Will GW2 survive as NCSoft's second least profitable title?

[Faline.8795]

With the recent quarterly report coming out naming GW2 as second-to-last in income revenue, would they be asking if the money being put into GW2 be better spent on another title that costs less and makes more money?

If they spent $1 on GW2 and made $1.20, but on some other title they can spend $1 and make $1.75, wouldn't that $1 be better spent elsewhere?

This is one of the reasons I just can't see an expac announcement coming, but who knows?

They haven't shut down Aion yet, so there's that.

[Ben K.6238]

Shutting down all your products except for a small handful that make the most money is not always a good way of doing business; the customers that don't pay as much are still customers and are still paying. Until you're operating at a loss it's always better to have them than not to.

[Zaklex.6308]

ArenaNet has no other title to spend money on, you need to look at it from that perspective.

[Randulf.7614]

If Anarchy Online can survive 18 years with a handful of players and no major content for just about 15 years, I feel pretty confident GW2 will be fine

[mindcircus.1506]

@Randulf.7614 said:If Anarchy Online can survive 18 years with a handful of players and no major content for just about 15 years, I feel pretty confident GW2 will be fine

City of Heroes players said similar things.

[Strider Pj.2193]

So.... revenue doesn’t mean profit....

And it doesn’t give you margin either.

Revenue (if that is what you saw) is more of a raw number. So, if you truly saw revenue, but didn’t see EXPENSE, then you really don’t have an idea how the product is doing.

GW2 has always been relatively small. Revenue is likely to be small. But if the margin is 25%, (as an arbitrary number) they’ll leave it alone. If margin is 5%, that’s a different thing altogether.

[Faline.8795]

@Strider Pj.2193 said:So.... revenue doesn’t mean profit....

And it doesn’t give you margin either.

Revenue (if that is what you saw) is more of a raw number. So, if you truly saw revenue, but didn’t see EXPENSE, then you really don’t have an idea how the product is doing.

GW2 has always been relatively small. Revenue is likely to be small. But if the margin is 25%, (as an arbitrary number) they’ll leave it alone. If margin is 5%, that’s a different thing altogether.

You are absolutely right about that. We can however hypothesize. We do know that MMOs have a heavy outlay for design. These things aren't cheap to make.

Now, if we weren't getting any more content, that would be one thing. But of course, no one wants maintenance mode.

[otto.5684]

@Faline.8795 said:With the recent quarterly report coming out naming GW2 as second-to-last in income revenue, would they be asking if the money being put into GW2 be better spent on another title that costs less and makes more money?

If they spent $1 on GW2 and made $1.20, but on some other title they can spend $1 and make $1.75, wouldn't that $1 be better spent elsewhere?

This is one of the reasons I just can't see an expac announcement coming, but who knows?

They haven't shut down Aion yet, so there's that.

I have not looked at financials, margins or statistics but GW2 is probably NCSOFT biggest game. Looking at margins alone is no where close to enough. 5% of million dollars is way more than 20% $10,000. And generally, as things get larger margins typically get smaller.

Also, did you take in consideration GW brand name? This game will keep going for years and we could potentially see GW3 and maybe more. A new title that has one-two good margin years does not guarantee future cash returns.

Bottom line, there is no indication that GW is going away any time soon.

[Westenev.5289]

@otto.5684 said:Also, did you take in consideration GW brand name? This game will keep going for years and we could potentially see GW3 and maybe more. A new title that has one-two good margin years does not guarantee future cash returns.

I only found out about this game from a friend of a friend, and many of my friends who don't play have never heard of the game. :# Compare this to something like Maple Story, WoW or Runescape - brand names any mmorpg noob will have heard at least once.

Don't get me wrong, GW2 is a fun game, but I feel like the brand name is about as obscure as the many korean mmo's on the market.

[Vayne.8563]

You're looking at this all wrong. NcSoft's most popular title is Lineage and has been forever. Lineage failed in the US however and closed down. Guild Wars 2 is NcSoft's most popular title in the west. Everything else in the west has failed. Is there are value to having a western presence for an international company? Of course there is. Unless the NcSoft West gets a much more popular MMO, NcSoft will be sticking with Guild Wars 2. It's important for them to have that presence.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Randulf.7614 said:If Anarchy Online can survive 18 years with a handful of players and no major content for just about 15 years, I feel pretty confident GW2 will be fine

Yeah, Marine Corps billboards randomly all over Tyria will probably improve the aesthetics of the game.

[Tinker.6924]

In case anyone is curioushttp://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/quarterly.aspxThink critically, demand evidence, make your own choices

NCSoft as a whole is profitable. Always good but no guarantees that stuff won't get cut.GW2 has been fairly consistent over the last 3 quarters including at least 1 quarter which had minor content released (LW4 last chapter). That is a good sign.

It doesn't matter if GW2 was the "worst performing" game in NCSoft's portfolio, it does matter if it's profitable and those numbers aren't provided.

[Thundabolt.8541]

This feels like the title of a clickbait article tbh

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Faline.8795 said:With the recent quarterly report coming out naming GW2 as second-to-last in income revenue, would they be asking if the money being put into GW2 be better spent on another title that costs less and makes more money?

