CoX 2011 Q4 Earning Results
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2012-02-15 03:48 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
That is good news.
Always makes me laugh that the great i13 - i15 period [the pvp/AE/1 tf = an issue!? year] has some of the highest results 
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
Let's just hope that this continues.
Time for VIPs to get their promised free content again.
Dark Energon, Founder of the Freedom Legion SG on Guardian server.
(SG founded on 12-08-'09, Top100: 08-17-'10, Top50: 12-23-'10, Top25: 12-11-'11)
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It is |
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
That is good news.
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Global@SteelDominator
I'm glad to see that Freedom's had a positive effect but to say it's great might not be entirely accurate - given that Freedom launched at the lowest point in that graph.
Thelonious Monk
I was just going to log in and post this if no one else had. I don't know what they were expecting, but I think the devs deserve congratulations. I like seeing that uptick on the graph that has been on a downward slant for so long.
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Thanks.|
Originally Posted by Beber
The long awaited NCSoft's Q4 results just got released, and it's great! Well at least for City of Heroes, which is almost the only game that had an increase in its sales in the last quarter.
Q3 sales were 2812 MKRW, and Q4 are 3435 MKRW, so that's a little over a 20% bump. Part of this increase is due to the strong KRW against dollar, which increased of something like 5% between Q3 and Q4. But still, most of the increase is all Freedom related. Here's the usual graph:  And since the question pops up everytime, sales include everything game related : subscription, Paragon Points, etc. Source. |
I'm curious how much this chart would change if weighed against currency exchange rates, though-- since most of the revenue is in US currency, but the reporting is in Korean Won.
According to Google Finance, back in 2004, the Won was worth ~.0009 dollars, climbed to ~.0011 in 2007-2008 before crashing to ~.0007 before rebounding back to ~.0009 today.
Normalizing against the exchange rate might give a better picture of the state of the customer base over time- right now, the peaks and troughs of the exchanges would affect the overall chart, perhaps exaggerating (or trivializing) actual changes in market sentiment.
DOOOOOOOoooooo000000MMMMMMM!!!!
oh wait this isn't "that" thread?
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They've been getting that each Issue since Issue 1.
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Originally Posted by Dark Energon
Time for VIPs to get their promised free content again.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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And you're totally right.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Normalizing against the exchange rate might give a better picture of the state of the customer base over time- right now, the peaks and troughs of the exchanges would affect the overall chart, perhaps exaggerating (or trivializing) actual changes in market sentiment.
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Now Damz can set his mind at rest.
Honestly, a 20% income bump (especially with some of that as a result of the increased KRW value), with all of the expenditures on Freedom (new server, advertising, artwork, etc.), isn't that good. Other MMOGs that have gone free-to-play have seen increases of over 500%. With cutthroat NCSoft at the helm, I'd be worried.
This certainly explains why the game has taken to gambling...
@Celestial Lord and @Celestial Lord Too
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I would be worried too if their other games weren't in the crapper.
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Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
With cutthroat NCSoft at the helm, I'd be worried.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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That was my thought as well. It doesn't quite help the game's yearly revenue much which is still at its lowest.|
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
Honestly, a 20% income bump (especially with some of that as a result of the increased KRW value), with all of the expenditures on Freedom (new server, advertising, artwork, etc.), isn't that good. Other MMOGs that have gone free-to-play have seen increases of over 500%.
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Code:
Year Avg Exchange Sales KWon Sales USD 2004 1102.17935 31,475 27,607,023 2005 1043.65467 34,265 33,199,783 2006 952.37930 25,016 25,770,998 2007 922.05946 23,446 25,059,657 2008 1365.35609 24,217 22,335,820 2009 1172.12370 22,909 17,760,819 2010 1135.05837 15,787 13,564,705 2011 1147.87098 12,089 10,881,574
Which is interesting because with GR, people would've only spent maybe $30 or $40 above their sub fees that quarter but it got higher reveneues than from the Freedom store where people state they spent 100s of dollars.
