We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
(edited by Behellagh.1468)
Q4 and 2014 NCSOFT results.
1 2
What can I say, owch.
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
1. %s by themselves can be misleading
2. Profits are not shown here (high revenue when a game is released is a recuperation of prior expense)
3. Development cycles creates peaks and valleys that doesn’t fall into fiscal quarters
4. NCSoft is more focused on the Nexon issue right now
5. What’s the comparable to the industry?
Time to buy more Gems to bump NCSoft’s figures. On a side note, I didn’t know AION was still so popular. Another side note, poor WildStar…
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
1. %s by themselves can be misleading
2. Profits are not shown here (high revenue when a game is released is a recuperation of prior expense)
3. Development cycles creates peaks and valleys that doesn’t fall into fiscal quarters
4. NCSoft is more focused on the Nexon issue right now
5. What’s the comparable to the industry?
1. Since we are dealing with a foreign currency I thought this is more neutral. But sure if you want them, there.
2. With NCSOFT they never are on a per game basis.
3. Which is why annual is included as well
4. That doesn’t stop them from releasing the numbers
5. Why does that matter? NCSOFT income and profit is up for 2014 over 2013. 10.8% and 43.3% respectfully. Profit was 27.1% of income.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
(edited by Behellagh.1468)
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
The vanilla WoW founders of Carbine felt their voice about hard core raiding was being ignored by Blizzard and left. They thought it was an underrepresented part of the MMO playerbase and would flock to an MMO that had it as a core feature.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
Wildstar failed hard because they lead everyone to believe it was aimed at the hardcore gamer and so all the casuals thought okay we won’t buy/bother with your game. Big mistake…
Also 2 other negative points were:-
Release date of June, probably the worst time of the year to release a new game in NA/EU.
Released shortly after ESO, which burned a lot of MMO players, so they were probably put off. A games developer once told me competition from other good games in your genre is good for everyone as players will buy several games of the same type. But if a turkey gets released it puts players off buying any other games in the same genre. Obviously the genre we are talking here is MMO’s.
GW2 made 19,272 million WON in sales in q4… that is 17 million dollars. Q3 it made 19,686 million WON… that is only a drop of like 3%.
GW2 did not drop 30% as the OP stated.
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
GW2 made 19,272 million WON in sales in q4… that is 17 million dollars. Q3 it made 19,686 million WON… that is only a drop of like 3%.
GW2 did not drop 30% as the OP stated.
I think you may be looking at the wrong table. The change in income Q3/Q4 was -2.1%, I believe.
The first table is YoY?
GW2 made 19,272 million WON in sales in q4… that is 17 million dollars. Q3 it made 19,686 million WON… that is only a drop of like 3%.
GW2 did not drop 30% as the OP stated.
I think you may be looking at the wrong table. The change in income Q3/Q4 was -2.1%, I believe.
The first table is YoY?
Look at table 2. Sales Breakdown Quarterly
GW2 4Q 14 – 19,272 KRW in MN
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
GW2 made 19,272 million WON in sales in q4… that is 17 million dollars. Q3 it made 19,686 million WON… that is only a drop of like 3%.
GW2 did not drop 30% as the OP stated.
I think you may be looking at the wrong table. The change in income Q3/Q4 was -2.1%, I believe.
The first table is YoY?
Look at table 2. Sales Breakdown Quarterly
GW2 4Q 14 – 19,272 KRW in MN
Ah 30% drop from 14 to 13…. yes… Q1 and Q2 of 13 still had release purchases coming in from Q4 of 12 when GW2 released.
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
Look at the third table above…Income change Q3 to Q4 = -2.1%
Never mind…I see you have looked more closely. =)
GW2 has made 373,805 million WON in about 2 years 4 months… 339,149,538 million dollars.
Q3+Q4 12 – 164,854 million WON or ~44% of the total
2013 – 123,317 million WON or ~ 33% of the total
2014 – 85,634 million WON or ~ 23% of the total
Now Q3 and Q4 of 12 were majority box sales… and Q1 and Q2 of 13 still had a large portion of box sales.
So 2014 made 23% of the total money GW2 has made, and you could guess that most of that came from Cash Shop sales.
GW2 is highly profitable in that regard.
