NCsoft Q3 2017 Earnings

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

But people want to pay for mounts, amors etc. They don't want rng loot boxes. I think you are capable of seeing the difference.

These are the same people that are notorious and have a hard time with buying an expansion, let along putting down money with or without the expansions.

Even with the money made currently, they can make changes that can very much bring people back. These people are not willing to support the game, which therefore they are becoming the detriment.

Why do you think games rely on subs, or the communities are much calmer there? As soon as you pull away from b2p or sub to play, you get people not inclined on supporting the game and instead leech.

Guild Wars was better off being b2p. Hands down.

That I agree, game should have never offered F2P core game. But these are 2 different crowds - full f2p with gemme all attitude and those who want to pay but refuse to play lottery box.

[Dreams.3128]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

But people want to pay for mounts, amors etc. They don't want rng loot boxes. I think you are capable of seeing the difference.

These are the same people that are notorious and have a hard time with buying an expansion, let along putting down money with or without the expansions.

Even with the money made currently, they can make changes that can very much bring people back. These people are not willing to support the game, which therefore they are becoming the detriment.

Why do you think games rely on subs, or the communities are much calmer there? As soon as you pull away from b2p or sub to play, you get people not inclined on supporting the game and instead leech.

Guild Wars was better off being b2p. Hands down.

That I agree, game should have never offered F2P core game. But these are 2 different crowds - full f2p with gemme all attitude and those who want to pay but refuse to play lottery box.

That's the issue though. These two crowds are clearly blending. Yes, there are the free who are not completely f2p, but a lot of what I've seen, a lot of people are paying the bare minimum. Where is the line between the two?

[Cyninja.2954]

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.Suddenly an earnigs report comes out and every one is concerned the game might die. Hilarious.

Honestly, if I had to choose between GW2 dying or having the game filled with sleazy loot boxes, I would pick "GW2 dying".

Spoken like someone who has never experienced a MMO actually die in which he was invested.

I'm not sure GW2 would do so well on actual maintanance mode with 0 new content or even worse, servers getting shut off like Warhammer Online for example.

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@DanteZero.9736 said:Seeing this chart makes me concerned for the future of ArenaNet as a company and Guild Wars 2.I'm worried NCSoft might pull a City of Heroes/Villains on Anet.

Very unlikely. Keep in mind that "dying", for a MMORPG, is very relative, but we have few examples of one being completely shut down. Take a look at Wildstar, for example - it has long been known to be a massive failure, it's also owned by NCSoft, and yet it's still there. Its results are so poor that it isn't even shown individually in the earning reports, but NCSoft has not closed it.

However, and here we have multiple examples, often a MMORPG isn't shut down, but its development team is massively downscaled. See Wildstar (which has very little new content being produced), The Old Republic (that suffered a big downscale soon after release but still has a lot of content being produced), and so on. Is this a kind of "death"?

SW:ToR still has content produced and a way way way more obnoxious online store than anything even remotely available in GW2. Don;t compare apples and oranges, if you are unhappy with the gem store now, wait till it gets the SW:TOR treatment.

@Erasculio.2914 said:

MMORPGs simply aren't what they used to be back when WoW was at its peak, and everyone was looking for a property to turn into one. Which big MMORPG has been released since 2016? Which one is a really big success right now? Other than WoW and Final Fantasy XIV, the others aren't doing that well. Black Desert Online, Wildstar, The Elder Scrolls Online, Neverwinter, ArcheAge, The Secret World, Blade & Soul, TERA, The Old Republic, Rift, Aion... Are those really healthy, filled with players? Or are they just making do?

Are you talking about the US and EU market? BEcause your analysis is absolutely false as far as the asian market.

[Grim West.3194]

Wow. Mobile games.

They should put GW1 on mobile.

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:people can play the best parts for free..why would they pay for something of lesser quality?

Or they get bored with the parts they have access to and leave the game in disgust.There are two sides to this coin, you say core tyria is the best parts, I say it's the worst parts.

if it was that bad , do you think they could had sold boxes 5 years after launch?no...SWTOR showed us how that turns outthey still have a solid foundation, one of the best in the business, they just need to remove a few bumps, and make more of the same

[Erasculio.2914]

@Cyninja.2954 said:SW:ToR still has content produced and a way way way more obnoxious online store than anything even remotely available in GW2. Don;t compare apples and oranges, if you are unhappy with the gem store now, wait till it gets the SW:TOR treatment.So you're saying we shouldn't compare two MMORPGs immediatelly after comparing the online stores from two different MMORPGs? Or are you being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian?

[pah.4931]

@DanteZero.9736 said:Seeing this chart makes me concerned for the future of ArenaNet as a company and Guild Wars 2.I'm worried NCSoft might pull a City of Heroes/Villains on Anet.

