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GW2 Earning Reports 3Q 2022!


Izzy.2951

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https://preview.redd.it/48pjx246iaz91.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=5cd8fd2f9f999805b4feee0deba41fa29ddfa384

Very positive i should say, 2nd month in a row that is more or less the most profitable PC game for NCsoft.

When are we gonna see Gw2 release in Korea? theres still a huge market in Asia to gain more money, and it should be easy to grab servers thx to nc.

Edited by Izzy.2951
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And here is my updated quarterly sales overview since the games release. Numbers are from NCsofts official reports.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/685436537827098645/1040562515844800522/gw2-sales-2012q3-2022q3.png (yes, it is a discord link I use for image storage)

The revenue dropped from 27.175 billion KRW (Q2/2022) to 24.822 billion (Q3/2022). The steam release was in Q3/2022. It seems the steam release did not really went so well and was too small to made a significant positive impact on revenue/sales.

But 24.822 billion KRW is still not a bad revenue when we compare all the previous quarterly revenues and I think the game will continue to be safe (at least financially) if the quarterly revenue continues to stay above 20 billion KRW.

EDIT: Fixed a typo. Revenue is not in KRW but KRW kitten. Small difference. 😉

EDIT2: Strange. The letters "M" and "N" (behind KRW) are changed into "kitten", so had to change it again.

Edited by Zok.4956
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42 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

2nd month in a row that is more or less the most profitable PC game for NCsoft.

"more or less the most profitable" is like "more or less pregnant". 😉

How do you know how proftable NCsofts games are, so you can compare their profit/earnings? NCsoft does not give breakdowns of costs/profit/earnings/EBIT per games, the per games breakdown is only about revenue/sales.

And NCsoft does not report monthly numbers, just quarterly numbers.

If we look at quarterly sales number, GW2 had the highest revenue  in Q2/2022 in the category "Legacy PC online game", but in Q3/2022 Lineage had the highest revenue in the category "Legacy PC online game". The revenue in group "Legacy PC online game" was up 1% from Q2 to Q3 ,but  this was driven by rise in Lineage 2 and AION sales.

 

1 hour ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Very positive i should say

This I can agree on. GW2 revenue still looks positive.

 

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1 hour ago, Luks.4230 said:

But I was told the steam release was such a success. Now I'm confused..

 

We told you.

Steam takes +1month to pay to the companys, so idk how can you expect steam earnings to be in Q3 when it was released nearly in september. 

Second, gw2 is making considerable more revenue than in the past years. Maybe comparable to HoT years.

Edited by Izzy.2951
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17 minutes ago, Luks.4230 said:

 

Source?

  • Q. When can I expect to be paid every month?
    A. We pay out by the 30th of the month following sales. For example, we will pay you for calendar February month sales by March 30th. It may take a few business days for the payment to post to your bank account. In that case, you may see the payment in your bank account during the first few days of April, following the example above.

So yeah, you can expect September gw2 sales to be paid by October 30th (thats Q4 already).

Source: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/finance/payments_salesreporting/faq

PD: December sales will be paid in Q1 2023, and probably november too. Cos if they paid 30th december and take a few days to get to the bank thats Q1.

PD2: Gw2 revenue is higher evey quarter than in the past years by far. That is positive. And probably in Q2 they got paid by gw2 china or something.

Edited by Izzy.2951
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I can't believe Aion still sells so much... Surprised to see the more recent B&S to be basically dead.

Steam won't make much profit (as expected, from a game that arrived on the platform 10 years later, with a distinct account), but it helped to raise the popularity of the game. There is a lot more buzz about the game, more new videos, since the Steam release. I think it helped also to bring more players with the standard client (which is even better than Steam, for the revenue).

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2 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:
  • Q. When can I expect to be paid every month?
    A. We pay out by the 30th of the month following sales. For example, we will pay you for calendar February month sales by March 30th. It may take a few business days for the payment to post to your bank account. In that case, you may see the payment in your bank account during the first few days of April, following the example above.

So yeah, you can expect September gw2 sales to be paid by October 30th (thats Q4 already).

Source: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/finance/payments_salesreporting/faq

PD: December sales will be paid in Q1 2023, and probably november too. Cos if they paid 30th december and take a few days to get to the bank thats Q1.

Don't be confused with payment dates / cash flow and revenue reporting in balance sheets and such.

NCSoft reports revenue in the month/quarter when the sale "happened" and not when they receive the cash flow / payment on their bank account. With the only exception that the revenue from pre-purchases is reported in the month of release (of the game/expansion).

