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General: NCSoft Game Profits Exceed Expectations
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
NCSoft has published its Q4 2013 financial results that show overall growth, with Guild Wars 2 exceeding expectations by generating $115.9M over the course of 2013. Lineage continued its growth in the Korean market and revenue surged after the release of Blade & Soul in China.
As posted in this MMORPG.com forum thread (by Meowhead):
Today the NCsoft released their Q4 report here are some points http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx
Lineage grew significantly in Korea while GW2 remained solid in US/EU.
Royalty revenues surged with Blade and Soul China kicking in.
GW2 was strong on the back of end of year sales promotions.
Contribution from Korea increased with Lineage reaching a new all time high
Guild Wars 2 became the 2nd biggest revenue sources along with well settled in-game item sales model
Guild Wars 2 earned 33.6 Billion Won = 31.58 Million USD up from Q3s 22.94 Million USD and exceeding sales expectations for Q4
Next step for GW2 China will be announced in the near future
Wildstar is expected to launch some time in Mid 2014
No decision has been made for GW2 expansion for now the focus is provide the LW updates and bring GW2 to China they will update when they have more visibility on the issue of an expansion
For 2013 GW2 Made 123.3 Billion Won = 115.9 Million USD also exceeding sales expectations
You can participate in the discussion in the thread above and check out the full financial results at the link provided.
Comments
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
GW2's total revenue was actually down last year from 2012. Unlike TOR and Eve which both saw significant growth. TOR actually pulled in 17% more revenue than GW2 from their cash shop, not including subs.
GW2s financials look great on paper when you don't compare it to any other game from the genre, or heaven forbid a different genre.
The game is fine and it's going to be around for a long time. But don't kid yourself, the game has been surpassed by TOR in popularity despite selling more copies and will be surpassed by Eve in the next few years.
Its basically headed the same path as Warhammer online.
Lets see what happened last year in 4Q12.
Over 2 million boxes sold.
Yeah, everyone knows players buy a new cd-key every quarter.
Lets see more things about 4Q12 GW2 revenue.
$112M in 1 quarter - by my accounts that is 160% of the EVE revenue for the entire 2012 in A SINGLE QUARTER.
Lets see more things about GW2 2013 revenue vs EVE revenue - by my accounts GW2 is heading for another 160% over EVE.
Do you have any official SWTOR numbers you can link to? Or you basing that number on a study that has Lineage revenue as 100% F2P and has Tencent big hitters at $1.4Bn but that still leaves another $1.4Bn of Tencent game related revenue missing somewhere (all games that generate revenue below $121M to have missed the report)?
Haters gonna hate and twist the numbers...
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Really hope GW2 has an expansion to fall back on in 2014. How else are they going to pay the HUGE development team? Launching in China? Heh, yeah, not funny I know.
No, I can't attack those numbers since they aren't official numbers.
Those numbers are from a study that doesn't disclose its methods and have errors on their study like the Lineage micro transaction revenue values. (and apparently 20% of WoW revenue comes from the cash shop).
But hey, since there are no official numbers for SWTOR lets use whatever numbers, even if they come from a source with other errors.
Yeah how the heck is Anet going to pay the huge developer team - I mean they only make 60% more revenue than CCP while having 60% of the CCP workforce.
It is funny I never saw any threads on "how my god how is CCP going to keep its developer team with that kind of revenue".
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Why do people always have to rush out with " those number are fake!!!"
You can't post on the internet that you made a billion dollars this year in a financial statement then tell the ( IRS or whatever your country has) you really lost money. It's not a joke or a marketing ploy to lie about these things. People go to jail or get fired when they make mistakes on these things.
Great! Enough money to finally bring B&S to the west!
Not that it's ever going to happen ... :'(
I still hope that there's hope that one day i can hope that we'll see K-games back in the west, even if they're a niche market.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
good to see Anet doin well with GW2.
even though i dont play it much, shows great work does pay off.
Oh god.......
here we go again......
"GW2 is a failure!"
"No!, It's quite successful!"
"The figures are in and they don't lie!"
"No!, The figures have a spin put on them and are subject to interpretation and don't reflect reality!"
"GW2 is being carried bu NCSoft's other titles!"
"No! ANET is responsible for generating much of NCSoft's revenues!"
"The servers are empty!"
"No! The servers are always populated!"
and on and on we go.
Lineage grew significantly in Korea while GW2 remained solid in US/EU
GW2 NA didn't grow.....its peaked. The other games in other game markets grew.
GW2 will do the same as GW. Slow steady sales making enough to keep it going.
With the NA market not going to grow that much I expect resources to be out into the games which are growing. Doesn't bode well for the game that its growth has already tapered off.
Be nice to see GW2 in China, maybe B&S in the West... I still don't have a problem with Anet and NCSoft's idea of what an in-game shop should look like.
Aion was... bad... I'm just still surprised to see Lineage doing so well still.
The interesting number will be the expansion sales assuming they stop being dumb and actually make one. The fact it is a B2P game without any expansions that is still making a profit over a year after release pretty much spits in the face of all the crooked games charging sub fees now.
Sub fees aren't crooked. The P2P model is not a bad model. But there has to be a value in a subscription for it to work. The problem games have had was a business model mismatch. WoW has the right business model. SWTOR launched with the wrong business model. Once EA adjusted theirs, SWTOR became much more successful. GW2 was designed from the ground up around it's business model and it works. Not without it's flaws though, I do have some complaints about the game's economy, and it's impact on crafting due to the Gem/Gold market. But that's another thread. GW2 has the best Cash Shop I've seen and is one of the few games I'll actually support using it. It's still not my preference. I still prefer P2P. But P2P would never work for GW2.
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I'm not sure how you can say if the game is growing or not based on revenue since it is a buy the box with optional cash shop.
And GW2 still has a bunch of markets to enter - Russia has no official release, neither has Brazil, China is in Betas (although realistic revenue from China will be some royalties money), South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have no localization.
Also, there is basically any data to go around - 3Q12 & 4Q12 are special quarters where the lion share of 3 million boxes are accounted for - box sales are a 1 time sale.
So there is only 1 year of mostly cash shop revenue available to the public,
Something important to notice is that GW2 had higher revenue in 2013 than GW1 in expansion years.
2006 saw the release of Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Nightfall.
GW1 that year made $50M. GW2 in 2013 made $115M, with no expansions.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders