GW2 Sales/Revenue/Earnings Report 1Q-2023

[Zok.4956]

 

22 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Because it's influenced by other things. (...)  There are games that come out that affect sales too. 

Agreed. And if you can see those effects in the quarterly sales numbers I would be happy if you would share your knowledge.

 

28 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

There was an huge artificial bump in pretty much every MMO during covid was the point and things are getting back to a more normal pace. 

Agreed. I've written about the covid boost (and about Anet confirming the covid-boost) in previous discussions, saw no reason to repeat that and even added a label  "Covid-19 hits worldwide" in the sales graphs.

 

35 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

In businesses there are always expectations and if we don't know what those expectations are

Agreed. Revenue is not everything but without revenue (or with too low revenue for a too long time) there will be nothing.

 

32 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

saying we're doing good or bad largely depends on how you like the game. I don't think the game is doing great, but I also don't think the game is doing badly. 

Well, I didn't write about whether the game is doing well or badly but about the sales figures and whether certain things (expansions, steam launch, etc) are visible in those numbers as patterns, or not. So, please don't argue against something I didn't write.

Sure, I think (comparing the actual numbers with the numbers from the past) that the revenue is now at a level where the game can have a long future if the revenue can be stabilized at that level. Of course, NCsoft can pull the plug tomorrow, for whatever reason. But would that be likely given these numbers? Since they didn't pull the plug when the numbers were way worse?

 

47 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

This doom and gloom quarter by quarter stuff eventually gets old, considering I've seen the same posts about it doing well or not doing well six years ago.

It's totally fine if you don't care about quarterly numbers. But are you really responding to what I wrote or to something completely different? Because I didn't write "doom and gloom" and I didn't do such an overview 6 years ago.

 

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

 

Agreed. And if you can see those effects in the quarterly sales numbers I would be happy if you would share your knowledge.

 

Agreed. I've written about the covid boost (and about Anet confirming the covid-boost) in previous discussions, saw no reason to repeat that and even added a label  "Covid-19 hits worldwide" in the sales graphs.

 

Agreed. Revenue is not everything but without revenue (or with too low revenue for a too long time) there will be nothing.

 

Well, I didn't write about whether the game is doing well or badly but about the sales figures and whether certain things (expansions, steam launch, etc) are visible in those numbers as patterns, or not. So, please don't argue against something I didn't write.

Sure, I think (comparing the actual numbers with the numbers from the past) that the revenue is now at a level where the game can have a long future if the revenue can be stabilized at that level. Of course, NCsoft can pull the plug tomorrow, for whatever reason. But would that be likely given these numbers? Since they didn't pull the plug when the numbers were way worse?

 

It's totally fine if you don't care about quarterly numbers. But are you really responding to what I wrote or to something completely different? Because I didn't write "doom and gloom" and I didn't do such an overview 6 years ago.

 

But the OP did imply the game is doing badly based on a quarterly report that's higher than last year at the same time, or roughly the same.  Thus it's not doom and gloom. That's my main concern in my reply. It's a bad conclusion to draw based on this data.

[Kalocin.5982]

A lot of people are wary about the future of this game, it's kind of like a gacha game that looks like it's end of service time soon. Hopefully the expansion coming up can show this game has a good future

[Dante.1508]

Well SWTOR just went into maintenance mode so maybe its not just NCsoft losing money.. That said i do not predict SoTO to do all that well as an expansion. Its small and has a lot of features that seems to be angering the players. I cannot see how that will make a large profit.

[Gorem.8104]

Being fair most recently people do have less time these days for games in general. The hype that once was MMO's is gone forever as the people who would have played them have grown up and gotten jobs. It makes sense why you see other mmo's dying off or being shut down. I still miss Warhammer Online, was a great time while that lasted, now you either play the private server or nothing because the servers are gone forever. 