When HOT hits, imagine the cash shop plus the box sales…
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
Yes, QoQ is only down 2%, around $400K in USD. Downside is 4Q13 showed on significant increase of income over 3Q13 while 4Q14 is essentially flat. This may be a reflection of low game sales Vs cash shop.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.
Now Wildstar on the other hand…
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
I would love to see a box sales vs cash shop comparison… i bet box sales make up a large portion of that 30% difference between 13 and 14.
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
GW2 has made 373,805 million WON in about 2 years 4 months… 339,149,538 million dollars.
Q3+Q4 12 – 164,854 million WON or ~44% of the total
2013 – 123,317 million WON or ~ 33% of the total
2014 – 85,634 million WON or ~ 23% of the totalNow Q3 and Q4 of 12 were majority box sales… and Q1 and Q2 of 13 still had a large portion of box sales.
So 2014 made 23% of the total money GW2 has made, and you could guess that most of that came from Cash Shop sales.
GW2 is highly profitable in that regard.
When HOT hits, imagine the cash shop plus the box sales…
Which is why KDB Daewoo hyped their 2 million at 50 euro guesstimate at the expansion. They haven’t posted anything new since early Jan but we should see something in a few days hyping that NCSOFT is still a good buy (it’s always a good buy with them) with a new round of guesses.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.
Now Wildstar on the other hand…
I am not a doomsayer. I put those numbers out there, as neutral as possible rather than have a doomsayer take them out of context.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
Yea… let them…
..so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should
There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.
Now Wildstar on the other hand…
I am not a doomsayer. I put those numbers out there, as neutral as possible rather than have a doomsayer take them out of context.
to be honest it was a pretty bad look
to go down 2.1% in the xmas quarter is a pretty bad deal.
but this isnt surprising, the numbers were steadily declining for most of last year.
this also probably why they felt they had to start pushing/promoting an expansion. I hope they have the content to back up an expansion. This expansion will probably determine what type of future gw2 can expect. It wont go out of business, but it may decide the support it will get.
There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.
Now Wildstar on the other hand…
I am not a doomsayer. I put those numbers out there, as neutral as possible rather than have a doomsayer take them out of context.
to be honest it was a pretty bad look
to go down 2.1% in the xmas quarter is a pretty bad deal.
but this isnt surprising, the numbers were steadily declining for most of last year.this also probably why they felt they had to start pushing/promoting an expansion. I hope they have the content to back up an expansion. This expansion will probably determine what type of future gw2 can expect. It wont go out of business, but it may decide the support it will get.
When do you think the expansion started being produced?
It’s not a result of recent numbers. It doesn’t make sense that it should be. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.
Business plans for games always expect less and less incoming as time goes on. When MoP launched, WoW had 10 million subs and I think it when down to 6.4 before the new expansion launched. Just look at the figures.
Drops are expected. They knew they were working on an expansion. They didn’t announce it until it made sense to do so, which was months after the WoW expansion launched, so people would have been tired of it.
Companies time launch annoucements very carefully. Anet has always met expectations of the business plan or there would have been layoffs.
There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.
Now Wildstar on the other hand…
I am not a doomsayer. I put those numbers out there, as neutral as possible rather than have a doomsayer take them out of context.
to be honest it was a pretty bad look
to go down 2.1% in the xmas quarter is a pretty bad deal.
but this isnt surprising, the numbers were steadily declining for most of last year.this also probably why they felt they had to start pushing/promoting an expansion. I hope they have the content to back up an expansion. This expansion will probably determine what type of future gw2 can expect. It wont go out of business, but it may decide the support it will get.
When do you think the expansion started being produced?
It’s not a result of recent numbers. It doesn’t make sense that it should be. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.
Business plans for games always expect less and less incoming as time goes on. When MoP launched, WoW had 10 million subs and I think it when down to 6.4 before the new expansion launched. Just look at the figures.
Drops are expected. They knew they were working on an expansion. They didn’t announce it until it made sense to do so, which was months after the WoW expansion launched, so people would have been tired of it.
Companies time launch annoucements very carefully. Anet has always met expectations of the business plan or there would have been layoffs.
they have been working on stuff for awhile, was it going to be a boxed expansion? that is unknown. How much stuff can we expect? well going by what they said, it currently seems a bit light, but we dont know the expected cost, nor turn around time till next major upgrade.
