GW2 2Q 2023 Earnings

[Izzy.2951]

http://imgur.com/Tatvpe2.jpg

 

PD: Full article: http://irsvc.teletogether.com/ncsoft/pdf/ncsoft2023Q2_eng.pdf

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Astralporing.1957]

I don't know whee the link is supposed to take you, but for me it takes me to r/funny

[Izzy.2951]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I don't know whee the link is supposed to take you, but for me it takes me to r/funny

Hello, ive tried changing it to imgur following a guide that i saw on the forum, and the image still wont load directly on the forum. Cant do much more, unless some1 tell me how to or edit it.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

33 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Yeah, reducing earnings, certainly.

according to the pic in the OP, yes. Also, games cost more to maintain due inflation, so you need to make more than a year ago or you're losing money.

[Astralporing.1957]

35 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Yeah, reducing earnings, certainly.

Well, there was the usual "expansion effect" with EoD, and then, again as usual, everything started to go down with each following quarter. So, "as usual". Except the starting point for EoD was significantly lower than it was for HoT and PoF. The decline is real.

I fully expect SotO to bring some increase to earnings, but whenther it will be able to go even as high as EoD was is not sure. And if SotO will be as disappointing as everything points to it being, then each subsequent "LS-expansion" will likely start lower and lower.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

10 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

according to the pic in the OP, yes. Also, games cost more to maintain due inflation, so you need to make more than a year ago or you're losing money.

The whole "GW2 is losing money due to <insert some in game reason here>" garbage gets brought up almost every time the earnings get brought up. EoD outsold PoF, the game - even now after barely any new content since EoD - has higher earnings than pre PoF., early IBS and even the second half of LWS4, something people love to cherish as "the game was better back then".

So technically catering to the "woke/snowflake" crowd IS paying off or they wouldn't be doing it.

[Zok.4956]

Here's the updated image of quarterly sales since release:  
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/685436537827098645/1138795199477321738/gw2-sales-2012q3-2023q2.png

So, the downtrend I mentioned in previous quarterly  report ....

... continues in 2Q-2023, but it is not that much, compared to the previous quarters.

3Q-2023 will be the quarter where the expansion SotO will be released, and also the pre-purchase sales of the expansion will be included in that report. 

I expect 3Q-2023 quarterly sales to be significantly higher due to expansion sales. How much higher it will be will be interesting and will probably decide whether SotO and the new direction of the game can be considered a financial success.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Zok.4956

[Izzy.2951]

29 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

The whole "GW2 is losing money due to <insert some in game reason here>" garbage gets brought up almost every time the earnings get brought up. EoD outsold PoF, the game - even now after barely any new content since EoD - has higher earnings than pre PoF., early IBS and even the second half of LWS4, something people love to cherish as "the game was better back then".

So technically catering to the "woke/snowflake" crowd IS paying off or they wouldn't be doing it.

Cantha was the most sold expansion in GW1. EoD according to Q1 2023 NCsoft reports China made their best earning quarter EVER since the game was released there.

I think your getting this wrong, they played people to pre-purchase EoD and come back for Cantha (a beloved continent in gw universe). A lot of people did and tried to give the game more chances, but the content was simply not there and the quality was going down. They played people with Direct x11, Steam and Alliance as being game changing + 10th anniversary and ppl sticked to support gw2 and this "new direction" and it ended up not being much. At this point i think its better for Arenanet to never release Alliances and have it as a "big thing" (that is not) coming just to keep people hooked. 

People started to doom at the end of last chear seeing cheap updates, continue dooming with Gyala Delve (the worst posible episode/map we have seen so far). And people keep dooming now cos they see SoTo as another cheap, non sustancial thing as Gyala Delve and even EoD was. Earnings will keep going down even tho they are releasing more skins than ever + mini expansions.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Well, there was the usual "expansion effect" with EoD, and then, again as usual, everything started to go down with each following quarter. So, "as usual". Except the starting point for EoD was significantly lower than it was for HoT and PoF. The decline is real.

The quarter before HoT and EoD were on the same revenue level, only the quarter before PoF was significantly lower. And still HoT and PoF releases have higher revenue peaks at the release quarter and/or the quarter after compared to EoD.

 

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I fully expect SotO to bring some increase to earnings, but whenther it will be able to go even as high as EoD was is not sure. And if SotO will be as disappointing as everything points to it being, then each subsequent "LS-expansion" will likely start lower and lower.

