Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

NCsoft Earnings Release 4Q14: disastrous quarter for Wildstar

135

Comments

  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105
    Originally posted by Stizzled
    Originally posted by 13lake
    With how fast revenue and profits are dropping, they might not even bother going f2p.

    I'm willing to bet that if they switched to F2P and put stuff in the shop that people actually want to buy (as opposed to just forcing them to repeatedly pay for access to the server) that they'd see their profits double, or even triple, rather rapidly. But whatever, subs are clearly the best model for MMOs as ESO and WS continue to prove.

    Truer words have never been typed.  Glad to see a fellow believer in the F2P/B2P business model over the outdated and archaic Sub model on these forums.

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • tordurbartordurbar Member UncommonPosts: 421
    The real reason that WS failed was that it used action combat. That type of combat is fun for the first hour and then is a grind. Sure, the "hardcore" label hurt it but it was action-combat that doomed it.
  • MikehaMikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,196
    Lineage Eternal will be the next big mmo.
  • fivorothfivoroth Member UncommonPosts: 3,916

    I never understood what the selling point of Wildstar was. Why should we play WS? That's something which I wasn't quite clear on when the developers were promoting the game.

    The only thing I heard was 40 man raiding. If that was their selling point, fine. I personally think that 40 man raiding is horrible and I still cringe of the idea of 40 man raiding from WoW's days. The amount of organisation needed was ridiculous and was not worth the hassle. Back then the raids themselves were not overly difficult, the most challenging thing was getting 40 people together and make sure that half of them understand what's going on.

    I think Wildstar tried to beat WoW at what WoW does best - raiding. WoW might not excel in many things but raiding is NOT one of them. WoW raiding has always been top notch and Blizzard have dedicated a huge amount of time developing their raids.

    One reason which I heard many people leave wow is that there isn't much to do besides raiding. So why would you go and play an mmo which only tries to promote 40 man raiding.

    Unless of course I am missing something and WIldstar had other great selling points.

    Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.

  • bobfishbobfish Member UncommonPosts: 1,679
    Originally posted by Phry

    I think there are 2 things that stand out from the earnings statement.

    1. NCSoft has yet to release a game that is as good as the original Lineage, at least in the eyes of those who play their games.

    2. NCSoft does not have a single game released in the US/EU that is doing all that well, when you look at earnings per game by region, the earnings are pretty much in decline, not that they appear to have been that significant anyway.

    If things carry on the way they appear to be, it would not surprise me at all if more game servers outside of Korea were shut down, and this is generally, not game specific, as interest in any of their games outside of Korea does seem to be remarkably muted, and definitely not improving in any way, that can't be good image

    Wildstar has broken even, but I expect with the decline in sales we'll see the development team reduced and them adjust the business model, whether that is B2P, F2P or just a cash shop remains to be seen. $5 mil a quarter is more than sufficient to keep it running and working on updates, just not at the same rate as the competition.

    In relation to the above, NCSoft's next Lineage game is based on the same style as Lineage 1, so is likely to take some of the users from that and bring in new users to the company as a fresh game. But there are a lot of players who are so heavily invested in Lineage 1 that they will never move on.

    NCSoft have continously tried to break America (not the west), with the use of local developers. ArenaNet is the only one that has good success, the rest have either failed horribly or merely had moderate success. They've also realised that the games they make for their home market don't work very well in America (slightly better in Europe but still not great).

    I think NCSoft will keep trying, but it is going to be difficult, they listen to the bullshit from a bunch of "experienced" devs in America and end up giving them loads of money to only fail miserably. I'm not sure how they get around that to be honest. Short of actually sending trusted people to America to learn about the market and industry from the ground up, or like ArenaNet, simply buying someone out once they've demonstrated they know what the F*** they are doing.