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
The vanilla WoW founders of Carbine felt their voice about hard core raiding was being ignored by Blizzard and left. They thought it was an underrepresented part of the MMO playerbase and would flock to an MMO that had it as a core feature.
Unfortunately they didn’t realise that what 80% of people who claimed to be hard core gamers liked was not hard core gaming, but telling everyone how the games they play are too easy. I do feel sorry for the genuine 20% though because it looks like Wildstar had a lot of great elements.
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
The vanilla WoW founders of Carbine felt their voice about hard core raiding was being ignored by Blizzard and left. They thought it was an underrepresented part of the MMO playerbase and would flock to an MMO that had it as a core feature.
Unfortunately they didn’t realise that what 80% of people who claimed to be hard core gamers liked was not hard core gaming, but telling everyone how the games they play are too easy. I do feel sorry for the genuine 20% though because it looks like Wildstar had a lot of great elements.
Wildstar had some amazing dungeons…amazing, difficult, timely and fun. The raiding system was hard as hell but also strategic, but the horrible grind to get to any of the group content was unbelievably painful, long, boring, and overall I think that ruined the game. It’s one of my favorite end games hands down even though I’ve only spent 4 months doing it, it was great. I feel such sadness hearing about how poorly they are doing. If they go under ANet should definitely hire some of their dungeon or raid designers, seriously.
Sunset
50/50 GWAMM x3
I quit how I want
50/50 GWAMM x3
I quit how I want
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.
now, of course you are going to sell more when you release, but once you have a stable market you are expected to increase earnings during the holidays. And remember, GW2 is not just box sales, its also gem store. The fact that people didnt spend more during the holidays shows a lack of interest.
oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.
btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45k
q3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101k
so yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.
(edited by phys.7689)
" Solutions To A Problem Can Only Be Found, When You Want To Get Rid Of It "
Ankur
Ankur
(edited by DarkSyze.8627)
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.
We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.
Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.
That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.
So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.
I don’t know….after the second year of most games, it would be unusual for the game to sell more than the previous year. Gamers rarely buy old games at near normal prices in large amounts, even at Christmas time.
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.
We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.
Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.
That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.
So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.
i said q3 to q4, which is for ncsoft, summer/fall season to christmas season.
I don’t know….after the second year of most games, it would be unusual for the game to sell more than the previous year. Gamers rarely buy old games at near normal prices in large amounts, even at Christmas time.
this is actually the third year, and the problem isnt that it didnt make as much as last year, its that it has a continued downward trend, with no spike in earning for the holiday season.
last year, its second x mas, it went from 26k to 45k, a 73% gain, this year it went went -3% this after a year with steady declines
yes, this is not a good sign for the product.
also as to not selling as well as time goes on, take a look at earnings of
blade and soul
lineage 1
lineage 2
look at how many of them are earning the same or more in q4 years after release, yes aion is earning more and more consistently profitable
http://www.mmobomb.com/file/2015/02/NCSoft-Sales-2.jpg
i know people are fans, but while you may say its not the end of the world, this is definately not a positive sign.
(edited by phys.7689)
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
to be honest it wasn’t that bad until they kicked out the PvP lead and decided to refuse to do anything with that side of the game despite advertising to both demographics. At the moment both PvP servers are dead (and I mean less than 30 concurrent users a day), but not closed. PvP improvements incoming but no ETA.
They also didn’t react to problems raised fast enough. They were told for months by users what’s wrong with the game, but because they had 1.5 years of updates planned they decided that it will be best not to stray from the plan. Then they got completely beaten off the tracks in my opinion. In other words the developers are inexperienced in actually leading an MMO (not only building one) and didn’t know how to react when everything went South after the initial very positive release. Band aiding right now might be already far too late.
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.
We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.
Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.
That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.
So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.
i said q3 to q4, which is for ncsoft, summer/fall season to christmas season.
A gaming company is not a software company. Sales are EXPECTED to fall over time for games. This isn’t some half baked theory. This is fact. This is in every game’s business plan. The summer fall thing I said refers to retail in general which deals with all games not one specific game.