I suspect that the legendary open world PvE armor and also the easier acquisition of Skyscale will ensure that many players will buy the expansion for this reasons alone and that the number of players will be higher for the next few months. But at some point the "need" for it will be covered and Anet will no longer have such a "simple" source of revenue after that.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Zok.4956

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

according to the pic in the OP, yes. Also, games cost more to maintain due inflation, so you need to make more than a year ago or you're losing money.

Except you also have to adjust that graph for inflation. Those 2023 KRW are worth more than those 2016 KRW. Inflation adjusted, they have more income than they’ve had over the last 8 years or so.

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Zok.4956]

7 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

PD: Full article: http://irsvc.teletogether.com/ncsoft/pdf/ncsoft2023Q2_eng.pdf

Here is the official page of NCSofts earnings reports: https://kr.ncsoft.com/en/ir/irArchive/earningsRelease.do 

[Zok.4956]

16 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Except you also have to adjust that graph for inflation. Those 2023 KRW are worth more than those 2016 KRW. Inflation adjusted, they are have more income than they’ve had over the last 8 years or so.

 

In order to better compare the value and impact of the profit made with previous periods, it can make sense to adjust the values in relation to inflation.

But we don't know Anet's profit because NCSoft doesn't disclose the costs of GW2/Anet. The cost usually depends on inflation. Increased sales due to inflation can be offset by increased costs due to inflation.

And: Adjusting sales for inflation doesn't make much sense in this case. The sales development does not depend directly on inflation, but rather on the changing product offered and the arbitrary pricing of Anet (a lower price usually leads to more units sold and can therefore lead to a higher total sales than a higher price).

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

45 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Cantha was the most sold expansion in GW1. EoD according to Q1 2023 NCsoft reports China made their best earning quarter EVER since the game was released there.

I think your getting this wrong, they played people to pre-purchase EoD and come back for Cantha (a beloved continent in gw universe). A lot of people did and tried to give the game more chances, but the content was simply not there and the quality was going down. They played people with Direct x11, Steam and Alliance as being game changing + 10th anniversary and ppl sticked to support gw2 and this "new direction" and it ended up not being much. At this point i think its better for Arenanet to never release Alliances and have it as a "big thing" (that is not) coming just to keep people hooked. 

People started to doom at the end of last chear seeing cheap updates, continue dooming with Gyala Delve (the worst posible episode/map we have seen so far). And people keep dooming now cos they see SoTo as another cheap, non sustancial thing as Gyala Delve and even EoD was. Earnings will keep going down even tho they are releasing more skins than ever + mini expansions.

If EoD was so disappointing and the quality was going down the earnings after EoD's release wouldn't be comparable to LWS4.  Just as I wrote in my post, the "good old days" had less earning for Anet than the "low quality" content we have now. 
Anet didn't market DX11 or the Steam release as game changing, people just hyped it up despite obviously not being as big of a deal. EoD didn't get much marketing and most of the reveals were met with quite a lot of complaints over what they showed, they showed us what to expect from Cantha early on, they weren't showing off GW1's Cantha only to swap it out the day before release.

Expecting a "new difrection" to be something much is a big mistake and was something many of my friends fell into, because they were new to the game and haven't seen the previous 89 million new directions.

Don't blame people hyping up releases or updates on Anet and especially don't use them as a reason to try to prove the quality is dropping.

You are the one getting it wrong, if the game is going down the drain the earnings don't go up, they go down. 

[Jianyu.7065]

I believe if this is the information you're using to formulate your opinions of this game - whether it's good or bad - then why are you playing?

The fact this is posted here for any of us to care about just shows that some players don't care about playing a game that THEY like, they care about playing games that everyone likes. Players are in this post invoking political hate terms out of context as a reason for decline - is this really necessary....

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, Zok.4956 said:

In order to better compare the value and impact of the profit made with previous periods, it can make sense to adjust the values in relation to inflation.

But we don't know Anet's profit because NCSoft doesn't disclose the costs of GW2/Anet. The cost usually depends on inflation. Increased sales due to inflation can be offset by increased costs due to inflation.

And: Adjusting sales for inflation doesn't make much sense in this case. The sales development does not depend directly on inflation, but rather on the changing product offered and the arbitrary pricing of Anet (a lower price usually leads to more units sold and can therefore lead to a higher total sales than a higher price).

Agreed that profit would be better info, but unfortunately all we have to go on is income.

As to inflation, I was specifically responding to the idea that steady numbers year over year is actually a reduction due to inflation. Which doesn’t take into account that 2023 KRW are worth more than 2016 KRW.

Costs may be up; we don’t know, because they don’t report costs by product. But you can’t “but inflation” costs like the post I responded to while looking at a graph that doesn’t reflect inflation.