Which is probably why Anet did loot boxes. It makes more money. GW2 NEEDS to compete with the mobile games ROI or the plug will be pulled. If you want to keep playing GW2, you are going to have to be content with not getting the coolest stuff (if it's behind a paywall) as long as it is making more them money.

It's just the reality of things.

[troops.8276]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

Lol. Ex pac wasn't free. Mounts were introduced with that and that's when the hard work was done. Design, modelling, rigging, weighing, etc.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@pah.4931 said:

@DanteZero.9736 said:Seeing this chart makes me concerned for the future of ArenaNet as a company and Guild Wars 2.I'm worried NCSoft might pull a City of Heroes/Villains on Anet.

Which is probably why Anet did loot boxes. It makes more money. GW2 NEEDS to compete with the mobile games ROI or the plug will be pulled. If you want to keep playing GW2, you are going to have to be content with not getting the coolest stuff (if it's behind a paywall) as long as it is making more them money.

It's just the reality of things.

How is it that in years they push gemstore more and more and earn less and less?

[troops.8276]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

But people want to pay for mounts, amors etc. They don't want rng loot boxes. I think you are capable of seeing the difference.

These are the same people that are notorious and have a hard time with buying an expansion, let along putting down money with or without the expansions.

Even with the money made currently, they can make changes that can very much bring people back. These people are not willing to support the game, which therefore they are becoming the detriment.

Why do you think games rely on subs, or the communities are much calmer there? As soon as you pull away from b2p or sub to play, you get people not inclined on supporting the game and instead leech.

Guild Wars was better off being b2p. Hands down.

Can I see your data sets please? Sounds like you have access to some very interesting information to be able to make such sweeping and bold claims.

[Zakka.2153]

It will be a sad day when Mobile games will suddenly be the driving force for games....

[troops.8276]

@Zakka.2153 said:It will be a sad day when Mobile games will suddenly be the driving force for games....

Maybe not. Niche markets could be a good thing for one thing. Thinking Camelot Unchained here. And being able to interact with a persistent world on different levels via different platforms could be another way of opening up interesting games. I just think themepark mmorpgs are shallow and its all been done over and over. We've all killed x, to get y for z a billion times over.

[troops.8276]

We the players are a massively underutilized tool for making content and driving stories. I used to love making stuff for the stex and SimCity 4, and also used to love being a GM in warhammer paper rpg's.

[Rennie.6750]

I really don't understand the appeal of mobile gaming. Do people enjoy pay to win and lootboxes galores?

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

Huh, I thought Arenanet wasn't part of NCSoft anymore, GW franchise doesn't appear in NCSoft's page anymore.

[Ardid.7203]

@Rennie.6750 said:I really don't understand the appeal of mobile gaming. Do people enjoy pay to win and lootboxes galores?IMO, not really. People don't play p2w and rng filled games because they "enjoy" them, but because they are so fast and easy to get into and can give you the feel of goal achievement within seconds. The instant gratification is extremely powerful in mobile games, and people get trapped there. (Not only games, BTW, all the mobile connectivity experience, from social networking to fast access to inane data has been determined to be highly addictive).

[pah.4931]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@pah.4931 said:

@DanteZero.9736 said:Seeing this chart makes me concerned for the future of ArenaNet as a company and Guild Wars 2.I'm worried NCSoft might pull a City of Heroes/Villains on Anet.

Which is probably why Anet did loot boxes. It makes more money. GW2 NEEDS to compete with the mobile games ROI or the plug will be pulled. If you want to keep playing GW2, you are going to have to be content with not getting the coolest stuff (if it's behind a paywall) as long as it is making more them money.

It's just the reality of things.

How is it that in years they push gemstore more and more and earn less and less?

Uhm. Fewer and fewer active players...

[pah.4931]

@troops.8276 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

Lol. Ex pac wasn't free. Mounts were introduced with that and that's when the hard work was done. Design, modelling, rigging, weighing, etc.

That work was done KNOWING they'd be doing loot boxes. And the $30 price point was chosen, knowing they'd be doing loot boxes. It's a whole big system with lots of data and boardroom meetings behind it. And hopefully it's a decision that will prevent this headline in the near future: "Anet lays off 50 people" ...

Most the people complaining in these forums do not and never should own a business. It's hard. You have to make tough choices. You also have to make money. We've been conditioned to HATE people and businesses for trying to make more money.

[Torolan.5816]

Do I buy my groceries from local or at least european farmers or goods with a fair trade symbol? You can bet on that.Do I support local businesses by buying games and electronics in general there? Yes. I buy my games from a retailer because there are people working for a paycheck.Is it a little bit more expensive? Yes. But I know where my money goes to.Do I buy my car from a local car salesman instead of a car distributor who sells cars all around the world? Yes, for the same reason. I will not willingly support greedy letterbox companies and their managers who have to answer to their shady or stupid shareholders.My accounting is made by a local bank where real people man the counters. My portfolio is extremely conservative and poor on dividends because I refuse to fund pillagers, warmongers, child work abusers and environmental defilers.

I could continue if you want, but you probably get the point.You see that I am in no way conditioned to hate the good people who work hard to sell me supplies for my daily life. I try to live by the rules I expect others to hold up when they lead clean business.Cry fool all you want, but a shady business practice should be supported by nobody. Ruthless manchester capitalists are the reason why many places on earth just can´t either metaphorically or quite literally catch a breath. As an actual example, maybe you have like me watched the news today I think it may even have been on CNN where there was a mass car accident in New Dehli caused by traffic and indutry output smog that was so thick that your sight was zero.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Knuckle Joe.7408 said:Huh, I thought Arenanet wasn't part of NCSoft anymore, GW franchise doesn't appear in NCSoft's page anymore.

Ncsoft gave anet more freedom about gw2 and the game is now published by arenanet but the company and the money still belong to ncsoft

[Cyninja.2954]

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:SW:ToR still has content produced and a way way way more obnoxious online store than anything even remotely available in GW2. Don;t compare apples and oranges, if you are unhappy with the gem store now, wait till it gets the SW:TOR treatment.So you're saying we shouldn't compare two MMORPGs immediatelly after comparing the online stores from two different MMORPGs? Or are you being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian?

I'm saying SW:TOR is far from dead, so it does not fit your comparison about dead MMOs. The game, even while not at the hight of its glory, is still very alive and kicking.

Additionally I'm saying that SW:TOR has a far far worse online store compared to GW2, so once again, it is unfit as comparison.

Your entire bs about you'd rather have GW2 die versus the gem store direction they have taken lately is just that: bs from a person who has no idea what it means to lose a MMO in which you are invested.

If you dislike GW2, stop playing it. That's pretty much the same as having it shutdown its servers (which essentially is MMO death). The main difference being, you actually retain the option of returning. Something unavailable once the servers are really shut down.

and before you come back about some maintanance mode etc. take a long deep look at how maintanance mode (and the monetisation coming with it) looks for free to play games (and GW2 even though it's buy to play barely makes more money on their box/license sales than most f2p games with exploitive ingame stores). I'll make it simple: if you are appaled by the gem store now, maintanance mode monetisation will not let you stop puking.

[troops.8276]

@pah.4931 said:

@troops.8276 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

And yet we get all these threads about how more stuff should be free, how people deserve more for their purchase price of vanilla GW2 over 5 years ago, how convenience items and cosmetics should be cheaper or free.

how about not selling rng scam boxes?

how about putting into gemstore skins people want instead of making them yearly promos?

how about considering going back to armor set creation and put them into gemstore?

how about reconsidering some prices, to sell for less but sell more?

How about realizing art is not freeHow about realizing you need to pay artists to do thisHow about realizing if you actually want to support them you will share five dollars.Owait.You want and think so-called retexturing is not hard work, and therefore which to bend everything in your favor.

Oh my bad, carry on.

Lol. Ex pac wasn't free. Mounts were introduced with that and that's when the hard work was done. Design, modelling, rigging, weighing, etc.

That work was done KNOWING they'd be doing loot boxes. And the $30 price point was chosen, knowing they'd be doing loot boxes. It's a whole big system with lots of data and boardroom meetings behind it. And hopefully it's a decision that will prevent this headline in the near future: "Anet lays off 50 people" ...

Most the people complaining in these forums do not and never should own a business. It's hard. You have to make tough choices. You also have to make money. We've been conditioned to HATE people and businesses for trying to make more money.

I've been in that world. But sure, everyone knows what their doing and it's about saving fifty jobs.

[TexZero.7910]

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I'm confused as the charts show that GW2 is doing well but the comments are seeing something bad.I'm puzzled here.

Nothing new, no one actually pulled up the link and read the report. Just misinterpret the graph.

Some people have caught on to this but the unit cost of PoF is roughly half of that compared to HoT meaning that PoF's player retention/acquisition is pretty good if not equal to HoT.

Also they're YoY earnings growth is pretty silly, so the fear of the game going somewhere soon is unfounded.

[troops.8276]

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I'm confused as the charts show that GW2 is doing well but the comments are seeing something bad.I'm puzzled here.

Nothing new, no one actually pulled up the link and read the report. Just misinterpret the graph.

Some people have caught on to this but the unit cost of PoF is roughly half of that compared to HoT meaning that PoF's player retention/acquisition is pretty good if not equal to HoT.

Also they're YoY earnings growth is pretty silly, so the fear of the game going somewhere soon is unfounded.

I read it. I like numbers.