It'll be interesting to see 1Q 2012's numbers if this is a sustainable increase instead of a single revenue boost, especially with having super packs for a revenue source.
* Oops, disregard the exchange rates...got lazy with cut/paste. Those are actually average rates for 4Q of that year only. But the USD value is summed from each quarter so that should be somewhat fine. Sorry.
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Right. The only questions that need be asked are:|
Originally Posted by Aggelakis
I would be worried too if their other games weren't in the crapper.
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Is City of Heroes in mainteance mode, and are the developers releasing new content?
The answer to those are no and yes so we should be clear of DOOM for the time being.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
I think is easy for other games and studios/publishers to say: "With our F2P conversion we got our numbers increased by 300%" when they dont show up the real numbers like NCsoft does.
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Guess it depends which other games said that and how bad of shape they were in when they went F2P. If they were struggling, I'd expect a much bigger percent increase than a game like CoH which has a relatively stable (even if not overly huge) core subscriber base.
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Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
Honestly, a 20% income bump (especially with some of that as a result of the increased KRW value), with all of the expenditures on Freedom (new server, advertising, artwork, etc.), isn't that good. Other MMOGs that have gone free-to-play have seen increases of over 500%. With cutthroat NCSoft at the helm, I'd be worried.
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Exactly. It appears that the extra income from Freedom is replacing some of the lost subscribers and even topping it off somewhat. How long before people get tired of the new shinies and stop adding Paragon Points to their accounts is the question.|
Originally Posted by Codewalker
Guess it depends which other games said that and how bad of shape they were in when they went F2P. If they were struggling, I'd expect a much bigger percent increase than a game like CoH which has a relatively stable (even if not overly huge) core subscriber base.
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I know myself, 2 accounts = $30 + about $10-30 per month in Paragon Point purchases is about $60-$70 for our accounts, per month. A lot more than I would expect to pay for an MMO, but I'm getting worth out of the costume bundles and à la carte model.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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Several things, though:|
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
Honestly, a 20% income bump (especially with some of that as a result of the increased KRW value), with all of the expenditures on Freedom (new server, advertising, artwork, etc.), isn't that good. Other MMOGs that have gone free-to-play have seen increases of over 500%. With cutthroat NCSoft at the helm, I'd be worried.
This certainly explains why the game has taken to gambling... |
1)that 500% has always been questionable. Note that they never indicated what the revenue was before the 500% increase.
Reports also indicate that many of those games were at a point of insolvency even after paring back to nearly-skeleton-crew development teams. They entered the F2P market mostly as a "last ditch effort" to turn things around. [list][*]If I'm making $500 and it increases to $3000, that 500% increase is an overall increase of $2,500.* [*]If I'm making $12,500 and going F2P captures the exactly same market, thus earning $2,500, I've had a 20% increase.*
(*note: math on phone while switching between apps during lunch walks are never correct)
Not saying that those represent the difference in scale between the MMO's in question, but it shows the perils of going by such off-the-cuff numbers.
[/quote]
2) Regarding "new server..."- while its true that we had a hardware update the past year, many game hosting centers similar to NCSoft now run in virtualized environments with several dozen virtual servers running on a farm of servers. If this is true for NCSoft (and there's some hint that it may be) scaling up and down as needed (doublexp weekend may see a few more CPU's pulled from reserve to add to CoH servers, then moved over to another game that's planning an event after demand goes back down). In this environment, adding a new server isn't as big of an issue- especially since you know that the VIP server population is from people moving from other servers. its a shift of resources, not an entirely new investment.
3) An MMO has many costs that scale directly with the population (bandwidth pipe needed, server resources needed) and several that can be scaled with the business's interest in growing/sustaining the budget (the number of developers to apply to continued development, advertising costs), and several fixed costs.