The worst thing you could do right now is take things away that people earnt - especially if they earnt it when they had the time to earn it unlike today. Considering the next mini expansion is essentially a living world that they are asking people to pay for that is taking something away from people... 

You had a winning formula for awhile, go back to that, pretend IBS and EoD didn't happen or anything after them and go back to lw4 style. The game was better before Jade bots or rather it was better before eod. At least IBS has awesome zones, both the first and last zones are epic. If you guys kept the lw4/pof pace going I Wonder if they realise just how much more money they'd have right now. 

[Zok.4956]

8 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

But the OP did imply the game is doing badly based on a quarterly report that's higher than last year at the same time, or roughly the same. (...) It's a bad conclusion to draw based on this data.

I wrote that in each quarter, of the last recent quarters of the official reports, the quarterly revenue each quarter was around 2 billion KRW less than in each previous quarter. That is a fact, You can verify this yourself from the official reports. In the graph you can see right away that this looks like a linear trend. And I wrote that I think such a linear pattern is unusual looking at older previous quarters. And I voiced my opinion, stating the obvious, that such a trend can not continue for a longer time, it would not be healthy for the game. And I also wrote that the next expansion is coming up now and it will be interesting to see if it will stop the sales downtrend. (which usually every expansion has done so far, expansion sales increase total revenue).

I also added yearly sales totals and wrote, looking at total 2022 revenue, comparing with previous years, the revenue 2022 looks NOT bad, but looks good/ok.

There are many ways to interpret the data. But where did I draw a bad conclusion on this data?

Edited July 24, 2023 by Zok.4956

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Being fair most recently people do have less time these days for games in general. The hype that once was MMO's is gone forever as the people who would have played them have grown up and gotten jobs.

Agreed. There are many causes that affect a company's sales. But in the end, it is always a company's actions and decisions to make a product/service for which enough customers are willing to spend their money. Example from another area: German car manufacturers who are sticking to the combustion engine and are too late in switching to electric drive and are now experiencing dramatic sales slumps in the Chinese market, which is important to them.

Looking at NCsofts recent reported quarterly revenue 1Q-2023 the mobile games (Lineage M, Lineage 2M, Blade & Coul 2, Lineage W) earned 330.8 billion KRW and the PC online games (Lineage, Lineage 2, AION, Blade & Soul, Guild Wars 2) only earned 91.4 billion KRW. So the mobile games had more than 3 times more revenue than PC games. Because mobile games have a much larger market potential, it was speculated at the time, before the 2019 mass layoffs, that Anet would be working on a mobile game.

On the other hand, during an analyst call in 2022:  Q: "do you plan to employ this (gw2 was meant, my annotation) know-how and adopt that to the global business of TL?"  Answer (from NCsoft): "regarding guild wars and the NCwest: Yes we are strategically making use of that know-how"

And from Wikipedia: "The new team continued the development process of the game with a new target and changes to the game engine from a proprietary game engine that was used in Guild Wars to Unreal Engine 4"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throne_and_Liberty

So, maybe Anet was working on TL (Throne and Liberty) in the past when it was based on the Guild Wars engine, NCsoft was unhappy with the results, the mass layoffs happened, the producer was changed, it was switched to unreal engine and Anet again works on this and this is the reason why Anet is looking for Unreal-Engine devs. But that is just a wild guess.

What is certain for me, however (just my opinion, not a fact): Anet is not only working on GW2 (which according to Anet was the case directly after the mass layoffs) but meanwhile on other things again.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Zok.4956

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I mean... I'm a dude with enough income that just sits there. I have no problem to drop money on the Gem Store. 

Except for the fact that Anet simply doesn't add anything that I would buy.

Its always shiny this shiny that. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

I wrote that in each quarter, of the last recent quarters of the official reports, the quarterly revenue each quarter was around 2 billion KRW less than in each previous quarter. That is a fact, You can verify this yourself from the official reports. In the graph you can see right away that this looks like a linear trend. And I wrote that I think such a linear pattern is unusual looking at older previous quarters. And I voiced my opinion, stating the obvious, that such a trend can not continue for a longer time, it would not be healthy for the game. And I also wrote that the next expansion is coming up now and it will be interesting to see if it will stop the sales downtrend. (which usually every expansion has done so far, expansion sales increase total revenue).