@troops.8276 said:The graph is listed under Sales Breakdown by IP in the full report.NCsoft total sales for Q3 are 727 billion won and net profit for Q3 is 275 billion won, about $246 million USD.

[starlinvf.1358]

@PopeUrban.2578 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@PopeUrban.2578 said:GW2 expansions sell poorly because they're not the primary revenue model, and thus, extremely lackluster in terms of the play/reward loop and content specifically to drive players to the gem store. The LS is specifically designed to drive itinerant players to log in during release windows... to get their eyes on the gem store sales that come with them. The currency exchange exists specifically to make players feel like they can "earn" gem store rewards while actually providing players the ability to pass the buck to someone else while requiring them to remain engaged so that they'll hopefully get sick of farming and buy their own gems.

If expansions sell poorly then it means less profit from the gem store too. Glider skins are pointless for those who don't have Heart of Thorns and Mounts skins are pointless for those who don't have Path of Fire. More players paying for the expansions = more money from the gem store.What they are doing now with the gem store policy is trying to milk more money out of those who already paid for the expansions. Instead I said to focus on turning more players paying customers, therefore more players get access to the gem store items for expansion-specific items = more profit for Anet.The more players buy Path of Fire, the more visibility to the Mount Adoption deal = more profits. And if there is a larger paying playerbase, then I hope the gem store deals will also be better, since they won't have to deal with fewer players and use RNG to get more money.

Alternate idea:

Take all those people working on gem store content and "free" updates. Fold them in to one big team tasked with making one cohesive product. Sell the product for full price with confidence because its worth the money and capable of keeping your player base consistently engaged long enough to sell them another expansion. Let the free players see that they're getting great value for the single purchase price of expansions without being nickel and dimed or forced to farm so that someone else can be nickel and dimed. Explain to shareholders that when you actually focus on making a higher quality product that serves the customer's needs it results in positive buzz and free press that reduces your required marketing budget. Explain to them that exploiting your customers by deliberately selling them disappointment is only effective in the short term and results in high player churn that in turn makes it very difficult to acquire new customers because of negative word of mouth.

Or hey just build them a time machine and let them talk to Anets founders about why they left their jobs to create GW1 in the first place, and remind them how successful it was using exactly that business model before they started exploring microtransactions.

"That only makes us a LOT of money..... but its not ALL the money".

And on the mention of share holders..... realize that share holders don't care about quality products, reputation, or consumer satisfaction. Once you go beyond the venture capitalists, the only thing share holders care about are quarterly gains. Are they making money "Right now"?, and is there going to be MORE money next quarter? Remember this is built on a trade system that operates in a scale of Micro seconds, responding to changes as little as a fraction of a cent......so having money sitting in a company stock, waiting for it to raise over the course of a few months is about old school as it gets. If share holders are seeing losses, and are not convinced that will turn around any time soon, many will pull their investment and put it into something else. That then becomes an avalanche effect of other investors getting spooked, pulling their investment as well, and the activity drives the share price down. When its hit low enough, thats when the vultures swoop in, buy up as much as they can, and use whatever control afforded by their stake to either instate a new board of directors; or otherwise do some shady s*** to pump and dump at best, or dismantle the company to sell assets for a profit at worst. While NCsoft might be too strong at the moment to have it happen to them directly, it not unheard of for publishers to sell their studios and/or IPs to other companies, if the offers are enticing enough.

What you're also failing to realize is what Microstransactions have done to quarterly earnings...... unlike other forms of content that are exchanged at a set price, and have a finite cycle of consumption, Micro-transactions have no upper limit on what it can sell, and can turn a ludicrous profit for a fraction of the effort. I'm not sure if it was EA or Activision that figured this out first..... but one of the directors of a yearly franchise realized that you could RESELL the same item in one year's edition of a game to player via microtransactions in next year's edition of a game, and call it a "Classic" skin or item.

The method GW2 has is more akin to the Fashion industry, but it works on the same overall concept....... just create something of low cost, and sell it to the masses; then keep doing that in a seasonal fashion. You also have the option to sell older content as "limited time offers" to newer players who haven't bought it yet, thus turning your "Churn rate" into a viable profit model. Thats how so many F2P make the kind of money they do..... the revolving door to continually bring in new "customers" to buy all the same things existing players already bought. Now combine this with the surge cycles of Event generators such as expansion releases to recapture returning player, and send them through the door for another round. The beauty of this setup is you don't need a constant stream of content to maintain retention.... you just shift all your focus to "recapturing", and use the memory gap (plus the refreshed novelty of the event) to only have to produce content in small bursts. What do you think the new Living world format is all about? More importantly, why do you think they implemented long tie gates on "end game rewards"?.... its to keep the those that do stick around busy, while slowing their content consumption rate.