In the book industry it was the same. That’s why you keep coming out with new books. Because the old ones, by and large, stop selling. Out of well over a million books published, only the tiniest percentage ever sell more later than they do when released.
Sure there’ll always be an exception like a Harry Potter, but do you really think that books come out, get all that promotion and then a year later people are buying it more than when it released.
You’re defending something that’s literally indefensible.
but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.
I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.
Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.
Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?
Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.
Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.
Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.
What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.
if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.
We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.
Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.
That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.
So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.
i said q3 to q4, which is for ncsoft, summer/fall season to christmas season.
A gaming company is not a software company. Sales are EXPECTED to fall over time for games. This isn’t some half baked theory. This is fact. This is in every game’s business plan. The summer fall thing I said refers to retail in general which deals with all games not one specific game.
In the book industry it was the same. That’s why you keep coming out with new books. Because the old ones, by and large, stop selling. Out of well over a million books published, only the tiniest percentage ever sell more later than they do when released.
Sure there’ll always be an exception like a Harry Potter, but do you really think that books come out, get all that promotion and then a year later people are buying it more than when it released.
You’re defending something that’s literally indefensible.
Are you paying attention to what i am saying?
yes, you are expected to earn less than your opening quarter/year but no, you are not supposed to consistently drop off year after year. LOOK AT THE NCSOFT EARNINGS REPORT almost all their other games are showing fairly stable earnings. THIS IS THE THIRD 4TH quarter earning gw2 history, not the second. The game was a year old last year.
regardless AS I SAID the bigger deal is the loss from Q3 to Q4, aka the summer/fall as compared to the holiday season. That is the most telling thing. Regardless of a generally downward trend throughout the year, you are expected to perform better in q4 because it is the holiday season.
I don’t know….after the second year of most games, it would be unusual for the game to sell more than the previous year. Gamers rarely buy old games at near normal prices in large amounts, even at Christmas time.
this is actually the third year, and the problem isnt that it didnt make as much as last year, its that it has a continued downward trend, with no spike in earning for the holiday season.
last year, its second x mas, it went from 26k to 45k, a 73% gain, this year it went went -3% this after a year with steady declinesyes, this is not a good sign for the product.
also as to not selling as well as time goes on, take a look at earnings of
blade and soul
lineage 1
lineage 2
look at how many of them are earning the same or more in q4 years after release, yes aion is earning more and more consistently profitablehttp://www.mmobomb.com/file/2015/02/NCSoft-Sales-2.jpg
i know people are fans, but while you may say its not the end of the world, this is definately not a positive sign.
I don’t really follow those games, so I will have to ask if they have had any expansions since release. If they have, then that would make a difference, just as I expect the quarterly/yearly earnings of GW2 to increase once its proposed expansion releases.
@ phys
Yes, you are supposed to make less every year. Read some business plans, then get back to me. That’s factored in. Expansions are usually released to reinvigorate, but yes, games EXPECT to make less money year and year and often quarter on quarter.
Even NcSoft at it’s investor meetings has said Guild Wars 2 is meeting expectations. You know more than them?
Edit: To be clear business factor in expected downturns in sales.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
@ phys
Yes, you are supposed to make less every year. Read some business plans, then get back to me. That’s factored in. Expansions are usually released to reinvigorate, but yes, games EXPECT to make less money year and year and often quarter on quarter.
Even NcSoft at it’s investor meetings has said Guild Wars 2 is meeting expectations. You know more than them?
did you look at the graph.
lineage 1 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
lineage 2 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
blade and soul made more money
in fact, of all their games, the only one to make less is gw2.
notice also the graph for their other games are showing fairly stable earnings, or upward trends, barring 4th quarter spikes.
the information is provided, we dont have to guess. Right there, at the same company, other products in the same business, you can see whats can be expected by old MMOs in earning and trends.
Well ya B2P means no profit relay after the game is bought yes you get some from the gem store but that will only go so far if they add in a new item that benefits as much as they did last year as in adding in endless use items like pickaxe and salvages kits. If i remember right the over all gw2 forum comunitly railed a gend some of the endless use items from the gem store so air-go we see no new items like such that become must own.
What did we get over the last year that was comply new from the year before? The “mustbuy” items.