GW2 was released on Steam at August 23.  Pre-Purchases would have been reported in August (Q3). It is expected that NCSoft received reports about the sales/revenue numbers for August (one week since release) and September (full month) somewhere in October from Steam, so they will have included these revenues numbers in their actual report for Q3 even if they did not receive the money/cash on their bank account, yet.

Sure, in Q3 2022 GW2 is not a full quarter on steam, but if the launch would have been a big financial success, I would have expected some revenue uptick in the Q3 because of this.

 

1 hour ago, Urud.4925 said:

Steam won't make much profit (as expected, from a game that arrived on the platform 10 years later, with a distinct account), but it helped to raise the popularity of the game. There is a lot more buzz about the game, more new videos, since the Steam release.

In NCsofts recent Q3 earnings conference call NCsoft gaves short statements about positive changes and events of every game for the last quarter and such. The Steam-release of GW2 was not even mentioned. This tells a lot about how NCsoft sees the Steam release of GW2 - it is not seen as a success.

Edited by Zok.4956
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46 minutes ago, Liisjak.4509 said:

The Steam release was a predictable flop. They should have started the first week with a bang (Expansions 50% off or something like that.)

Yes, I thought something like that too. There are a lot of laborious changes and improvements made to the game for the Steam release, even bringing Season 1 back, and then it's screwed up (again) by the marketing department and their pricing policy.

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There seems to be confusion here, as Steam sales don't work that way. The game doesn't just get a massive revenue boost because it launched on Steam, its not the same as box sales where there's some immediate gain.

 

Releasing the game on Steam was a long-term plan, with most of those players having yet to reach very high levels of gameplay, alot probably haven't even purchased expansions yet (it can take super casuals months to years to even get to their first expansion). On top of this these players will play future Living World seasons and buy future expansions and gemstore items, so the actual revenue from releasing the game on Steam won't be known for a very long time.


We should be able to get an accurate picture around the time of the fourth expansion release. Remember, the game's revenue stream continues to increase despite "ending" with LWS4, and flops like IceBrood Saga, because all the other changes (like DX11) have been pushing it along.

 

Its all about the bigger picture when your game has 10+ years of content. Each new player is immersed in an overwhelmingly complex world that we take for granted because of having "Been There, Done That".

Edited by Mariyuuna.6508
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6 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

There seems to be confusion here, as Steam sales don't work that way. The game doesn't just get a massive revenue boost because it launched on Steam, its not the same as box sales where there's some immediate gain.

There are games that got a massive revenue boost when they launched at steam.

Sure, GW2 is 10 years old, so it will not get nearly the same "boost" like newer games, but some boost I did expect.

Releasing a game on steam can only happens once and is a big step that can create a lot of public attention for an old game. Making a marketing campaign "with a bang" for this can increase this public attention a lot more. And later on, it helps marketing to continue to create a lot more public attention when marketing can use the fact like "our steam launch was a big success - see, this proves that our game is still top notch. Wanna try/buy?".

 

24 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Releasing the game on Steam was a long-term plan, with most of those players having yet to reach very high levels of gameplay

This sounds a little bit like "Yes, we lost the 100 meter race but winning the race was never our plan, we plan a marathon instead".

 

28 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

On top of this these players will play future Living World seasons and buy future expansions and gemstore items, so the actual revenue from releasing the game on Steam won't be known for a very long time.

But this all would also happen (only with more players and more revenue), if the Steam release would have attracted 5-times (just as some random number) more players.

 

32 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Remember, the game's revenue stream continues to increase despite "ending" with LWS4, and flops like IceBrood Saga, because all the other changes (like DX11) have been pushing it along.

The biggest increase in player numbers since the really bad Q4/2019 was unplanned, because it was caused by Covid-19 and only after that Anet was able to sustain that momentum with the changes like legendary armory, DX11, the "return to"-achievment series, etc.. Anets words (mostly), not mine.

EoD was a rushed expansion but from the sales numbers it was better than expected and the numbers still look good.

And now imagine if the Steam release had increased the player numbers a lot (like covid-19 did) and Anet could have used that positive momentum for their future changes/plans with the game.

 

59 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Its all about the bigger picture

Agreed.

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6 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Don't be confused with payment dates / cash flow and revenue reporting in balance sheets and such.

NCSoft reports revenue in the month/quarter when the sale "happened" and not when they receive the cash flow / payment on their bank account. With the only exception that the revenue from pre-purchases is reported in the month of release (of the game/expansion).

GW2 was released on Steam at August 23.  Pre-Purchases would have been reported in August (Q3). It is expected that NCSoft received reports about the sales/revenue numbers for August (one week since release) and September (full month) somewhere in October from Steam, so they will have included these revenues numbers in their actual report for Q3 even if they did not receive the money/cash on their bank account, yet.

