118219-wildstar-q3-earnings

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http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx#none
 
 
So the earnings report for NCsoft in Q3 is about. Now I have to bring it up after noticing it. Didn't see any other threads on it, but I could have easily missed them given the odd nature of the search function on this forum.
 
Now I immediately see that the earnings seem equivalent to titles only available in asian regions (similar to B&S). Ones available in Korea, China, and areas such as those. Which is honestly acceptable. Given that Chinese games can rake in absurd amounts of income on a regular basis.
 
Can we stop with the doomsayer nonsense now please? The game really seems to be doing alright. Not the best of course. Yet not horrible either. Definitely able to sustain itself I bet. Especially if they expand to other regions over time.	
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It's the only major title that went down, and not a small amount either. You won't convince many people here to stop the doomsayer nonsense with this picture :P
 
A decline after the initial box sales is expected, now the question is if it will keep declining or stabilize/pick up again.	
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It dropped 43% in it's first QoQ report and is barely making more than L2 that has been out since 2004 in US (2003 in Korea). And as the poster above mentioned all the other titles (with the exception of a minor blip down for GW2) increased revenue from Q2 to Q3 except WS with it's 43% drop in revenue.
 
The real picture will become clear 3 months from now for the Q4 report. Because that will show the health of the game as it stands right now. Call me doomsayer, but I'd bet good elder gems it not only continues the downward slide but becomes the lowest number on that graph (which it almost did already, had it fallen below L2).
 
Edit: Forgot to mention the following:
 
L2: FTP since 11/2011 with in game cash shop as sole revenue maker
GW2: B2P (40 USD) since launch with in game cash shop additionally
B&S: Sub model in Korea and Japan, with open betas in China and Russia using FTP model in those two regions, with in game cash shop as sole revenue maker in China and Russia. US version rumored to go into Beta using Chinese client in early 2015 using same FTP model.
Aion: FTP since 4/2012 with in game cash shop as sole revenue maker.
L1: Sub model only, but shut down US severs in 06-29-2011 due to no longer being profitable.	
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L1: Sub model only, but shut down US severs in 06-29-2011 due to no longer being profitable. 
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Wooo.... actual numbers.  Thanks Genobee.
 
Nice to see NC Soft's sales by game excluding royalties was generally up though.  Also, L2 seems to be stable in the 13-15 range so if NC Soft is willing to put up with that level of performance and as long as WS floats around 15-18 consistently assuming the Q3 number is more realistic with the expected drop after initial box sales (Which we won't really know until we can get 2 or 3 Qs of data) then I think it'll be clear sailing.
 
Also whoever made this deck at corporate needs to not use dark text on top of dark bar graph colours.  Hard on the old peepers.  More the Sales by Region graph on the left than the one on the right. 	
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			It actually does make me feel better to see that.  I thought Wildstar would be the worst performing title in their library, being so new.  I'm actually looking forward to that new free trial setup they were talking about in the Nexus Report now.  Anything to make it easier to get people started.  Dropping the box price might help them for people who thought the 60 dollar entry fee was a little steep.	
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That's not bad.  Post launch decline is always expected, so don't talk like it's not.  Now we have new patch with improvements and a 33% price drop on the box price.  I expect WS will settle in around the GW2 or B&S level.
 
Coincidentally, GW2 is out in more markets than WS, but WS is still producing close to the same amount of revenue just in the west (and has been more profitable than GW2 over the last 2 quarters combined).  Similarly, B&S is producing roughly the same revenue just in the east.  Clearly, GW2 is the game that should be worried about getting shut down or even more F2P (if there's such a thing), not WS or B&S.
 
I have no idea how Aion got such a big resurgence though.	
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			i dont understand why this is an issue, to me wildstar is only doing a little worse than a game that has 2+ years under its belt. wildstar is less then six months. i feel after the release of a box you would have to see a dip in revenue.	
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i dont understand why this is an issue, to me wildstar is only doing a little worse than a game that has 2+ years under its belt. wildstar is less then six months. i feel after the release of a box you would have to see a dip in revenue.
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There is absolutely no need to panic.
 
My addiction to selling credd alone should keep things on an even keel ;)	
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Only we do have some insight into NCsoft's expectations. GW2 has stabilized and ArenaNet got to keep all their staff (which incidentally is almost half again larger than Carbine's staff at it's peak). Stability is valuable. Very valuable. Conversely Carbine's performance over the same period earned them 60 termination notices.
 
I agree with many - the Q3 numbers are good. They lost less than half which is a good show by industry rule of thumb. But the bosses were still pissed about something. Q4 is going to be telling. Lets hope the new permanently slashed box price moves some units over the holiday.	
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Only we do have some insight into NCsoft's expectations. GW2 has stabilized and ArenaNet got to keep all their staff (which incidentally is almost half again larger than Carbine's staff at it's peak). Stability is valuable. Very valuable. Conversely Carbine's performance over the same period earned them 60 termination notices.
 