If they spent $1 on GW2 and made $1.20, but on some other title they can spend $1 and make $1.75, wouldn't that $1 be better spent elsewhere?

This is one of the reasons I just can't see an expac announcement coming, but who knows?

They haven't shut down Aion yet, so there's that.

second to last to what? anybody have link

[Dawdler.8521]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:If Anarchy Online can survive 18 years with a handful of players and no major content for just about 15 years, I feel pretty confident GW2 will be fine

Yeah, Marine Corps billboards randomly all over Tyria will probably improve the aesthetics of the game.Billboards? Ah that brings me back... BF2142 billboards was toned down heavily and barely used due to the community rebelling against it as immersion breaking adware. Electronic Arts first Battlefield game couldnt be seen as

evil

now, could it?

Unfortunetly the gaming world monetization dumpster fire was already smoldering.

[Vayne.8563]

@Faline.8795 said:

@"Trise.2865" said:Ah, the daily "GW2 is dying! " thread. Missed a couple days there, was starting to get worried.

I didn't say GW2 is dying.

I stated an economic fact (GW2 is the second-lowest revenue producer), a business fact (why spend money on a low-profit venture when you can spend it on a high-profit venture) and then asked a question based on those facts.

But you didn't state the fact that Guild Wars 2 is NcSoft West's #1 product. lol

[Sylvari.2953]

The funny thing about the NCsoft report is that every game is P2W on it except for GW2 so no wonder it makes less money. For a non-P2W game, GW2 is doing fine. Also, GW2 is the most popular game from that list (in the west) because it's the only game which is among "the big 4" -> GW2, ESO, FFXIV, WoW. So I don't think NCsoft would want to lose their most popular western game.

[Josiah.2967]

Guild Wars 2 lackluster content releases and lack of expansions are to blame. The game is still sustainable with plenty going for it.

[Elmo Benchwarmer.3025]

I made this beautiful coffin of Elder Wood planks.

[maddoctor.2738]

NCsoft is Korean and other than Guild Wars 2, the other games are very popular in Korea but not as much outside Korea. Lineage for example doesn't even exist outside Korea, even though it's NCsoft's biggest seller. Guild Wars 2 is the second to last in income, but how is it doing in the territories that it is released (NA+EU)?

If a great deal of the revenue from Blade and Soul and Lineage II come from Korea, then Guild Wars 2 might be the most successful NCsoft game in the west. Which matters more than the total, because without it, NCsoft has much less income from the west.

Edit: right under the sales figures for individual games is the total revenue per region.NA/EU revenue is at 25192. Guild Wars 2 revenue, which is ONLY released in NA/EU is at 15882. All the other games combined reached 9310 in revenue, which is far less than what Guild Wars 2 made. If games need to shut down due to revenue it's Blade and Soul, Aion and Lineage II in the West, all combined have much lower revenue than Guild Wars 2.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Knighthonor.4061" said:second to last to what? anybody have link

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/quarterly.aspx

Keep in mind that in the games graphs they combine the revenue from all regions. In the West alone Guild Wars 2 revenue is higher than all the other games combined.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@Ben K.6238 said:Shutting down all your products except for a small handful that make the most money is not always a good way of doing business; the customers that don't pay as much are still customers and are still paying. Until you're operating at a loss it's always better to have them than not to.

This.

NCsoft is already treading on thin ice when it comes to consumer trust. GW2 is a game that while not the most profitable, is actually one of their most popular. If NCsoft shut GW2 down the amount of faith people lost in them from shutting down Wildstar would seem like pennies in comparison. The fact is even if they are only breaking even on GW2, NCsoft needs a game like this -a stable, non pay2win game with a large community- in their library, because without it they lack community presence which in the game industry is worth its weight in diamonds.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

This is rarely how large companies operate. If you want to talk real business, diversification is often a better business strategy than a monolithic approach. Single-product businesses are more susceptible to insolvency because there is a single failure point. Often, a business will get to a certain level of revenue and profitability with a product/service and growth will slow. This can be due to many factors, one of which is competition. Mobile is selling big, but there are an awful of of mobile games out there. In such cases investment in the bigger grossing product might produce less profit than the exact same dollar amount invested in something different.

GW2 revenue has varied across the last three quarters only by small amounts. It was down in Q2 (from Q1) by 58M KWon -- a little over $48,000 US, but still a tiny bit above Q4/18. If GW2 was contributing to profits over the two quarters prior to Q2/19, and ANet's costs are down due to the layoffs, there is no reason to assume that ANet is not contributing more to the bottom line due to lower costs and similar revenue.

[Cynder.2509]

In my opinion ArenaNet should get rid of NCSoft and make a partnership/deal with another company which is much fairer in this case. If all things go down I'd even say they should be bought by Blizzard even though that isn't the nicest company either but at least they're more stabilized in revenue matters so they won't have to rely on one studio making the money for them.

[Ayakaru.6583]

I don't know if the game is doing good or bad, as revenue alone doesn't say much.

But shutting it down will be bad.There are still paying customers, Ann's shutting down gw2 won't move those resources to games. They will just stop