Originally posted by Pivotelite

Originally posted by drbaltazar
Ncsoft is in the red ,arenanet saved ncsoft ass (again)

I don't understand how though, they must be really poor with money management, they have Blade and Soul, Lineage and Aion all in Korea, I don't know about Lineage but I know Aion and Blade and Soul are sub based there and each has hundreds of thousands of players, Lineage also has a tonne of players... what are they doing wrong to end up in the red in Korea?

Aion is F2P utilizing the "Truly Free" conversion they started with Lineage 2. Do they still have subs as well?

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Asamof
amazing how many people still play lineage 1

 

Is L1 still sub? or a F2P conversion?

As far as I know it's still a subscription based game.  If it's still the same model when I played here in the west, it truly is a sub game.  There was no box fee and no xpac / micro-transaction fees of any kind.  You sub bought you access to everything.  Stuff like server transfers and name changes == reroll.

I used to miss the game a lot until I played Tera which feels a lot like Lineage in some ways - action/arcade, drops, farming mobs, etc.  Even the loot drop pickup animation is very reminiscent of Lineage.  It looks like there was more than just design ideas in that code.

I hope NCSoft's board of directors eventually get spanked in public and fired in shame.   But then I am vindictive that way.

Originally posted by ichihaifu
"how unexpected" "GW2 is profitable after all, I wonder why is that"

You can't know if a game is profitable unless you know how much it cost to make.  My guess is that Guild Wars 2 has probably gotten more in sales already than it cost to make, but that's just a guess.

Originally posted by Jakdstripper
how the hell does Korea (assuming south Korea), a nation of 50 mil people, beat Europe + N America's in sales? :O....last i checked Koreans' are not rich....how the heck do they spend that kind of money on mmos? what does the average Korean family do once they get a paycheck ? "buy food, pimp out my GW2 character, and then pay rent if there is anything left..."?

NC Soft has a much larger percentage of the game market in South Korea than elsewhere.  Other than Guild Wars 2, most of their games don't sell much outside of South Korea, but several of them sell very, very well there.  Lineage 1 is to the South Korea market roughly as World of Warcraft is to the US market.

Furthermore, while North Korea is still a disaster, South Korea isn't.  Per capita income there is about 2/3 of what it is in the US.  To put that into perspective, that puts them slightly ahead of Spain and Italy, and slightly behind Ireland and France.  Remember also that MMORPGs are a very cheap form of entertainment.

See page 7 here for my source:

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Tables.pdf

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Asamof
amazing how many people still play lineage 1

 

Is L1 still sub? or a F2P conversion?

pure sub, and even with only the Korean server running it's the second most popular sub game besides WoW hovering at about 1 million subs. after 16 years....

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Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

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Originally posted by bcbully http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx   Read for yourself. As expected a nice portion of box sales were held over from the 3rd qt. Even with that it looks like they lost quite a bit. Stock went down another 5% today too.

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$150M would be around 5 million boxes ($30 per box).

There is heavy gem money in there too

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I mean, really, where did you get 5 million boxes sold at $30?

EDIT - actually you didnt. After checking your post history you did post about GW2 selling 3 million copies. A bunch of times too.

So, did you think that GW2 sold 2 million boxes in the span of negative 2 weeks or something?

Originally posted by Xiaoki

 

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Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

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Originally posted by bcbully http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx   Read for yourself. As expected a nice portion of box sales were held over from the 3rd qt. Even with that it looks like they lost quite a bit. Stock went down another 5% today too.

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$150M would be around 5 million boxes ($30 per box).

 

There is heavy gem money in there too

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Im guessing you missed that ArenaNet themselves announced that GW2 has sold 3 million boxes as of January.

 

I mean, really, where did you get 5 million boxes sold at $30?

 he is clearly saying that the money  made includes microtransactions. 

Grats for them. Really all I got to say, GW2 did pretty good.

Yes, I still feel its a very lack luster game, doesn't mean I can't be happy for them and wish them luck. Its no where near a huge success but its not doing bad at all.

Originally posted by dimnikar

Unless GW2 box sales keep up the pace OR cash shop sales go up even further, they might not get a return on their investement.

 

I'm guessing their exceedingly high expenses were due to producing / marketing GW2. They might not be.

you forgot about one thing

when they release expansion

even if half the ppl buy it they make insane profit

you cant look at expenses/profit in few months timeline

Originally posted by dimnikar

Unless GW2 box sales keep up the pace OR cash shop sales go up even further, they might not get a return on their investement.

I'm guessing their exceedingly high expenses were due to producing / marketing GW2. They might not be.

I wouldnt worry too much about that. Just boxsales of GW2 should cover most of the expenses (it sold somewhere around 2,5 million copies which should be raking in about what the game cost to make but ANET will take a piece of the cake as well), some itemshop stuff and the first expansion will easily take the last of the development cost and get in some earnings too.

But getting your money back (do anyone actually doubt that) and earning a huge sum of money are 2 different things. And NC softs AION is doing pretty badly nowadays, Blade & soul also did a lot worse than expected and NC soft is working on a new Lineage game and probably something more.