I agree with many - the Q3 numbers are good. They lost less than half which is a good show by industry rule of thumb. But the bosses were still pissed about something. Q4 is going to be telling. Lets hope the new permanently slashed box price moves some units over the holiday.
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That's not bad.  Post launch decline is always expected, so don't talk like it's not.  Now we have new patch with improvements and a 33% price drop on the box price.  I expect WS will settle in around the GW2 or B&S level.
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			           I read a gaming article , on Escapist I think, that game publishers only have to report box sales and can leave out digital sales. Kind of like professional sports have to report cash value of tickets but do not have to report luxury box prices. If that is the case there is likely higher numbers than being shown. I got the digital deluxe and I think the beta testers and many preorders were DLC as well. Add in the lack of advertising and any kind of push in Asia makes me think it's not doing to bad and has major potential.          Drop 3 fixed so many bugs that have been around since launch, optimization that's very noticeable w/ my AMD 7770 card ( yes 'tis the season to upgrade :D ) and megaservers that have been fairly stable. I believe there will be a new "Push for Peeps"campaign. Donatelli says free trials are coming and there is a banner ad for a 33% discount on the DLC. Add in some real advertising at gamesites like IGN, Escapist, MMORPGsuretheresmoretothisnamebutdrawingblank and other media we will see a big influx of new players.          While layoffs really suck it happens every time after a game goes live. Everquest, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic all had layoffs after launch. Then when new content is needed they hire people back. If game gets supported (makes lots of money) they expand and hire new people. Turning this into "oh noes. the game die, company suxxors" is daft.               Thanks for the awesome game Carbine!!! See ya on Nexus :D	
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These numbers reflect possibly the worst time in WildStar's short history. The period of no content after the quarterly schedule was announced. 
 
NCSoft goes on to say that box sales have decreased which account for the decrease in variable expenses. Without percentages on what each dollar spent goes towards it's hard to say that the game is "healthy". 
 
It seems to be high enough to not shut down, but what were their projections?	
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http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx#none
 
 
So the earnings report for NCsoft in Q3 is about. Now I have to bring it up after noticing it. Didn't see any other threads on it, but I could have easily missed them given the odd nature of the search function on this forum.
 
Now I immediately see that the earnings seem equivalent to titles only available in asian regions (similar to B&S). Ones available in Korea, China, and areas such as those. Which is honestly acceptable. Given that Chinese games can rake in absurd amounts of income on a regular basis.
 
Can we stop with the doomsayer nonsense now please? The game really seems to be doing alright. Not the best of course. Yet not horrible either. Definitely able to sustain itself I bet. Especially if they expand to other regions over time.
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           I read a gaming article , on Escapist I think, that game publishers only have to report box sales and can leave out digital sales. Kind of like professional sports have to report cash value of tickets but do not have to report luxury box prices. If that is the case there is likely higher numbers than being shown. I got the digital deluxe and I think the beta testers and many preorders were DLC as well. Add in the lack of advertising and any kind of push in Asia makes me think it's not doing to bad and has major potential.
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			We'll see how much more is going to end up on our housing plots.  I didn't think about it until just now, but the housing game is probably generating more money for them than any other segment of the game.  Seems strange, but it's popular and is probably responsible for a majority of online CREDD sales.  People who are really into housing will drop a twenty spot at 10p a pop just not not have to grind up currency for new decor.	
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We'll see how much more is going to end up on our housing plots.  I didn't think about it until just now, but the housing game is probably generating more money for them than any other segment of the game.  Seems strange, but it's popular and is probably responsible for a majority of online CREDD sales.  People who are really into housing will drop a twenty spot at 10p a pop just not not have to grind up currency for new decor.
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Yeah people into housing dont tend to do much of the gold making stuff except for perhaps dailies (and even then not always) a lot of peopel are not lvl 50 who are in love with housing.
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Heh, funny to think that, after the hardcore v casual debate raged for the entire length of the game, that after all the jawing about who would hurt the game more, people who wanted 40 man raiding or more solo content, the people who probably do the most financially for the game aren't either, they're people addicted to their houses that aren't soloing or raiding.
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			I'm not at all worried about the drop, because not only are new games front loaded from initial sales, WS was doubly front loaded from CREDD, as others have said. Comparing it to the other NCSoft titles is apples to oranges, and unless you dig back through past reports to find the First to Second quarter change for those other games, you won't get a clear idea of what is normal.	
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			              Thanks for the info TheRedViper69! I have no Wall Street skills to fully understand what a report like this means and did not mean to spread any disinformation. Does this mean games doing ok enough for NCSoft to keep it running and allow for some time to build back a subscriber base? I hope it is so as I enjoy the game more than I ever did WoW and SWToR has lost it's luster. Would not like to be stuck playing Bejeweled between NFL weekends :P	
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              Thanks for the info TheRedViper69! I have no Wall Street skills to fully understand what a report like this means and did not mean to spread any disinformation. Does this mean games doing ok enough for NCSoft to keep it running and allow for some time to build back a subscriber base? I hope it is so as I enjoy the game more than I ever did WoW and SWToR has lost it's luster. Would not like to be stuck playing Bejeweled between NFL weekends :P
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              Thanks for the info TheRedViper69! I have no Wall Street skills to fully understand what a report like this means and did not mean to spread any disinformation. Does this mean games doing ok enough for NCSoft to keep it running and allow for some time to build back a subscriber base? I hope it is so as I enjoy the game more than I ever did WoW and SWToR has lost it's luster. Would not like to be stuck playing Bejeweled between NFL weekends :P
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			NCSoft tends to have Xmonth contracts for studio made games, and their decisions to continue/end things are made when time comes to renegotiate  We don't know how long this contract is for, but the fact they're in the black is a positive for sure.	
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			WS has a lot of good things about it compared to any of the other titles available in ncsoft's library of games, I think it'd do well in the asian regions if it were released as is considering it's more polished (more realistically drop 4). Additional pushes to grab extra players here would also do a lot for us, It was expected WS would have to struggle to have an audience and pull in new players though.	
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