  • AustrianAustrian Member UncommonPosts: 72


    Originally posted by bobfish

    Originally posted by Phry I think there are 2 things that stand out from the earnings statement. 1. NCSoft has yet to release a game that is as good as the original Lineage, at least in the eyes of those who play their games. 2. NCSoft does not have a single game released in the US/EU that is doing all that well, when you look at earnings per game by region, the earnings are pretty much in decline, not that they appear to have been that significant anyway. If things carry on the way they appear to be, it would not surprise me at all if more game servers outside of Korea were shut down, and this is generally, not game specific, as interest in any of their games outside of Korea does seem to be remarkably muted, and definitely not improving in any way, that can't be good
    Wildstar has broken even, but I expect with the decline in sales we'll see the development team reduced and them adjust the business model, whether that is B2P, F2P or just a cash shop remains to be seen. $5 mil a quarter is more than sufficient to keep it running and working on updates, just not at the same rate as the competition.

    In relation to the above, NCSoft's next Lineage game is based on the same style as Lineage 1, so is likely to take some of the users from that and bring in new users to the company as a fresh game. But there are a lot of players who are so heavily invested in Lineage 1 that they will never move on.

    NCSoft have continously tried to break America (not the west), with the use of local developers. ArenaNet is the only one that has good success, the rest have either failed horribly or merely had moderate success. They've also realised that the games they make for their home market don't work very well in America (slightly better in Europe but still not great).

    I think NCSoft will keep trying, but it is going to be difficult, they listen to the bullshit from a bunch of "experienced" devs in America and end up giving them loads of money to only fail miserably. I'm not sure how they get around that to be honest. Short of actually sending trusted people to America to learn about the market and industry from the ground up, or like ArenaNet, simply buying someone out once they've demonstrated they know what the F*** they are doing.


    I don't know if anyone noticed but I looked at the chart on the first page and it's talking about sales, not profit. So WS made about almost 5.5 mil in sales, but that does not include their expenses. Anyone know what their bottom line is? The profits?

    Edit: Does sales include subscriptions or just box/digital sales?

  • DerrosDerros Member UncommonPosts: 1,216
    Originally posted by Austrian

     


    Originally posted by bobfish

    Originally posted by Phry I think there are 2 things that stand out from the earnings statement. 1. NCSoft has yet to release a game that is as good as the original Lineage, at least in the eyes of those who play their games. 2. NCSoft does not have a single game released in the US/EU that is doing all that well, when you look at earnings per game by region, the earnings are pretty much in decline, not that they appear to have been that significant anyway. If things carry on the way they appear to be, it would not surprise me at all if more game servers outside of Korea were shut down, and this is generally, not game specific, as interest in any of their games outside of Korea does seem to be remarkably muted, and definitely not improving in any way, that can't be good
    Wildstar has broken even, but I expect with the decline in sales we'll see the development team reduced and them adjust the business model, whether that is B2P, F2P or just a cash shop remains to be seen. $5 mil a quarter is more than sufficient to keep it running and working on updates, just not at the same rate as the competition.

     

    In relation to the above, NCSoft's next Lineage game is based on the same style as Lineage 1, so is likely to take some of the users from that and bring in new users to the company as a fresh game. But there are a lot of players who are so heavily invested in Lineage 1 that they will never move on.

    NCSoft have continously tried to break America (not the west), with the use of local developers. ArenaNet is the only one that has good success, the rest have either failed horribly or merely had moderate success. They've also realised that the games they make for their home market don't work very well in America (slightly better in Europe but still not great).

    I think NCSoft will keep trying, but it is going to be difficult, they listen to the bullshit from a bunch of "experienced" devs in America and end up giving them loads of money to only fail miserably. I'm not sure how they get around that to be honest. Short of actually sending trusted people to America to learn about the market and industry from the ground up, or like ArenaNet, simply buying someone out once they've demonstrated they know what the F*** they are doing.


     

    I don't know if anyone noticed but I looked at the chart on the first page and it's talking about sales, not profit. So WS made about almost 5.5 mil in sales, but that does not include their expenses. Anyone know what their bottom line is? The profits?

    Edit: Does sales include subscriptions or just box/digital sales?

    I would assume sales would be the gross revenue, so that would include box, sub and CREDD.  It certainly cant be just box since several of the other games on the chart are F2P.

