The part where it says the exceeded their expectations by $1 million? Sure did.Oh i see you want me to see the part about taking a loss at launch.Not the part where they actually retain customers and make money......
You do realize that technically if they have two paying customers you could say that they retain customers right?
How can anyone say the 2Q (or the launch) was successful. The freakin company lost 6 million dollars in 3 months DESPITE 800k box sales. How much money are they going to lose in the 3Q without those box sales. You can say 800k boxes surpassed expectations
You can say 400k 'customers' as of june 30 beat expectations But who cares if a company that is deep in debt lost even more money. Funcom has been living the past year by borrowing money. That money was loaned to them with the expectation that AoC would be profitable and the loan would be repayed. Funcom clearly is not going to be profitable unless they completely gut their development teams for all of their projects (which it appears they already fired most of the AoC development team since the only patches that have been implemented in the last 2 months have been very 'light' on content and 'heavy' on bugs). Funcom is in debt, is spending more money then they make every quarter... and now that AoC is out, they really can't use it as leverage to get more loans. Funcom will be out of business by January, at some point soon they are not going to be able to make the payments on their loans.
Ahh here we go out of business by January.
Care to tell us where the loan came from?Out of all the things that have been speculated this is the 1st ive heard of a "loan".
No, there was no loan. 30 million to make the game came from Funcom employees' personal savings.
"Funcom also says that the average playtime per player is lower than it expected,"
Yea, because those subscribers aren't playing anymore.
This is mainly because Funcom has been billing a lot of people after they cancelled their accounts. I'm sure there are people out there who paid for a month and didn't even know their account is still playable.
The other side it the people who just flat out gave up on the game and are just waiting for their accounts to expire. If you read the official forums, there a ton of people who say " if you hate the game, why are you still posting".. and the response is always that they are just waiting for thier time to expire.
One positive thing for funcom though.. there forums are actually getting more positive, since only a few dozen fanboys remain.
Ahh here we go out of business by January. Care to tell us where the loan came from?Out of all the things that have been speculated this is the 1st ive heard of a "loan".It hasnt even been mentioned in any type of news. Please enlighten us.
still waiting for your response to my posts OP
Well keep on waiting because i really could care less it us just a game.
I dont even play AoC as i had to quit due to real life.When i did play the game was fine nothing wrong with it.
Im linking to this article .Go ahead and attempt to debunk it and even try to say the website the article is linked to is on the take from FC. FC is opening in new markets.Doesnt look so bad to me.They made more than the loss they took and the article says 1 patch every week.Seems to me they are looking forward to the future. Go ahead and flame and tell the rest of us how FC is going bankrupt or is goimg to be bought out or even just going out of business.
So far the game has sold-in (to retail and digitally)
over 1.2 million copies and has sold through over
800.000 copies
Taken from FunCom's Q2 2008 report (where gamesutra got their data)
1.2 million sold.... (800,000 boxes, 400,000 digital downloads...
415,000 current players .....
33% retention rate
PWND.... consider yourself debunked
33% retention rate = HORRIB
Considering what crap AoC is 33% would actually be good. But wait till they have to give out real numbers for July and August now that most have lost hope and we are downloading the Warhammer open beta. I only know of 1 person from our guild (had 31 people at launch) that is staying in AoC the rest of us have quit or will be in a couple of days when the subs run out.
Im linking to this article .Go ahead and attempt to debunk it and even try to say the website the article is linked to is on the take from FC. FC is opening in new markets.Doesnt look so bad to me.They made more than the loss they took and the article says 1 patch every week.Seems to me they are looking forward to the future. Go ahead and flame and tell the rest of us how FC is going bankrupt or is goimg to be bought out or even just going out of business.
So far the game has sold-in (to retail and digitally)
over 1.2 million copies and has sold through over
800.000 copies
Taken from FunCom's Q2 2008 report (where gamesutra got their data)
1.2 million sold.... (800,000 boxes, 400,000 digital downloads...
415,000 current players .....
33% retention rate
PWND.... consider yourself debunked
33% retention rate = HORRIB
Considering what crap AoC is 33% would actually be good. But wait till they have to give out real numbers for July and August now that most have lost hope and we are downloading the Warhammer open beta. I only know of 1 person from our guild (had 31 people at launch) that is staying in AoC the rest of us have quit or will be in a couple of days when the subs run out.
Funcom announced with it's second quarter numbers that it would not be providing subscription numbers any more. It's kinda like how they set all their servers to show 'medium' load and disabled the /who feature.
The only thing will will definitely be able to see (probably the beginning of November) is how big their loss is for the third quarter... and more importantly how big their negative cash flow number comes in at, and how much cash on hand they have.
Funcom announced with it's second quarter numbers that it would not be providing subscription numbers any more. It's kinda like how they set all their servers to show 'medium' load and disabled the /who feature. The only thing will will definitely be able to see (probably the beginning of November) is how big their loss is for the third quarter... and more importantly how big their negative cash flow number comes in at, and how much cash on hand they have.
Because we can figure out Funcom's other revenue streams with relative precision (within 1 million dollars) determining Funcom's subscription rates should be easy by Q3.