I also added yearly sales totals and wrote, looking at total 2022 revenue, comparing with previous years, the revenue 2022 looks NOT bad, but looks good/ok.

There are many ways to interpret the data. But where did I draw a bad conclusion on this data?

And I said, year on year, we're doing about the same over the last year.  At any rate, I guess we'll both see moving into the future.

What Anet is trying to do, as far as I can tell, is future proof the game in as much as they can. They added Season 1. That's an improvement. They added DX 11, that's an improvement. They are changing up the way runes work and I think that's an improvement. They've changed the confusion surrounding living world and I think that's an improvement.  But none of that stuff has really been put into play yet, because we haven't seen what they can do at the end of it.

I'll wait until I see how this next expac is received before I start writing off the game.  It's a marathon, not a sprint. I don't see them doing the back end work just to walk away from it.

[Dante.1508]

1 hour ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I mean... I'm a dude with even income that just sits there. I have no problem to drop money on the Gem Store. 

Except for the fact that Anet simply doesn't add anything that I would buy.

Its always shiny this shiny that. 

Yes i agree there 99% of the shop stuff i have no interest in myself. Very little is useful and a lot just looks quite silly.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Dante.1508

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 minute ago, Dante.1508 said:

Yes i agree there 99% of the shop stuff i have no interest in myself. Very little is useful and a lot just looks quite silly.

I find fashion wars on Heavy classes extremely limited.  Especially when Anet puts nice shirts in the Gem Store and heavy had no normal pants to go along with it. 

If I want something more medium looking, I HAVE to use outfits. But currently all the outfits glow like super saiyans. 

New weapons? So shiny the should pulse blindness. 

I would pay big bucks for some normal pants. 

[Dante.1508]

7 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I find fashion wars on Heavy classes extremely limited.  Especially when Anet puts nice shirts in the Gem Store and heavy had no normal pants to go along with it. 

If I want something more medium looking, I HAVE to use outfits. But currently all the outfits glow like super saiyans. 

New weapons? So shiny the should pulse blindness. 

I would pay big bucks for some normal pants. 

Medium.. So many trenchcoats..

[DanAlcedo.3281]

9 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

Medium.. So many trenchcoats..

Thats the point. Players of medium classes are sick and tired of Trenchcoats.

I would love to use one on my Warrior. 

Just get rid of the restrictions of armor weight already. 

 

[jokke.6239]

Arena Net should do a big promotion on steam front page for the expansion.

Game has like 2-5 k online on steam, I guess it's not terrible, but could be a lot better

[jokke.6239]

On 7/23/2023 at 12:05 PM, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

i think thay schold charge more for dlc, but put more effor into it, we don't want acidents like secound meta of Gyale Delve to happyn, wher thay put 3 same events in row, map looked 10/10, but events/reward suck, cuz thay undercook it

 

i personaly prefer to pay twice as much, but got delivered drizwood map quality

100% this

[Gibson.4036]

4 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I'll wait until I see how this next expac is received before I start writing off the game.  It's a marathon, not a sprint. I don't see them doing the back end work just to walk away from it.

While I take your point, we do live in the time where studios cancel shows after the creators end them with forward looking cliffhangers, restaurants and stores don’t tell their employees they’re closing until the day they lock the doors, and cruise lines sell cruises up until the day they stop sailing.

Its unfortunately not rare for companies to be working diligently and laying long term plans right up to their end.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case here. I just have no faith that renovations and long term plans are evidence of anything.