Sure, in Q3 2022 GW2 is not a full quarter on steam, but if the launch would have been a big financial success, I would have expected some revenue uptick in the Q3 because of this.

 

In NCsofts recent Q3 earnings conference call NCsoft gaves short statements about positive changes and events of every game for the last quarter and such. The Steam-release of GW2 was not even mentioned. This tells a lot about how NCsoft sees the Steam release of GW2 - it is not seen as a success.

No big company add the money they still dont have in the Bank (aka already paid for it). In finacial statments thats money you owe but dont have yet (aka money expected to get).

I havent seen this done, specially by a big company, appart of mentioning it in other parts of money you owe but you are awaiting/havent been paid for it yet. 

And the numbers in Q4 2022 are gonna go down a bit, cos the hype is gone a bit and cos other games pulling loads of players like new world, wow expansion etc... And still they will be around 20 Millions or so.

And i can go even further, in 2022 gw2 (10 years old) made more revenue than for example 2014 when the game was in its prime.  And even 2021 wasnt even bad in regards to that.

Edited by Izzy.2951
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8 hours ago, Urud.4925 said:

I can't believe Aion still sells so much... Surprised to see the more recent B&S to be basically dead.

Well it's Aion in Asia that is still run by NcSoft. Aion in the West is done since many years by Gameforge so not sure how it does in the West. Probably not as well as the Asian version.

I'm also surprised at the B&S numbers but I think that for pure PvP games people like NcSoft's Lineage titles and Aion also includes a lot of PvE content. So maybe Aion is filling a gap that B&S didn't.

11 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Very positive i should say, 2nd month in a row that is more or less the most profitable PC game for NCsoft.

Sales do not equal profits.

 

What I wonder about is why we didn't see a spike when EoD was released. That should've been reflected in the sales for Q1 but it isn't. I really can't imagine that when EoD came out all spending on gems was stopped and people just spent cash on the expansion. Something odd there.

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20 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

What I wonder about is why we didn't see a spike when EoD was released. That should've been reflected in the sales for Q1 but it isn't. I really can't imagine that when EoD came out all spending on gems was stopped and people just spent cash on the expansion. Something odd there.

Because no one bought EoD. in the first days of the expansion maps were already dead

 

dude.. who tf wants fishing and skiffs as a big main feature lol

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On 11/11/2022 at 10:43 PM, Luks.4230 said:

Because no one bought EoD. in the first days of the expansion maps were already dead

 

dude.. who tf wants fishing and skiffs as a big main feature lol

You are delusional if you think that. EoD map caps are lower than the rest, and it was even lower on release than nowadays.

If you just see the revenues from q3 2021 onforward youll see the game has gotten much more activity. Also active reddit users, youtube videos made etcetc

And the thing why EoD outsold PoF. Factions (Cantha) was the most sold expansion in entire GW1. Also asian commuties would have bought more i bet.

Edited by Izzy.2951
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1 hour ago, Izzy.2951 said:

EoD map caps are lower than the rest, and it was even lower on release than nowadays.

sure dude haha. i think they scammed you with that. they "increased" the player cap on the maps but they were still dead afterwards lmao

 

1 hour ago, Izzy.2951 said:

And the thing why EoD outsold PoF, Factions (Cantha) was the most sold expansion in entire GW1.

yeah no, i dont think thats true either

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14 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

No big company add the money they still dont have in the Bank (aka already paid for it). In finacial statments thats money you owe but dont have yet (aka money expected to get).

I havent seen this done, specially by a big company, appart of mentioning it in other parts of money you owe but you are awaiting/havent been paid for it yet.

 

It seems you are confused between an income/profit-loss-statement and a balance sheet. Example:

If a big, international company/corporation writes an invoice, this invoice will increase your revenue and profits/income and this will be reported in the income/profit-loss-statement for the month when the invoice is created(*1) and not when the invoice is paid (i.e. the money is on your bank accout).

This invoice will also be added to the balance sheet in the group "invoiced money, that we will get sometime" when the invoice is created(*1). And if the invoice is paid and you have received the money in your bank account, the money is moved from group "invoiced money, that we will get sometime" to "money on our bank account".

(*1) some state tax advisers require, that you do not report in the period when the invoice is created, but when the invoiced product is shipped or when the invoiced service is delivered. But this distinction does not matter in our case.

There is an exeption to this rule: In some countries, very small  companies are not required to report based on "invoiced dates" (don't remember the correct financial english term atm) but are allowed to base all their financial reporting on "cash flow dates only" (don't remember the correct financial english term atm). But looking at the financial statements of NCSoft, NCsoft is not one of those small companies that report "cash flow dates only"

So, the steam revenue from August (one week) and September (full month) is included in the Q3 revenue report if NCSoft has complied with the international financial rules.