Main : Jski Imaginary ELE (Necromancer)
Guild : OBEY (The Legacy) I call it Obay , TLC (WvW) , UNIV (other)
Server : FA
Guild : OBEY (The Legacy) I call it Obay , TLC (WvW) , UNIV (other)
Server : FA
(edited by Jski.6180)
oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.
btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45kq3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101kso yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.
Well 3Q12 was only a month plus pre orders and 4Q12, which is when I bought it, while the holiday quarter also was during the first 3 months of a new release.
Also don’t know where you got your 2012 and 2013 numbers from but in million KrW the two 2013 quarters were 24,481 and 33,555 and the two 2012 quarters were 45,841 and 119,013. This is off the NCSOFT quarterly reports so …
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.
btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45kq3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101kso yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.
Well 3Q12 was only a month plus pre orders and 4Q12, which is when I bought it, while the holiday quarter also was during the first 3 months of a new release.
Also don’t know where you got your 2012 and 2013 numbers from but in million KrW the two 2013 quarters were 24,481 and 33,555 and the two 2012 quarters were 45,841 and 119,013. This is off the NCSOFT quarterly reports so …
i think the game came out in late august, but i will say most of the sales would have been during the 4th quarter.
my bad, was looking at net income,
that said, the numbers still show the same trends, 37% increase last year, and first year big increase.
Point is the games are expected to make more money during the holidays. Part of the reason they release end of Q3, is so they can have a product out for the big season.
the fact that it is down 3% from q3 is pretty bad, even i, who assumed they would have less gains, would have thought they would at least be up 5-10% for the holiday season, and to me that would have been a sign things were below average.
I would say that people were actively displeased/disinterested rather than just not that impressed.
An expansion however can be a great reset, though i dont think this one was optimally timed. Balls in their court now, but i would say they are down some points in the game.
(edited by phys.7689)
@ phys
Yes, you are supposed to make less every year. Read some business plans, then get back to me. That’s factored in. Expansions are usually released to reinvigorate, but yes, games EXPECT to make less money year and year and often quarter on quarter.
Even NcSoft at it’s investor meetings has said Guild Wars 2 is meeting expectations. You know more than them?
did you look at the graph.
lineage 1 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
lineage 2 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
blade and soul made more money
in fact, of all their games, the only one to make less is gw2.notice also the graph for their other games are showing fairly stable earnings, or upward trends, barring 4th quarter spikes.
the information is provided, we dont have to guess. Right there, at the same company, other products in the same business, you can see whats can be expected by old MMOs in earning and trends.
Subscription games do make more money. Because that is their BUSINESS PLAN. How can you comment on ANY business without knowing the plan. I’ve been involved with at least half a dozen business plans in my life. Three of them expected a downturn from season to season and even year to year, built into the business plan. Saying something is bad without having seen the business plan is just guessing. You are just guessing.
Now comparing games to other games, without any context at all, is ridiculous. A game with a subscription will possibly make more than a game without a subscription. Again, it depends on the business plan. It depends on the strategy that is being used to judge the game.
Simplest test is this. Did Anet lay off anyone working on the game at any time in the past two years. If this game was not meeting expectations, you can bet that would have happened. Anet is, instead, hiring. That doesn’t generally happen with games not meeting expectations.
You can believe anything you want, but comparing a game that’s a Korean game, with a sub, to a game that’s a Western game, without a sub, is like comparing two different types of fruit in two different parts of the world.
You don’t have the information to judge how the game is doing. If NcSoft says it’s meeting expectations, it is, because companies have to be forthcoming when games are not meeting expectations. Wildstar clearly didn’t meet expectations. When SWToR came out, even though it made a lot more money than Guild Wars 2, that didn’t meet expectations. Half the staff was fired. TSW didn’t meet expectations. The president of the company left the game and a third of the staff was fired.
What you have right now is your opinion. What I have is my opinion. What NcSoft has is their comments on their expectations, which is what businesses base plans around.
oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.
btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45kq3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101kso yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.
Well 3Q12 was only a month plus pre orders and 4Q12, which is when I bought it, while the holiday quarter also was during the first 3 months of a new release.