[Gravitron.7982]

So this is like $21 million USD, and about $84 million USD for the year (projected)? Wow, that's like only 10% of what WoW does in a quarter on average I think. But I mean, if their operating costs are super low, they keep a minimal staff, and don't spend a lot of money on giant expacs, its probably maintainable for the next 4 or 5 years I think.  Of course that means the quality of the product/asking price ratio will drop, not in the favor of it's customers, but I guess that's the life cycle of 99% of MMORPG's. At least they make enough to keep the lights on, a few employees staffed, and the internet billed paid, for the next few years. 

[Gibson.4036]

I got curious, so here's the GW2 YOY earnings in millions of KRW, adjusted for inflation to 2022 numbers:

2012 - 193,399

2013 - 142,811

2014 - 97,923

2015 - 114,145

2016 - 86,181

2017 - 57,948

2018 - 87,142

2019 - 63,554

2020 - 65,869

2021 - 77,497

2022 - 94,972

Last year was the best year for GW2 sales since 2015.

 

[Gehenna.3625]

10 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

Well SWTOR just went into maintenance mode so maybe its not just NCsoft losing money.. That said i do not predict SoTO to do all that well as an expansion. Its small and has a lot of features that seems to be angering the players. I cannot see how that will make a large profit.

SWTOR didn't just go into maintenance mode. It went from one EA studio (BioWare) to another one (Broadsword) also with half the team of SWTOR going to Broadsword.

And I think that you mistake this forum for a place where the larger player base comes to discuss things. Most players never come here. The main thing that angers people (and they have a point imo) is how they're treating the legendary runes situation. But very few players actually have legendary runes at all, so that is not a concern for the vast majority of the player base.

[Gravitron.7982]

25 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I got curious, so here's the GW2 YOY earnings in millions of KRW, adjusted for inflation to 2022 numbers:

2012 - 193,399

2013 - 142,811

2014 - 97,923

2015 - 114,145

2016 - 86,181

2017 - 57,948

2018 - 87,142

2019 - 63,554

2020 - 65,869

2021 - 77,497

2022 - 94,972

Last year was the best year for GW2 sales since 2015.

 

Looks like the best years of GW2 really are behind us.

[Vayne.8563]

5 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

While I take your point, we do live in the time where studios cancel shows after the creators end them with forward looking cliffhangers, restaurants and stores don’t tell their employees they’re closing until the day they lock the doors, and cruise lines sell cruises up until the day they stop sailing.

Its unfortunately not rare for companies to be working diligently and laying long term plans right up to their end.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case here. I just have no faith that renovations and long term plans are evidence of anything.

But how many of those stores add a Season 1, upgrade to DX 11 or work on something like alliances if they're planning to close. I'm not making my judgement based on just thinking on the game seems okay. I'm basing it on the actions of the company.  People say Anet is milking the game because Anet is coming out with stuff like Gyala, or because the expansion is smaller. Times have changed, that's true. And make no mistake, this is a niche game, but it's a big niche. There aren't many MMOs focused on the open world.

So they're future proofing the game to close it down? What sense does that make? Why do it at all? Why upgrade the trading post? Why DX 11? If the game is something they're not planning on going into the future with, why add Season 1. None of that was necessary, we were running without that stuff for eight years.  

The very lack of "new content" in the year plus since EOD, a strike mission, a single zone that a lot of people don't love (though I don't mind it), is indicative of a company working on something else. Why change runes?  It's not, as some people have implied, so sell us back something we already have. It's so we can move forward with new types of builds.  If you don't think they have plans for this that's fine, but I've been in business for a long time (even if I'm retired now) and I know what a company looks like when it's winding down. I've been there to help in that process.  This isn't what it looks like.

And at times when a company is future proofing or making changes, revenue does look different, because since the expansion, no one is buying Gyala. No one is paying for DX 11. The new system will be like a very small sub. You buy the new expansion and it keeps you busy for a while and it costs about 5 dollars a month. You get a new fractal, a couple of new strikes, a few new zones, and new stuff to play with in game, every year and a year and a half. That conversation is what they deem to make the game sustainable moving forward. 

