarding that 2.9 million figure, I recall reading elsewhere that a single million a year keeps an MMO up and running with no problem at all, once it's established. Light on updates perhaps, but in no danger of the power getting shut off. With 3 times that I see no pressing need for concern, as a consumer anyway.
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Very important that last paragraph. I think we all can see there are fewer people online but I am going to see what Going Rogue does. And like Clouded wrote, I am here until they kick me off.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
This is an excellent point that I left out of an analysis a while back.
NCsoft reports all financials in South Korean Won (KRW), whereas most of the income and expenses of the game are in US Dollars (USD). The KRW is down right now against the USD, which means that when you pay them USD $15, that is not as much on the books today as it was a year or two ago. That's the bad news. The good news is on the flip side of the equation. Expenses such as wages and salaries, marketing in their primary market, physical production of media (game packages, etc.), hosting and maintenance costs of the U.S. servers--those are all also cheaper in the reported currency as well. To paint a truly accurate picture, you'd need to map the numbers against the exchange rate. Ideally, you'd break it out by percentage of players using the different currencies, but even just tying it to the USD instead of the KRW, since most income and expenses are in USD, would be more informative than looking at the raw numbers. I'm also not saying that there wasn't a drop. Q1 was a pretty big lull in between issues, and a pretty major competing game (Star Trek Online) did launch right in the middle of that lull, so it wouldn't surprise me if NCsoft took a hit last quarter. But don't panic yet. I suspect the true situation could be summed up, like it probably could be for the past couple of years, as not as good as they want it, but better than people are probably thinking. |
And boy is Ultra Mode pretty on my machines that can run it. I have to think once the main problems some people are having get fixed it could give the right shot in the arm with GR.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Originally Posted by Mr. NoPants
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Originally Posted by minago
Issue 13 Power and Responsibility Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 <-- PvP and Base changes alienate segments of player base
Issue 14 Architect Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 Issue 15 Anniversary Monday, June 29th, 2009 Issue 16 Power Spectrum Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 not sure how those factor into the quarter dates . |
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There are many possibilities and that certainly is one but I expect that NCSoft should have an idea of what/where the numbers changed.|
Originally Posted by Catharctic
Hmm . . . notice the steady decline after that? Maybe there was more of a PvP crowd than people thought (not to mention how many of them had multiple accounts active).
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For all we know the free server transfers allowed RMTers to move inf around where before they were paying and now with Gleemail (tm) they would not need to move around at the $10/transfer fee.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Alternate theory for drop in Q1 2010 revenues:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2...d_20100217.png
Flip the orientation of the above graph and it dovetails pretty well with COH revenue chart 2008-2010.
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I haven't yet updated this to reflect the most recently figure, (which is US$2.93m iirc), but I did create this to show the previous history with $US:|
Originally Posted by TonyV
To paint a truly accurate picture, you'd need to map the numbers against the exchange rate. Ideally, you'd break it out by percentage of players using the different currencies, but even just tying it to the USD instead of the KRW, since most income and expenses are in USD, would be more informative than looking at the raw numbers.
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As for what NCsoft expects from CoH/V, it's 19 000 M Won for 2010. At today's exchange rate, that's about US$16.6m. GoRo is going to be a major revenue driver, but the real question is "how major"?
In wider terms, Aion is doing great business for NCsoft and the main Korean operation is doing very well. That doesn't mean much for CoH/V since NCsoft has probably worn out its patience for unprofitable titles that don't have a chance of recovery.
Other MMO developers generally don't split their revenue up by game title. I'm waiting to see what Atari's next earning statement looks like and perhaps Turbine's earnings will be more transparent now that they've been bought out. EvE looks like it continues to grow its active sub figures. EA doesn't talk about WAR anymore and servers have been shutting down on that game all over the world.
EDIT - To add, the $US conversions were calculated using an end-of-period approach, rather than a 3-month exchange rate average. When I did the check on the two methods, the differences were very small at the top level so I used end-of-period.
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It doesn't look like anyone's addressed the HUGE spike in Q4 of '05. What came out right about that time? City of Villains. I'd say GR is going to be pretty major.|
Originally Posted by UnSub
GoRo is going to be a major revenue driver, but the real question is "how major"?
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Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
20-50 content is not coming with GR.
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I suppose if we delayed release for another year we could get new 1-50 content in GoRo but I'ld rather not.
Between the ae nerf( multiple times) and the pvp nerf (again multiple times) then add in no content for the year and yes i know iss 17 came out..really there was nothing in there that interests me either.i dont wanna do a new posi tf nor am i a badge *****.so besides ds which i had to preorder gr to get .i wouldnt be here at all.even still im really only still here for new inventions and high lvl stuff like incarnates.which is the only reason im geting gr in the first place.
then including myself where i was only one month this year so far and with 2 accounts.ill be 50 on my ds mm by saturday so ill be cancelling both accounts again and back for gr.there simply isnt any other reason to stay active here.
if they would fix the lousy drop rates for pvp recipes and purples i might stick around more. but their too busy to worry about a dead market. how odd that the economy is bad and so is the economy in the game.yet they refuse to fix it.
oh well..i guess thats just more money to spend somewhere else. *shrugs*
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You can't be serious I hope? AE is groundbreaking in the MMO industry, every other game that does this (and others WILL/ARE doing it) will be learning and following this standard. It is an amazing feature hands down.
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Originally Posted by minago
content wise it has been lacking for awhile and let's face it ...less than stellar design decisions that has changed the game for the worse, yeah AE i'm looking at you.
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I think a lot of what affected CoH was either beyond control or not repeatable. Champions Online can only launch once. The recession can't be helped. Going Rogue is launching soon and can't be significantly dragged out again. Issue 17 is great, and so on and so forth.
Even if it was a wound, I'm not overly concerned for the future.
Oh man, numbers! I love numbers!
*looks at numbers*
*doesn't understand what they mean*
*associates any lower numbers with personal axe to grind*
*posts ignorant opinion*
And anyone who disagrees is a troll! fanboy! mouthbreather! doomsayer!
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ground breaking maybe..but it comes with too big a price tag in the xp nerfing.which is why i wont touch the thing.|
Originally Posted by GreenPiranha
You can't be serious I hope? AE is groundbreaking in the MMO industry, every other game that does this (and others WILL/ARE doing it) will be learning and following this standard. It is an amazing feature hands down.
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but like the pvp changes they think they know whats best and never listen .even now they have to go into gr closed beta to try and figure out where they went wrong with it . cool as it may be they need to let people play it their way. farming is part of any mmo.stop trying to please the few and let the many quit.
<QR>
For me, personally, although I've kept my sub up and running (despite second thoughts about doing so until GR), I've adapted a "wait and see" approach until the launch of GR. I'm a guy who likes content, so that's what I'm waiting for.
Granted, my lack of actual play time has been compounded by my full-time job and 3/4-time college.
I'll admit there has been some slight canon content in the last fwe patches, but only what is the equivalent of a few story arcs per side (TFs are just one story arc for a set amount of players). Between there last few issues, there's enough now to keep me interested in GR. Power Customization and the MA were big systems that took a lot of time to put in. I'm glad they were put in, but the lack of any canon content that coincided with their developments didn't keep me entertained. I feel kind of bad after telling Brian Clayton the Power Customization was what I really wanted in CoH, and then losing interest when the content dried up
That being said, the economy certainly has been hitting a lot of people in the figurative groin, and not in a funny blooper reel way. My company finally got walloped with layoffs this week, so I'm just thankful to still be employed, unlike some of my colleagues and friends.
That sort of thing can definitely put a hamper on disposable income, including MMO subs.
I've got great hopes for GR, but I just hope other RL issues get sorted so that those who worry about funds can hope back in the game as time and money permit.
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But "Is that opinion so wide spread that it's affected the company by millions?" is the question of the thread.
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Originally Posted by Severe
ground breaking maybe..but it comes with too big a price tag in the xp nerfing.which is why i wont touch the thing.
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Posting + Avatar = K-k-k-Killer Combo! |
Originally Posted by Emberly
Oh man, numbers! I love numbers!
*looks at numbers* *doesn't understand what they mean* *associates any lower numbers with personal axe to grind* *posts ignorant opinion* And anyone who disagrees is a troll! fanboy! mouthbreather! doomsayer! |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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You're reading something the graph simply isn't saying. PvP changes came at the end of 2008; if PvP changes were what took away the revenue, it would not have taken two quarters to see a decline in revenue. A more reasonable (though by no assurances more correct) conclusion to draw is that it would be Architect or Anniversary that were the larger disappointments leading to cancelled subscriptions. |
Originally Posted by Catharctic
Hmm . . . notice the steady decline after that? Maybe there was more of a PvP crowd than people thought (not to mention how many of them had multiple accounts active).
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However, the largest drop, between third and fourth quarters 2009, coincides with the launch of City of Heroes' only real competitor. That's by far the most likely culprit. With the content lag that's come with the upcoming release of Going Rogue, CoHV has been a poor competitor, but making judgements before seeing some revenue reports after the release of GR would be grossly premature.
I hate that the 5th Column was one of the only enemy groups that ranged level 1-53 in the Mission Architect, so I'm guessing that's what cost the company everything.
Oh, and Twitter.
Let me get my snarky Anti-Doom Comment out of the way.
Soooo here's another post about how the game is failing, yada, yada, yada...
Most of these boil down to someone unhappy with CoH and being a fan of another game.
So I should do what exactly, if CoH ever folds (which it won't because EQ has LESS of a population and is still cranking out expansions with the parent comapny's blessing)?
Maybe play Crapions online? Oh, I tried that... for a FREE month. Horrid game.
Wait? Star Blech Online? Nope same company. Subpar product once again.
Nope. I'm going to continue playing CoH until it closes and "if" ((Which is very unlikely since the main revinue for manufacturing the initial game has already been made back in spades)) that ever does happen I do have options but those options will include MMO developers that spend time and effort to bring a "quality" product to the market. Like, let me see, Paragon Studios.
Issue 14 Architect Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Issue 15 Anniversary Monday, June 29th, 2009
Issue 16 Power Spectrum Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
not sure how those factor into the quarter dates .
I14 2Q 2009
I15 2Q 2009, but would have more impact on 3Q
I16 4Q 2009.
NCsoft uses an calender accounting cycle.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617