Also don’t know where you got your 2012 and 2013 numbers from but in million KrW the two 2013 quarters were 24,481 and 33,555 and the two 2012 quarters were 45,841 and 119,013. This is off the NCSOFT quarterly reports so …
i think the game came out in late august, but i will say most of the sales would have been during the 4th quarter.
my bad, was looking at net income,
that said, the numbers still show the same trends, 37% increase last year, and first year big increase.
Point is the games are expected to make more money during the holidays. Part of the reason they release end of Q3, is so they can have a product out for the big season.
the fact that it is down 3% from q3 is pretty bad, even i, who assumed they would have less gains, would have thought they would at least be up 5-10% for the holiday season, and to me that would have been a sign things were below average.
I would say that people were actively displeased/disinterested rather than just not that impressed.
An expansion however can be a great reset, though i dont think this one was optimally timed. Balls in their court now, but i would say they are down some points in the game.
You’re saying games are expected to make money during the Christmas season but individual games may or may not be expected to, depending on how old they are. What you mean is COMPANIES are expected to make money during the quarter.
If a new game comes out before Christmas THAT game will make more money. That doesn’t mean older games from the same company will. Selling games was my business. One a game, any game, was three months old, we sent them back and replaced them with other games, with very few exceptions. Microsoft Flight Simulator, the current version of Chess Master or the Current version of Sim City stayed on the shelves.
Everything else, it wasn’t really worth stocking. Maybe a single unit if I particularly liked the game. That’s how computer software works. I know because I made a living buying and selling computer games.
Wasn’t Wildstar geared toward hard-cores? Considering how few of them there are overall, why did anyone think that an MMO made mainly for them would be a good idea?
The vanilla WoW founders of Carbine felt their voice about hard core raiding was being ignored by Blizzard and left. They thought it was an underrepresented part of the MMO playerbase and would flock to an MMO that had it as a core feature.
There was nothing hardcore about time gated attunements in wildstar.
There was nothing hardcore about time gated attunements in wildstar.
it wasn’t that time gated though. It had very pointless bits that served as nothing else but the population buffer (world bosses), it had bits that were far worse for certain professions (as a settler by the time you hit 50 you’ll be maxing out the rep, while if you’re an explorer, tough luck) and it had bits that required you to already know whom you’re raiding with and that discouraged pugging (for example silver dungeon medals).Yet the game only fell when PvP died entirely.
Not sure why there’s any surprise to earnings being down quarter over quarter. There are few games that had a increase each year(LoL, Wow etc), while others had an almost immediate drop in quarterly earnings right out the gate. I think this holds more true for a genre as niche as mmos. I mean, are there any mmos besides WoW to actually increase as time went on? Maybe runescape, ff14 ARR and WoT, but that would be only a guess.
Sure, the earnings will go up for a couple quarters with the expansion, but that will only last until people run out of things to do and we will be back in the same place we are now talking about how the earnings don’t match those from previous years. There is nothing wrong with what’s going on. There’s a problem when they start laying off employees and cutting back on updates.
oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.
btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45kq3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101kso yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.
Well 3Q12 was only a month plus pre orders and 4Q12, which is when I bought it, while the holiday quarter also was during the first 3 months of a new release.
Also don’t know where you got your 2012 and 2013 numbers from but in million KrW the two 2013 quarters were 24,481 and 33,555 and the two 2012 quarters were 45,841 and 119,013. This is off the NCSOFT quarterly reports so …
i think the game came out in late august, but i will say most of the sales would have been during the 4th quarter.
my bad, was looking at net income,
that said, the numbers still show the same trends, 37% increase last year, and first year big increase.
Point is the games are expected to make more money during the holidays. Part of the reason they release end of Q3, is so they can have a product out for the big season.
the fact that it is down 3% from q3 is pretty bad, even i, who assumed they would have less gains, would have thought they would at least be up 5-10% for the holiday season, and to me that would have been a sign things were below average.
I would say that people were actively displeased/disinterested rather than just not that impressed.
An expansion however can be a great reset, though i dont think this one was optimally timed. Balls in their court now, but i would say they are down some points in the game.
You’re saying games are expected to make money during the Christmas season but individual games may or may not be expected to, depending on how old they are. What you mean is COMPANIES are expected to make money during the quarter.