Just living on their share of GW2 and old Lineage wont work long term for them so I am not surprised they are in the red, making MMOs is expensive as you said and larger companies cant afford to fail several MMOs.

Originally posted by Rthuth434

Originally posted by Xiaoki

 

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Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

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Originally posted by bcbully http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx   Read for yourself. As expected a nice portion of box sales were held over from the 3rd qt. Even with that it looks like they lost quite a bit. Stock went down another 5% today too.

---

$150M would be around 5 million boxes ($30 per box).

 

There is heavy gem money in there too

---

Im guessing you missed that ArenaNet themselves announced that GW2 has sold 3 million boxes as of January.

 

I mean, really, where did you get 5 million boxes sold at $30?

 he is clearly saying that the money  made includes microtransactions. 

Exactly..

Since we know they "only" sold 3 millions the other "1-2 million boxes" has to be gems sales.

So that was a typo after all and NCSoft are not in the red but they are in the black.

Anyways good to know. I only play GW2 and have never played any NCSoft games as to me they represent the epitome of boring asian grinding games.

They have a cost increase of about 130 M worldwide, of which 70 M was in the parent company. I assume this means Korea, although all of the marketing expense seems to be allocated there as well (?).

Also, 45 M of those 70 M is labor cost alone. Development of a new game in-house or some freaky overhead increase? They do talk about "more investment in R&D".

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by Rthuth434

Originally posted by Xiaoki

 

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Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

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Originally posted by bcbully http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx   Read for yourself. As expected a nice portion of box sales were held over from the 3rd qt. Even with that it looks like they lost quite a bit. Stock went down another 5% today too.

---

$150M would be around 5 million boxes ($30 per box).

 

There is heavy gem money in there too

---

Im guessing you missed that ArenaNet themselves announced that GW2 has sold 3 million boxes as of January.

 

I mean, really, where did you get 5 million boxes sold at $30?

 he is clearly saying that the money  made includes microtransactions. 

Exactly..

Since we know they "only" sold 3 millions the other "1-2 million boxes" has to be gems sales.

Except GW2 was never sold at $30, It's always been at $59 with some minor sales at around $45-50. So assuming $50 (and it was more than that), it comes to exactly 3 million boxes sold, as ArenaNet themselves reported.

What this means is 0 revenue from cash shop, which is weird and means there's some hardcore misinformation coming out of Anet (less likely than NCsoft, which is legally required to post correct information in their quarterlys).

This is assuming all profits go directly to NCsoft (and is maybe later redistributed), because we have no idea what thier cut is so everything written above is pure speculation and means N O T H I N G.

Originally posted by dimnikar

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by Rthuth434

Originally posted by Xiaoki

 

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Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

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Originally posted by bcbully http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx   Read for yourself. As expected a nice portion of box sales were held over from the 3rd qt. Even with that it looks like they lost quite a bit. Stock went down another 5% today too.

---

$150M would be around 5 million boxes ($30 per box).

 

There is heavy gem money in there too

---

Im guessing you missed that ArenaNet themselves announced that GW2 has sold 3 million boxes as of January.

 

I mean, really, where did you get 5 million boxes sold at $30?

 he is clearly saying that the money  made includes microtransactions. 

Exactly..

Since we know they "only" sold 3 millions the other "1-2 million boxes" has to be gems sales.

Except GW2 was never sold at $30, It's always been at $59 with some minor sales at around $45-50. So assuming $50 (and it was more than that), it comes to exactly 3 million boxes sold, as ArenaNet themselves reported.

 

What this means is 0 revenue from cash shop, which is weird and means there's some hardcore misinformation coming out of Anet (less likely than NCsoft, which is legally required to post correct information in their quarterlys).

 

This is assuming all profits go directly to NCsoft (and is maybe later redistributed), because we have no idea what thier cut is so everything written above is pure speculation and means N O T H I N G.

$60 boxed sale.

Digital sales through their own site, ArenaNet / NCSoft would make at most $40 from a $60 sale, due to payment providers taking a 30% cut of the sale (industry standard figure).

Retail sales through third parties, ArenaNet / NCSoft would make between $20 to $40 from the $60 sale, due to retailers and distributors taking between 30 to 60% cut of the sale (industry standard figures). This depends on whether NCSoft distributed themselves or another company was involved, I suspect that for some countries at least they would've needed a third party to help get the stock into warehouses / shops.

I don't think the in-game shop is sustainable, nothing really useful in it to encourage sales there. I also don't think GW2 is profitable yet, though it can't be far off. I would expect them to turn a profit before the first expansion turns up and that first expansion to determine their development investment going forward. Either it is profitable as well, or it isn't and they decide to scale back a bit.

Still, it is hard to judge how GW2 is performing or will perform going forward, but this is a known problem with the B2P model and the reason many companies don't even consider adopting it. No business likes to be unpredictable.

Healthy earnings.

As a Big Four auditor, I move a little further in the report to P&L, perform analytical review, find out that the net income decreased by 61%.

You should take a look at COS as well. Sales on their own dont provide you with enough information to make a conclusion. Especially not the one that they are healthy.

Luckily we are here to discuss games not finance, right.