As a population (and revenue) declines, a game can remain profitable as these costs decline. The costs for the pipe & server resources decline with that population (reallocate servers to other games, downgrade the pipe you're paying for, etc) and you can reduce the resources invested(advertising and development budget) you throw at the game. While that resigns yourself to a slow, steady decline, you can be profitable the whole way. Some MMO developers in now-shuttered licenses joked that by the end the "development team" consisted of "that intern with the desk under the stairs."
CoH is nowhere near that level- so looking for the game to shut down is a bit premature.
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You have to take into account how many individuals are included in each of your groups of "people." |
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Which is interesting because with GR, people would've only spent maybe $30 or $40 above their sub fees that quarter but it got higher reveneues than from the Freedom store where people state they spent 100s of dollars.
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The number of people who purchased Going Rogue was the vast majority of the player base, and based on the spike in sales, was an obvious draw for players who had let their accounts lapse as well. Once Going Rogue had been out for about a month, it was rare that you would run into a subscriber (which all players were at that point) who had not purchased it.
The number of people who have spent large sums of money on the Paragon Market is most likely significantly lower. Speaking only for myself, I have actually spent less money on the game since Freedom launched. I am still paying my monthly subscription fee, but in the approximate 5 months since Freedom launched, I have not spent an extra cent, using only my monthly stipend. Before Freedom, it is possible a Super Booster would have been released in that time on which I would have spent an extra $10, but with the VIP rewards, I am able to get exactly what I want without spending extra (so far, at least). So Paragon Studios has actually lost money from me.
I doubt I am the average, but I am willing to bet there are other players out there who could say the same. I am willing to bet there is a small percentage of players who previously were scraping together enough cash to subscribe, but are now content to play the game as Premium, purchasing small things off the market here and there, for the sake of their wallets. I could go on, but the point is that there are a number of ways that Paragon Studios has lost income here and there.
The question is: is the income coming from those spending a lot of money on the market enough to surpass the sum of the tiny losses?
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
It'll be interesting to see 1Q 2012's numbers if this is a sustainable increase instead of a single revenue boost, especially with having super packs for a revenue source.
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@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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While a 20% bump is admittedly less than I was expecting the games that I can think of that boasted huge player-base increases were CoH's direct competition. Those games weren't doing too well at all at the time of conversion as I understand it.
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
Guess it depends which other games said that and how bad of shape they were in when they went F2P. If they were struggling, I'd expect a much bigger percent increase than a game like CoH which has a relatively stable (even if not overly huge) core subscriber base.
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MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
True, though some are putting out real numbers, it's still a PR move so they might obscure it with percentages. But not always. Some state a specific number of accounts or concurrency numbers for instance. Just might take some digging.
If i put links to them it might get modded but here's a bit of contrast.
If you look for Lineage 2's PR about their F2P transition, it mentions similar numbers. And since it's an NCSoft title, you can extrapolate some from the revenue numbers on their quarterly report. CoX could've done the same with their milestones.
It also occurs to me that a lot of those huge percentage increase reports from other 'freemium' conversion games was their reporting of the playerbase, not income.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Originally Posted by Oliin
It also occurs to me that a lot of those huge percentage increase reports from other 'freemium' conversion games was their reporting of the playerbase, not income.
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Pretty much.
I do belive that you can get in some deep poop for lying about how much money you are making, if you are a company.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
Good news!
But were they profitable is the REAL question.
The long awaited NCSoft's Q4 results just got released, and it's great! Well at least for City of Heroes, which is almost the only game that had an increase in its sales in the last quarter.
Q3 sales were 2812 MKRW, and Q4 are 3435 MKRW, so that's a little over a 20% bump. Part of this increase is due to the strong KRW against dollar, which increased of something like 5% between Q3 and Q4. But still, most of the increase is all Freedom related. Here's the usual graph:
And since the question pops up everytime, sales include everything game related : subscription, Paragon Points, etc.
Source.