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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  News  |  Topic: NCsoft Q2 2006 earnings release 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: NCsoft Q2 2006 earnings release  (Read 10633 times)
ForumBot 0.8 beta
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on: August 04, 2006, 02:45:43 AM

NCsoft Q2 2006 earnings release

NCsoft released their Q2 2006 earnings slide deck to go along with their earnings announcement yesterday. NCsoft, unlike most of their competitors, releases very detailed statistics about the performance of their games which makes for interesting analysis for those who like to crunch numbers.

Some highlights:

  • They reported a net loss of ~US$230,000 thanks to their write off of Auto Assault. Without that one-time charge net income would have been ~US$12.8 million

  • Subscriber numbers for Lineage I/II are down somewhat from Q1 but still up overall compared to Q1 & Q2 of last year

  • City of Heroes/City of Villians is holding steady at 170K subscribers, down slightly from their most recent peak of 194K in December 2005

  • The Factions campaign for Guild Wars has sold ~500K copies, which doesn't bode well for that game and if you flip to the last page you can see that ArenaNet is still operating at a loss


And speaking of Guild Wars, they just announced the Guild Wars Online Store, though the only interesting thing you can buy at the moment is additional character slots for $9.99 each.
tazelbain
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tazelbain


Reply #1 on: August 04, 2006, 07:33:55 AM

Ya, it took way too long for the 2nd campaign to come out. Their turn around for the 3rd looks like its going to be much better.
They still continue to waste resources on the Guild War Championship which 99.99% of the players don't care about.

A.net: Great job on the classes.  But you screwing up the rest of your game.  Focus on us casual players, we are you're best buy.  Enough with the farming shit.

"Me am play gods"
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #2 on: August 04, 2006, 08:39:06 AM

Quote
Focus on us casual players, we are you're best buy.  Enough with the farming shit.
roofles mmo
Nevermore
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Reply #3 on: August 04, 2006, 09:08:04 AM

What happened to CoX subs plunging to 100k or so?

Over and out.
Trippy
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Posts: 23612


Reply #4 on: August 04, 2006, 11:22:35 AM

What happened to CoX subs plunging to 100k or so?
schild's dev board rumor monger was making stuff up?
Kail
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Reply #5 on: August 04, 2006, 12:58:44 PM

The Factions campaign for Guild Wars has sold ~500K copies, which doesn't bode well for that game and if you flip to the last page you can see that ArenaNet is still operating at a loss


That makes me sad.  I was kind of hopng to see GW do well, so that we'd be able to ditch this irritating "pay-per-month" crap as the best way of making money.  Now the only alternative I'm seeing is the ol' "buy a sword of pwnage for $10 USD" kind of thing.  Sigh.
stray
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has an iMac.


Reply #6 on: August 04, 2006, 01:45:52 PM

so that we'd be able to ditch this irritating "pay-per-month" crap as the best way of making money

Did you honestly see the possibility of that happening? I mean...Guild Wars is OK, but it's not great, let alone industry changing. Hell, even if it was a super fantastic game, MMO pricing schemes would never change from it, simply because the others operate on a entirely different (and larger) scale.

« Last Edit: August 04, 2006, 01:48:14 PM by Stray »
Xerapis
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Posts: 1473


Reply #7 on: August 04, 2006, 07:04:13 PM

The online game company NCSoft’s business performance went south in the second quarter mainly due to sluggish sales of new games that failed to capture customers’ imagination. The game company at one stage achieved a market capitalization of close to W2 trillion (US$1=W965) thanks to its mega-hit "Lineage."

But NCSoft’s business results for the second quarter announced Friday were the worst since the firm was listed in 2000. It posted a net loss of W200 million, instead of the W20 billion net profit in the same quarter last year, its only one except for the second quarter of 2001, when it brought in U.S. game developers the Garriott brothers for a whopping W47.5 billion. Operating profit has been on the decline for seven straight quarters since the fourth quarter of 2004.

No new source of profits is in sight. NCSoft’s next big product “Aion” will not be provided on a trial basis until late this year, while the game “Autoassault,” which debuted with big fanfare overseas, has lost the company a vast amount of money. A key problem is that consumers’ tastes have changed from massive multiplayer online role-play games or MMPORG like “Lineage” to simple and casual soccer, gun fighting and driving games.

Woori Securities analyst Lee Wang-sang attributes the company’s poor business results to fierce competition. But he still has confidence in the company, saying it will soon return to the glory of its heyday if management does some soul-searching and is determined to implement reforms.
 

..I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays. I want to...smell dark matter...and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me...
Trippy
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Reply #8 on: August 04, 2006, 07:54:59 PM

No new source of profits is in sight. NCSoft’s next big product “Aion” will not be provided on a trial basis until late this year,
Yes, slipping the release of Aion (which was supposed to be in beta right now) is a big problem for them. Guild Wars is about to be released in China (operated by The9) but based on some casual observation at ChinaJoy interest in the game is pretty low -- people were much more excited to see Webzen's Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) and even WoW (which was in the same booth as Guild Wars and they weren't even showing Burning Crusade). The only other major MMORPG releases they'll have this year is Guild Wars Nightfall and Tabula Rasa, if they finish it on schedule.

Quote
A key problem is that consumers’ tastes have changed from massive multiplayer online role-play games or MMPORG like “Lineage” to simple and casual soccer, gun fighting and driving games.
That's not exactly true. The people who like "hardcore" MMORPGs continue to like them. However as the online gaming market continues to expand, more and more "casual" players are entering and they are the ones flocking to what the Chinese call the "advanced casual" games (to the Chinese a "casual" online game is a game like backgammon). NCsoft does have a few advanced casual games like Smash Star and Soccer Fury (not yet released) but it's harder to make money with those types of games in general since they are typically free to play.
Xerapis
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Posts: 1473


Reply #9 on: August 05, 2006, 11:33:48 PM

Please keep in mind that that news release that I posted came from Korean media, so it is specific to the Korean gaming market.

..I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays. I want to...smell dark matter...and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me...
ynot
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Reply #10 on: August 08, 2006, 12:42:01 AM

Quote
The Factions campaign for Guild Wars has sold ~500K copies
whee did you get that ? I did not see a breakdown between GWchap1 and GW chap2 sales.
Trippy
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Reply #11 on: August 08, 2006, 01:00:02 AM

Quote
The Factions campaign for Guild Wars has sold ~500K copies
whee did you get that ? I did not see a breakdown between GWchap1 and GW chap2 sales.
April 28th was the release of Factions. So the 1,490,000 sold through March 2006 is all Guild Wars campaign 1 (Prophecies) and the vast bulk of the 590K sales through June would be for Factions.
Llava
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Rrava roves you rong time


Reply #12 on: August 08, 2006, 01:40:39 AM

and Tabula Rasa, if they finish it on schedule.

I thought about doing a FIFY, but this statement is too broken to fix.

That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
ynot
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Posts: 32


Reply #13 on: August 08, 2006, 02:11:54 AM

the sale for chp1 was still strong in Q1 ( about 200 000 units)
during Q2 590 000 unit were activated  yep ,  I just want to know how many of those 590 000 were Prophecie
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