  • MalaboogaMalabooga Member UncommonPosts: 2,977

    Why people act surprised? Anyone with 2 live braincells knew how WS will fare for a year now.

    And yeah, i dont think WS can pull out, they would need to do FFXIV type and completely rework the game, but i odnt think NCSoft will support that, FF is established IP and money maker, WS is...well...noname.

  • stevebombsquadstevebombsquad Member UncommonPosts: 884
    Originally posted by zaberfangx
    Originally posted by Salute
    One more evidence that P2P, with the exceptions of WoW and FFXIV, cant stand in the market anymore. If huge IP's and higly cost to make games like SWTOR, ESO etc moved to a F2P/B2P model, then imho there is no space for a mmo with sub.

    FF14 don't seem to be pushing it doors any longer, it may go free to play or buy to play how people losing interest in that grind, Had many people I know been playing FF14 over a year, getting bored with the grind. But who know this year.

    You are kidding right? I play FFXIV and there are queues to log in on my server. Most servers are locked to new characters unless you make one in the middle of the night. FFXIV is doing quite fine. They patch regularly every three months with tons of content, and they have an expansion coming out this spring.

    James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?

  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    Originally posted by reeereee
    Originally posted by fs23otm

    1 WON =  .91 dollars

    5491

     

    5 million divided by 3 time $15 comes out to the equivalent of 111,111 subscribers. 

     

    Yes they sold a few copies but from graph 2: sales of just over 5M won = under $5k. Maybe 200 boxes.

    Ignoring exchange rates etc. 111k is a good approximation of the AVERAGE quarterly subscribers.

    Initial sales: something over 500k (see thread 6 months ago). Previous quarter's average: c. 300k (see thread 3 months ago).

    So the quarter probably started with MORE than 111k and finished with LESS than 111k.

    I think we can safely say: Subs are now below 100k. And probably still dropping.

    Dropping the sub and going b2p or f2p won't save the game: NCSoft would have to spend money to re-market it. They spent a huge amount when the game launched; they would need to spend even more a second time around - the low hanging fruit has gone.

    Bundle it with an L1 sub; put it in the GW2 cash shop? Unlikely. They won't want to damage L1 or hurt GW2's xpac sales.

    No easy answers. Not much money coming in. Operating costs. And they won't even get $15 from each sub - there are costs e.g. transaction charges. 

     

  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    Originally posted by Austrian

     


     

    I don't know if anyone noticed but I looked at the chart on the first page and it's talking about sales, not profit. So WS made about almost 5.5 mil in sales, but that does not include their expenses. Anyone know what their bottom line is? The profits?

    Edit: Does sales include subscriptions or just box/digital sales?

    The figure 1 will be subs and box sales and in the Q4 column shows 5.5 billion. The figure 2 quarterly graph (there is a figure 2 yearly) shows 5.5 million won - this will be box sales; 5.5M won is less than $5k sales .... so not many boxes sold.

    And as you say this is revenue. There is a figure 4 in the results which shows profit and loss but doesn't break out the costs by game. The biggest cost going forward will be paying the staff however - the servers etc. are already in place - so that is what they will be looking at. They won't get $15 per sub either (transaction charges, tax possibly) but headcount is the big factor.

  • FoomerangFoomerang Member UncommonPosts: 5,628

    I thought this game would take a huge chunk out of wow. On paper, it looked perfect. But in execution... It has a lot of nice things going for it. Lots of potential and a solid foundation to build on. I hope they get the kinks worked out.

  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    Originally posted by Foomerang

    I thought this game would take a huge chunk out of wow. On paper, it looked perfect. But in execution... It has a lot of nice things going for it. Lots of potential and a solid foundation to build on. I hope they get the kinks worked out.

    To work the kinks out you need to keep employing people. In the face of declining subs (money) ....cue portentous music; dum, dum, dum, dum ...

  • RusqueRusque Member RarePosts: 2,785

    It's a bad game.

     

    The questing is linear in terms of 2006 WoW, 2014-15 WoW isn't even like that these days.

