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According to the NCSoft earnings report, the company experienced healthy earnings during the fourth quarter of 2012. Barring losses by Aion and Lineage II, the company maintained an 'in the black' report due to strong sales of Lineage, Guild Wars 2, and Blade & Soul.
Check out the earnings report here.
Source: Massively.com
Comments
Do you realise that "in the red" indicates losses and is generally considered a bad thing. That is why massively ended their article with this statement "NCsoft's net income was in the red for the quarter and its stock has slid since September, losing half of its value in the process."
I'd assumed that was a typo, and that she'd meant "in the black" but now, I'm confused. Why would NCSoft be in the red? Would that be in spite of those strong sales, or were those sales not strong enough, or what?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Because they spent more money than they earned. Building infrastructure to support two growing MMO's is expensive, plus the advertising blitz for GW2, plus who knows what else.
are you serious dude?
Ignorance at it's finest, Korea used to be a poor nation but they boomed the last few decades and have become very wealthy and online gaming is huge in Korea, definitely bigger than any other country. Whereas here it's still taboo and nerdy to play online games, it's basically the norm/cool there. Internet cafes are all over south korea basically allowing people to have lan parties with friends while out for a coffee, gaming is huge and Korea is starting to become the powerhouse for developing games too.
If you look at their report, there's nothing really to bail out. There is a signficant amount of increase in spending from Q3 to Q4. You have to spend money to make money. Their overall revenue is trending upwards, hence the titles of the thread and the Massively article.
In the US, our teens waste money on A&B clothes, sports jerseys and smartphones. In Korea, gaming is the biggest sport and the in-thing.
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.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
Go Lineage GO! ?(????)?
Oh wait, wrong party
Playing: EVE Online
Wants to play: ArcheAge, Lineage Eternal: Twilight Resistance / Star Citizen / FFXIV AAR / Neverwinter
Used to play for 5+ years: Lineage 2, Lord of the Rings Online and Ragnarok Online
Utter disappointing MMO experience for 1 - 3 Months:
WAR / AoC / SWTOR / RIFT / AION / STO / TSW / GW2 / GW / Vanguard / Planetside2
The easier explanation is that NCsoft is a Korean company and their portfolio of games primarily leans on the Korean market. The Guild Wars series is their primary foray into the western market. Right now Guild Wars 2 alone makes up 45% of their game sales which is what the their European and North American sales add up to.
" NCsoft's net income was in the red for the quarter and its stock has slid since September, losing half of its value in the process."
Why did MMORPG leave that out from the massively article?
So
around $40M in the 3Q12 + around $110M in 4Q12 = $150M
for GW2.
At an average of $30 a box that is 5 millions, so it seems a nice stream of revenue from gems.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
They could've made a bad investment or bought out a company with debts, or perhaps they're just ran by a corrupt board of directors bleeding it dry.
WIth the money they're raking in I also find it hard to believe losses are due to operating costs / marketing alone. They should be smart enough to make those calculations right.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
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.
Oh boy, a quarterly. You guys know what this means?
What Does It All Mean Doom Forecasting™, with Bunny, our happy fluffy weather girl, tonight on Action Seven News.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
In the red was only NC Soft korea. If you add it's subsidiaries (like ANet with gW2). they are actually far on +.
Here: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2013/02/05/25/0503000000AEN20130205002551320F.HTML "Consolidated net profit reached 101.9 billion won (US$93.7 million) in the October-December period"
Stocks a funny thing, it's not a measurment for company performance but a percieved value which can be VERY misleading.