If a new game comes out before Christmas THAT game will make more money. That doesn’t mean older games from the same company will. Selling games was my business. One a game, any game, was three months old, we sent them back and replaced them with other games, with very few exceptions. Microsoft Flight Simulator, the current version of Chess Master or the Current version of Sim City stayed on the shelves.
Everything else, it wasn’t really worth stocking. Maybe a single unit if I particularly liked the game. That’s how computer software works. I know because I made a living buying and selling computer games.
im saying after its initial burst, after its been out awhile, it is expected to make more money during the holidays.
Life the board game been out for decades? and its expected to sell more units in xmas season than in others.
A cash shop earnings game like gw2 is definately expected to stabilize and then earn consistent profits. What you are claiming is their business plan for the first two years was a failure. That in fact living story was destined to fail, and the cash shop would never make enough money to support the game.
Or, that they lied in all the interviews when they said they have no plans for an expansion, and that living story was how they intended to evolve the game.
just so its clear, the number posted is overall earnings, not just box sales
see the idea with an MMO, is that by constantly updating and creating a compelling world, people will be willing to spend money for years.
Now if people are consistently spending money, its expected they will spend more at certain times of the year, for america, thats xmas season.
anyhow if you want to ignore the numbers thats fine, but no, this is not the way they always intended it, and that q4 earnings was a low point for gw2. If its up to the people at anet, that will be the lowest point they reach for years to come. You can believe they really expected q4 (xmas season) earnings to drop below summer earnings if you want, but that is highly unlikely, and like i said, it shows more than just a lack of new sales, but rather a general vote of low confidence from the existing market.
@phys
Anet didn’t say they had no plans for expansions. They said that they were working on the kind of content you’d see in expansions and they didn’t yet know how they were going to deliver that content. Expansion type content can be delivered as an expansion, it can be delivered as DLC.
But NcSoft for a long time now, at their stock holders meetings were talking about an expansion. The very first time they mentioned it they said, there would be an expansion when it makes sense to release one.
You will not find an Anet quote where they said there will never be an expansion. All they said was we’re focusing on our living story content for now. That’s all they were willing to talk about.
At the time, I said why too. Because expansion announcements are like gold. They are timed very carefully. Some companies time them so that they overshadow something the competition is doing. Some time it so it comes out in a vacuum of other titles that might detract from it. You don’t just say your’e going to have one, because that takes the wind out of the sales (pun intended). That’s business.
No the business model isn’t a failure, because no one was fired. The business model is a success because it’s self sustaining. If the company is making enough money to support itself and make profit, it’s a success.
How anyone can even conceivably argue that a company that’s laid off no one is a failure, and continues to hire, I can’t imagine.
The strategy was a success, they were always planning an expansion, they did what every business does and timed the announcement to strategically maximize profit.
As for Life the Board game, I’m not sure that game makes significantly or any more money during Christmas than any other time. Do you have some figures on that. Either way, it depends on what the competition is doing.
So if WoW launches their huge expansion in time for Christmas, of course that’s going to affect the sales of other competitors. That’s precisely what I mean by expectation. It’s why Anet waited till they did to even mention an expansion.
@phys
Anet didn’t say they had no plans for expansions. They said that they were working on the kind of content you’d see in expansions and they didn’t yet know how they were going to deliver that content. Expansion type content can be delivered as an expansion, it can be delivered as DLC.
But NcSoft for a long time now, at their stock holders meetings were talking about an expansion. The very first time they mentioned it they said, there would be an expansion when it makes sense to release one.
You will not find an Anet quote where they said there will never be an expansion. All they said was we’re focusing on our living story content for now. That’s all they were willing to talk about.
At the time, I said why too. Because expansion announcements are like gold. They are timed very carefully. Some companies time them so that they overshadow something the competition is doing. Some time it so it comes out in a vacuum of other titles that might detract from it. You don’t just say your’e going to have one, because that takes the wind out of the sales (pun intended). That’s business.
No the business model isn’t a failure, because no one was fired. The business model is a success because it’s self sustaining. If the company is making enough money to support itself and make profit, it’s a success.
How anyone can even conceivably argue that a company that’s laid off no one is a failure, and continues to hire, I can’t imagine.