    The "action" combat was done poorly. It's either stupidly easy or your entire screen is covered in shapes.

    Animations are bad. I don't know who made them or who okay'd them, simply unacceptable animations.

    Weapon locks. People like to customize, it kind of felt like if you didn't like the weapons that there was no class for you.

    Worst UI ever. Including the updated version.

    Stupid resource system for all classes.

    Thought it could be charming via humor. This only works if the game is fun. See: Ratchet and Clank. Fun game, silly humor, great success.

    Large scale raiding. No. MMO players gave their verdict years ago! Someone was listening to an insular community about how great large scale raiding was. It wasn't and It isn't.

    And of course all the wonderful bugs and lag and general suckage that can be overlooked if a game is good enough, but this game wasn't.

  • DakeruDakeru Member EpicPosts: 3,802

    When the game came out I felt it was their plan to milk subs and then swap to b2p like ESO but by now I am not so sure anymore, simply cause the right time to swap has already passed.

     

    I'm still waiting for a certain someone to show up in this thread and tell everyone that the game is doing fine and anyone who matters is already ingame lol

    Harbinger of Fools
  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332

    I think the chart speaks volumes about NCSOFT in general,it looks like they have some popularity in Korea but not much over here.Lineage1 would be the giveaway.

    I personally think little of NCSOFT .I noticed they seem committed to license Unreal Engines but i really don't know why,i see little depth in their games,they could simply accomplish the same with a cheap engine.I am to assume that they are possibly royalty contracts,so if the game bombs it costs them near nothing,if it does well then it cots them a lot.

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • OziiusOziius Member UncommonPosts: 1,406
    Originally posted by viney123
    Sadly, at this pace, Wildstar is more likely to be canceled entirely than even go F2P. I hate to say it, but its true. The game devs just can't appeal to a general population, and at this point if it tried to go F2P, it would likely still struggle..

    People around here just love pulling shit from their ass. You actually think that with the money they're trying to recoup from the project that they would cancel before even trying f2p? You're insane. Look at SWTOR. That game is doing better then ever after a shameful performance at a sub model. 

     

    Can you explain where you came up with the idea that the game would struggle even if going f2p? Is it just because you don't like the game? Or are you just pulling poo from your bum? It sounds like poo from the bum to me. Although I won't claim to know the actual cost, I'm sure the game could be converted for f2p for far less then the hit they would take financially by just shutting it down now.  

  • zaberfangxzaberfangx Member UncommonPosts: 1,796
    Originally posted by Skuall
    Originally posted by zaberfangx
    Originally posted by Salute
    One more evidence that P2P, with the exceptions of WoW and FFXIV, cant stand in the market anymore. If huge IP's and higly cost to make games like SWTOR, ESO etc moved to a F2P/B2P model, then imho there is no space for a mmo with sub.

    FF14 don't seem to be pushing it doors any longer, it may go free to play or buy to play how people losing interest in that grind, Had many people I know been playing FF14 over a year, getting bored with the grind. But who know this year.

    lol what? gold saucer patch this month , expansion in spring

    Wildstar coming out with patch after patch too, don't mean it have to have tons people around, FF14 last year number show that they had 1 mil player with there 3 games when people points out they had 2 mil around that time, when was not 2 mil sub was just accounts.  Not saying it's a dieing mmo, saying not going grow very big the way people saying it is. With out this year number if there grown and not we will see.

    And expansion everyone knows is just ejection of money in the game, is like DLC you have to buy, but expansion never show stable number at lunch, people like to buy stuff in the rush.

  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,617
    Sad to see any MMO fail, sadder one that the devs put so much of their heart into. They really worked hard to make this a fun game. Hope they pull an ESO and turn this around. 
  • NorseGodNorseGod Member EpicPosts: 2,654

    I have no interest in this game, but the topic interests me.

    When did gamers become pseudo-Wall Street Brokers?

    Was it when McWOW brought in the masses?