 

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15 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

What I wonder about is why we didn't see a spike when EoD was released. That should've been reflected in the sales for Q1 but it isn't. I really can't imagine that when EoD came out all spending on gems was stopped and people just spent cash on the expansion. Something odd there.

I am wondering about this, too.

In their studio update from 2022-03-22 they wrote: "the number of active Guild Wars 2 players has more than doubled over the last three years. This growth has helped Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons outsell our previous expansion Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire."

I do believe them, when they wrote this. Some "statistically marketing optimization" is expected, but I don't think they would openly lie about this. I think the "marketing optimization" was in selecting the right time period they choose for their comparison with PoF, so they were able to make that statement even before Q1-2022 ended.

From quarterly numbers it is possible:

If we compare the release quarter of PoF (q3/2017,  20,145 mill. KRW) with the release quarter of EoD (q1/2022, 20,217 mill KRW) Anets statement, that EoD was sold more than PoF, would/could still be true even if the difference would be very small.

With PoF and EoD we see the pattern, that the revenue in the quarter following the release quarter is higher than the revenue in the release quarter.  Both releases seem to have gained a lot of players that stayed in the game. This is different than the HoT release revenue pattern were a lot of players pre-purchased, but left after the release because they were unhappy with HoT (increased difficulty and such ... at the beginning).

There is a possible explanation why we did not see a spike in Q1-2022:

NCsoft usually (they said it in a analyst calls years ago) financially reports pre-purchases in the quarter of the release (of the game/expansion). This means, if NCsoft is not stating otherwise now how they financially report EoD prepurchases, that the EoD prepurchases are included in the Q1-2022 report and are not included in the 2021 revenue reports.

BUT the release of EoD was in Februrary 2022. Fiscal regulations require a company to report revenue (and other matters) in the correct fiscal year. NCSofts fiscal year equals the calendar year. So it is possible, that NCSoft had to report (different to how they reported HoT and PoF pre-purchases) EoD-pre-purchases made in 2021 in the 2021 quarterly numbers and not in the release quarter in 2022. However, I have no information if this is really true for the EoD-pre-purchasees, or not.

 

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23 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

In NCsofts recent Q3 earnings conference call NCsoft gaves short statements about positive changes and events of every game for the last quarter and such. The Steam-release of GW2 was not even mentioned. This tells a lot about how NCsoft sees the Steam release of GW2 - it is not seen as a success.

Just to add some info from the conference call. Even if the steam release is not seen as successful, the continued revenue stream from GW2 is:

From the Q+A sections of that conference call:

Q: "your revenue stream from guild wars 2 is quite good and your are making global investments. do you plan to employ this know-how and adopt that to the global business of TL because guild wars 2 and the MMORPG genre is quite successful."

A: "regarding guild wars and the NCwest: Yes we are strategically making use of that know-how"

 "TL" means the internally formerly called "Project TL":  Throne and Liberty, that was originally also called "Lineage Eternal".

I find this interesting, because TL and Guild Wars already had a lot of shared ressources/connections.

From a press article in 2017 : "According to insiders, NCsoft has decided to change the engine of Lineage Eternal from the in-house engine that used in Guild Wars, to Unreal Engine 4. It's a big upgrade that will greatly improve the game's graphics. Of course that means the game has to further push back its schedule and it may skip this year's G-Star again."

 

Edited by Zok.4956
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On 11/11/2022 at 9:11 AM, Zok.4956 said:

In NCsofts recent Q3 earnings conference call NCsoft gaves short statements about positive changes and events of every game for the last quarter and such. The Steam-release of GW2 was not even mentioned. This tells a lot about how NCsoft sees the Steam release of GW2 - it is not seen as a success.

This was expected. The people who want to play FF14 are already playing FF14. EoD is GW2's worst expansion to date and they're still desperately trying to copy FF14 instead of being GW2. It's (obviously) failing.

FF14 isn't popular due to it's gameplay, it's due to it having a cult defending it and catgirls + lewd outfits. GW2 doesn't have catgirls and intentionally makes conservative outfits that cover up your entire body even though human females are attractive.

If you want to copy FF14, you need to realize WHY it's successful, they clearly do not.

Edited by Kozumi.5816
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11 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

FF14 isn't popular due to it's gameplay, it's due to it having a cult defending it and catgirls + lewd outfits. GW2 doesn't have catgirls and intentionally makes conservative outfits that cover up your entire body even though human females are attractive.

 

Guild wars has some pretty revealing outfits as well, though I have to admit, the catgirls are a little disappointing.

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