The strategy was a success, they were always planning an expansion, they did what every business does and timed the announcement to strategically maximize profit.
As for Life the Board game, I’m not sure that game makes significantly or any more money during Christmas than any other time. Do you have some figures on that. Either way, it depends on what the competition is doing.
So if WoW launches their huge expansion in time for Christmas, of course that’s going to affect the sales of other competitors. That’s precisely what I mean by expectation. It’s why Anet waited till they did to even mention an expansion.
yes they did say no expansion, more than once
I pressed him to tell me whether there would be a Guild Wars 2 expansion this year and he shook his head to indicate no. What about next year, I asked?
“If we do this right,” he answered, “we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy.”
from a eurogamer interview in 2013
But what about making money? Guild Wars 1 survived on paid expansions, editions, add-ons, whatever you want to call them – are we to believe that the boxed sales of Guild Wars 2 and micro-transactions are enough to sustain such a large operation?
“Yes,” responded Zadorojny. “It absolutely is enough.”
business plans change, people adapt, but no this wasnt their business plan, and no no matter how you slice it that was an underperforming Q4.
These people are just people, like you and me, they cant know the whole future, things don’t always go as they plan, they are not infallible masterminds who never miss a beat. They have setbacks, they have failures, in the long term its not about whether they had a perfect plan, but how well they can adapt.
trust and believe that this is not according to plan. Thats primarily why the plan changed. They needed to do something different and rebrand the product. Renew interest, and show people gw2 has a future, as well as make more money from their existing playerbase.
@phys
Anet didn’t say they had no plans for expansions. They said that they were working on the kind of content you’d see in expansions and they didn’t yet know how they were going to deliver that content. Expansion type content can be delivered as an expansion, it can be delivered as DLC.
But NcSoft for a long time now, at their stock holders meetings were talking about an expansion. The very first time they mentioned it they said, there would be an expansion when it makes sense to release one.
You will not find an Anet quote where they said there will never be an expansion. All they said was we’re focusing on our living story content for now. That’s all they were willing to talk about.
At the time, I said why too. Because expansion announcements are like gold. They are timed very carefully. Some companies time them so that they overshadow something the competition is doing. Some time it so it comes out in a vacuum of other titles that might detract from it. You don’t just say your’e going to have one, because that takes the wind out of the sales (pun intended). That’s business.
No the business model isn’t a failure, because no one was fired. The business model is a success because it’s self sustaining. If the company is making enough money to support itself and make profit, it’s a success.
How anyone can even conceivably argue that a company that’s laid off no one is a failure, and continues to hire, I can’t imagine.
The strategy was a success, they were always planning an expansion, they did what every business does and timed the announcement to strategically maximize profit.
As for Life the Board game, I’m not sure that game makes significantly or any more money during Christmas than any other time. Do you have some figures on that. Either way, it depends on what the competition is doing.
So if WoW launches their huge expansion in time for Christmas, of course that’s going to affect the sales of other competitors. That’s precisely what I mean by expectation. It’s why Anet waited till they did to even mention an expansion.
yes they did say no expansion, more than once
I pressed him to tell me whether there would be a Guild Wars 2 expansion this year and he shook his head to indicate no. What about next year, I asked?
“If we do this right,” he answered, “we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy.”
from a eurogamer interview in 2013
But what about making money? Guild Wars 1 survived on paid expansions, editions, add-ons, whatever you want to call them – are we to believe that the boxed sales of Guild Wars 2 and micro-transactions are enough to sustain such a large operation?“Yes,” responded Zadorojny. “It absolutely is enough.”
business plans change, people adapt, but no this wasnt their business plan, and no no matter how you slice it that was an underperforming Q4.
These people are just people, like you and me, they cant know the whole future, things don’t always go as they plan, they are not infallible masterminds who never miss a beat. They have setbacks, they have failures, in the long term its not about whether they had a perfect plan, but how well they can adapt.
trust and believe that this is not according to plan. Thats primarily why the plan changed. They needed to do something different and rebrand the product. Renew interest, and show people gw2 has a future, as well as make more money from their existing playerbase.
If it wasn’t their business plan, why has NcSoft been talking about expansions since year 1?
1 2