    This whole "my game is better than your game because look at these quarterly reports and investor calls", doesn't impress me. The fact that someone would even keep watch over a game they don't like, waiting for bad numbers to come out, is a little creepy. Worse, is when they copy and paste their findings publicly, to remove all doubt they are creepy.

    Hell, I still play Anarchy Online from time to time. I think AO is better than most all of the multi-million dollar revenue games. By earning statement logic, I should uninstall that game and set my PC on fire.

     

     

     

    To talk about games without the censorship, check out https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    How come that GW2s Chinese sales didn't impact it's numbers at all? It did sell several millions so we should see some kind of impact here.

    But I am not impressed with Ws, no. For a P2P game it should get in more money the first year after the release.

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Originally posted by Loke666

    How come that GW2s Chinese sales didn't impact it's numbers at all? It did sell several millions so we should see some kind of impact here.

    But I am not impressed with Ws, no. For a P2P game it should get in more money the first year after the release.

    Because it never happened, you probably missed the bit where Arenanet themselves debunked the whole 'millions' of sales thing, it was just some random guy posting it on one of their forums that got misinterpreted and passed off as fact, at least until Arenanet stated it was in fact not true, they were probably worried they would be facing some huge tax bill if they didnt image

  • XiaokiXiaoki Member EpicPosts: 3,847


    Originally posted by Loke666
    How come that GW2s Chinese sales didn't impact it's numbers at all? It did sell several millions so we should see some kind of impact here.But I am not impressed with Ws, no. For a P2P game it should get in more money the first year after the release.
    LOL internet fact


    It wasnt several million customers, it was several million characters made.

    People misinterpreting Chinese press releases looking for good news on the Chinese release.

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Originally posted by Phry
    Originally posted by Loke666

    How come that GW2s Chinese sales didn't impact it's numbers at all? It did sell several millions so we should see some kind of impact here.

    But I am not impressed with Ws, no. For a P2P game it should get in more money the first year after the release.

    Because it never happened, you probably missed the bit where Arenanet themselves debunked the whole 'millions' of sales thing, it was just some random guy posting it on one of their forums that got misinterpreted and passed off as fact, at least until Arenanet stated it was in fact not true, they were probably worried they would be facing some huge tax bill if they didnt image

    It did release and even if it just sold a few 100K of boxes we still should see some kind of increase. Here is nothing at all.

  • fivorothfivoroth Member UncommonPosts: 3,916
    Originally posted by Oziius
    Originally posted by viney123
    Sadly, at this pace, Wildstar is more likely to be canceled entirely than even go F2P. I hate to say it, but its true. The game devs just can't appeal to a general population, and at this point if it tried to go F2P, it would likely still struggle..

    People around here just love pulling shit from their ass. You actually think that with the money they're trying to recoup from the project that they would cancel before even trying f2p? You're insane. Look at SWTOR. That game is doing better then ever after a shameful performance at a sub model. 

     

    Can you explain where you came up with the idea that the game would struggle even if going f2p? Is it just because you don't like the game? Or are you just pulling poo from your bum? It sounds like poo from the bum to me. Although I won't claim to know the actual cost, I'm sure the game could be converted for f2p for far less then the hit they would take financially by just shutting it down now.  

    What they have invested in WIldstar up to this point is a sunk cost. Sunk costs are irrelevant when making decisions about future investments. COnverting to F2P costs more money. So NCSoft will decide if it's worth pouring yet more money to try and save th game. They will invest more money if they think the game can actually succeed and give them good returns. However, the initial investment which is LOST now is not a factor when making this decision. Economics and FInance 101 for you.

    However, the reason why so many people think that Wildstar will be shut down is because NCSoft have done this in the past a few times. City of Heroes was a P2P game which was shut down. NCSoft didn't want to convert it to F2P.

    Seeing as how Wildstar is a massive flop, I won't be suprised if NCSoft are unwilling to invest the money to convert it to F2P.

    Statement in green, there is no way you can be sure about what you just stated because you don't know how much NCSoft have invested in the game and you don't know how much it will cost them to convert it to F2P.

    Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.

Sign In or Register to comment.