[Zok.4956]

3 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

As to inflation, I was specifically responding to the idea that steady numbers year over year is actually a reduction due to inflation. Which doesn’t take into account that 2023 KRW are worth more than 2016 KRW.

ok.

 

3 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Costs may be up; we don’t know, because they don’t report costs by product. But you can’t “but inflation” costs like the post I responded to while looking at a graph that doesn’t reflect inflation.

I agree.

[Zekent.3652]

4 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

I guess catering to the woke/snowflake crowd is paying off, huh?

Honestly, this is not twitter, stop calling "woke/snowflake" to anything that you don't like.

Just enjoy the game.

[Gravitron.7982]

Nice, I was waiting to see how GW2 did in Q3, looks like the trend is downward, not upward. I'm anxious to see if this trend continues.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

The writing WAS pants in EoD though, it's hard to argue against that point. Then again I wasn't expecting much storywise - the story in GW2 is basically high-school drama with sci-fi. You guys remember those dodgy Aussie kids sci-fi shows in the 90s? It's basically that but a little bit worse.

Thankfully there's more to GW2 than the writing, so if the new gameplay mechanics and maps are interesting enough, I'll buy it for that. For me the world of GW2 has always been more interesting than the individual stories of the teenage NPCs that inhabit it.

I think for many adults playing the game, we didn't buy EoD for the story, and probably won't be buying the next expansions for the story either. Don't get too caught up in throwing 'woke' around, it's not like any of us watched The Expendables for its deep and meaningful story either, is it? That's kind of what GW2's writing is - it's The Expendables for a generation raised on feels instead of 90s action hero bodybuilders. In a decade or so the cycle will continue, and GW2 will be regarded as some kind of reactionary trope.

Edited August 9, 2023 by nosleepdemon.1368

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

Hopefully more resournces will be spent in the OW (where the majority are) and we don't repeat the same mistakes (more OW hardareas to syphon resources from the casuals like Soo Won) Thankfully there is HoT + Soon Won + Triple Trouble + Cleanig Ire for those people that love good fights.

If people dont like/boycot new mechanics to introduce new people to instances ... then it doesnt worth it and should spent elsewere (WvW and afterwards in PvP) . The only remain options is the auto-lfg  and it doesnt  work ...well........bad luck.. the game must contnue to thrive in other areas and bring new blood  😛

 

Spoiler

(too bad , that one expansion had to sucrified , to speed things up)

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

The writing WAS pants in EoD though, it's hard to argue against that point. Then again I wasn't expecting much storywise - the story in GW2 is basically high-school drama with sci-fi. You guys remember those dodgy Aussie kids sci-fi shows in the 90s? It's basically that but a little bit worse.

Farscape was fun for a few seasons.

[Zok.4956]

6 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

according to Q1 2023 NCsoft reports China made their best earning quarter EVER since the game was released there.

In the current Q2 conference call, the first quarter of 2023 with the highest sales ever in China was cited as the reason why GW2 sales slightly decreased from Q1 to Q2. However, NCsoft didn't say why GW2 had such high sales in China in Q1 2023.

Apart from the fact that it was also mentioned that the expansion will be released on the 22nd and that they will try to provide content on a more regular basis from then on, GW2 was not mentioned in the earnings conference call. Even in the subsequent Q+A, no questions were asked about GW2. 

I think at the next earnings conference call in November, when Q3 is being discussed, it might be a bit more about GW2.

[Zok.4956]

6 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

7 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

I think your getting this wrong, they played people to pre-purchase EoD and come back for Cantha (a beloved continent in gw universe).

If EoD was so disappointing and the quality was going down the earnings after EoD's release wouldn't be comparable to LWS4.

There are more reasons for EoD sales/(pre-)purchases than the (good or bad) quality of EoD. Anet confirmed in an interview that COVID has led to a significant increase in the number of players (returning old and also new players). And after that, Anet's stated goal was to keep that momentum going. I think, with things like the legendary armory (more players farming for legys) and the "return to" events (free episode unlocks, achievements, legy trinket, aurene legy precursor, lots of map currencies) etc., Anet was able to keep up the high number of players and that also led to higher sales.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Zok.4956

[nosleepdemon.1368]

4 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Farscape was fun for a few seasons.

It was good fun yeah!

[Voyant.1327]

11 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Anet's stated goal was to keep that momentum going.

That momentum imo ended in the first nightmare balance patch of June 22, and then just before they drop this expansion they pushed a bunch of players away with the second nightmare balance patch of June 23. 

Everyone I played with went to other games between those two events.

They just patched the fun out of it for a lot of us tbh & show no signs of balancing towards enjoyment.