Will that work? No idea. I've been in business too long for me to believe that crystal balls are real. Plenty of stuff I've thought would work didn't and a lot of stuff I didn't think would work did.  But I do know what a company looks like when it's winding down. Anet looks like they're building to something.  Just my two cents.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Think writing is on the wall, steam and reLS1 did not do this game any favors. Might be why LS6 was cut short.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Think writing is on the wall, steam and reLS1 did not do this game any favors. Might be why LS6 was cut short.

You made three statements, and none of them are correct.

The writing is not on the wall.

Steam and LS 1 did do the game favors.

LS 6 was not cut short.

[Dante.1508]

9 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

SWTOR didn't just go into maintenance mode. It went from one EA studio (BioWare) to another one (Broadsword) also with half the team of SWTOR going to Broadsword.

And I think that you mistake this forum for a place where the larger player base comes to discuss things. Most players never come here. The main thing that angers people (and they have a point imo) is how they're treating the legendary runes situation. But very few players actually have legendary runes at all, so that is not a concern for the vast majority of the player base.

Broadsword manages maintenance mmo's two at this time, very old ones. So many people are saying SWTOR is in maintenance mode, is it? Time will tell. Hopefully GW2 will have a longer shelf life but if SoTO isn't received well, who knows. 

  

9 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I got curious, so here's the GW2 YOY earnings in millions of KRW, adjusted for inflation to 2022 numbers:

2012 - 193,399

2013 - 142,811

2014 - 97,923

2015 - 114,145

2016 - 86,181

2017 - 57,948

2018 - 87,142

2019 - 63,554

2020 - 65,869

2021 - 77,497

2022 - 94,972

Last year was the best year for GW2 sales since 2015.

 

If that is Korean numbers for a whole year we could be in bigger trouble than we gamers think.. Those numbers are really small for a MMORPG. and gaming in general. I wonder how NCSoft is taking all this in. Do we have figures for their other MMO's?

I was told this week by a EB Games staffer that Guildwars 2 Gem cards in Australia have been discontinued.. Which means we can no longer get them, he told me to buy what i can because when their supply ends its gone forever..

I'm not sure how to take that as once my gem cards are gone i honestly cannot buy anymore Gems now due to the crazy conversion prices added to them.. I might need to stop, which means i might not be playing much in the future. which means even less money to this game..

Edited July 25, 2023 by Dante.1508

[Vayne.8563]

43 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

Broadsword manages maintenance mmo's two at this time, very old ones. So many people are saying SWTOR is in maintenance mode, is it? Time will tell. Hopefully GW2 will have a longer shelf life but if SoTO isn't received well, who knows. 

  

If that is Korean numbers for a whole year we could be in bigger trouble than we gamers think.. Those numbers are really small for a MMORPG. and gaming in general. I wonder how NCSoft is taking all this in. Do we have figures for their other MMO's?

I was told this week by a EB Games staffer that Guildwars 2 Gem cards in Australia have been discontinued.. Which means we can no longer get them, he told me to buy what i can because when their supply ends its gone forever..

I'm not sure how to take that as once my gem cards are gone i honestly cannot buy anymore Gems now due to the crazy conversion prices added to them.. I might need to stop, which means i might not be playing much in the future. which means even less money to this game..

They essentially took the year off to work on the game and futureproof it.  I'm pretty sure they knew straight up they'd have a lower revenue this year, considering they weren't adding things in as much that gave them revenue. But fixing the trading post and finalizing DX 11 and working toward finally getting a beta that included alliances, and making changes to the way the game is structured were all designed so they could move forward more sustainably. 

Sales are always about expectations. The raw numbers without knowing that expectation tells half the story.

That said, I do agree with you on one thing. Soto will be a game changer for this game one way or another. If it's well received, the game goes back on track, but that's the gamble, isn't it.  If it's not well received, that's a different story.