How can anyone say the 2Q (or the launch) was successful. The freakin company lost 6 million dollars in 3 months DESPITE 800k box sales. How much money are they going to lose in the 3Q without those box sales. You can say 800k boxes surpassed expectations
You can say 400k 'customers' as of june 30 beat expectations But who cares if a company that is deep in debt lost even more money. Funcom has been living the past year by borrowing money. That money was loaned to them with the expectation that AoC would be profitable and the loan would be repayed. Funcom clearly is not going to be profitable unless they completely gut their development teams for all of their projects (which it appears they already fired most of the AoC development team since the only patches that have been implemented in the last 2 months have been very 'light' on content and 'heavy' on bugs). Funcom is in debt, is spending more money then they make every quarter... and now that AoC is out, they really can't use it as leverage to get more loans. Funcom will be out of business by January, at some point soon they are not going to be able to make the payments on their loans.
Ahh here we go out of business by January.
Care to tell us where the loan came from?Out of all the things that have been speculated this is the 1st ive heard of a "loan".It hasnt even been mentioned in any type of news.
Please enlighten us.
It is obvious if you look at the Q2 finacials (not presentation) I will direct your attention to the catagory of "Equity and LIABILITIES" (my highlighting)
at 30 June in 07, they had no long term and 4,766 TUSD short term. By the end of 07 they had gained 1,618 TUSD Long term and 6,486 TUSD Short term liabilities.
Keep in mind this is where LOANS and other debts to outside orginizations are listed.
Fast forward to 30 June 08. Long term has risen to 2,915 TUSD and short term has ballooned to 21, 825 TUSD is liabilities. If I am not mistaken,short term indicates needing to be paid within up to 2 years.
From these facts, I believe quite a few loans were taken.
As for my qualifications? I am a manager of a retail store of a national chain of stores, where we have to go over a profit/loss report monthly (today as a matter of fact) with corporate. If you have any other questions, ask away.
Funcom announced with it's second quarter numbers that it would not be providing subscription numbers any more. It's kinda like how they set all their servers to show 'medium' load and disabled the /who feature. The only thing will will definitely be able to see (probably the beginning of November) is how big their loss is for the third quarter... and more importantly how big their negative cash flow number comes in at, and how much cash on hand they have.
Because we can figure out Funcom's other revenue streams with relative precision (within 1 million dollars) determining Funcom's subscription rates should be easy by Q3.
Lit
I really don't think figuring out subscription numbers will be as easy as you think. The big reason is that even if you assume the 415k number was June 30th, then you still have to figure out what part of that 415k was actually people who subscribed and what part was just 'customers'. Funcom probably threw the kitchen sink into the 'customers' total to inflate the number.
We can probably get close just by taking total revenues /$15 /3months While it will be a little bit favorable to them, but probably fairly accurate. Box sales have completely dried up this quarter, so their 20% take in that should be insignificant, and their revenues from any other source will be negligible also.
The big thing to remember also is that they will be reporting in November for the 3Q which ends Sept 30. There is a very good possiblility that a large portion of their current subscribers will pay all the way until the end of Sept and then jump to Warhammer. So our projected 'subscribers' based on the financial information will be much higher than their actual subscribers as of Sept 30th.
Me personally though, I don't care about subscribers.. what I'm curious about is how fast their cash on hand is deterioriating. My estimate is they will lose about 13M in cashflow and have about 16M cash on hand... which makes January the end of Funcom.
It is obvious if you look at the Q2 finacials (not presentation) I will direct your attention to the catagory of "Equity and LIABILITIES" (my highlighting)
at 30 June in 07, they had no long term and 4,766 TUSD short term. By the end of 07 they had gained 1,618 TUSD Long term and 6,486 TUSD Short term liabilities. Keep in mind this is where LOANS and other debts to outside orginizations are listed. Fast forward to 30 June 08. Long term has risen to 2,915 TUSD and short term has ballooned to 21, 825 TUSD is liabilities. If I am not mistaken,short term indicates needing to be paid within up to 2 years. From these facts, I believe quite a few loans were taken. As for my qualifications? I am a manager of a retail store of a national chain of stores, where we have to go over a profit/loss report monthly (today as a matter of fact) with corporate. If you have any other questions, ask away.
And this is fair...but realize Funcom also has far more cash in hand than they did back then too. They haven't spent all of it.
The risk/reward ratio was there for all to see. If AoC pulled 500k subscribers they would generate 22.5 million in revenue a quarter and they would be in the black with enough money to fund all their future revenue titles and Funcom stock would explode...making many investors rich. If it backfired...well...it was going to get ugly.
But i think even in their wildest imaginations they didn't think the situation would implode this fast.
It is obvious if you look at the Q2 finacials (not presentation) I will direct your attention to the catagory of "Equity and LIABILITIES" (my highlighting)
at 30 June in 07, they had no long term and 4,766 TUSD short term. By the end of 07 they had gained 1,618 TUSD Long term and 6,486 TUSD Short term liabilities. Keep in mind this is where LOANS and other debts to outside orginizations are listed. Fast forward to 30 June 08. Long term has risen to 2,915 TUSD and short term has ballooned to 21, 825 TUSD is liabilities. If I am not mistaken,short term indicates needing to be paid within up to 2 years. From these facts, I believe quite a few loans were taken. As for my qualifications? I am a manager of a retail store of a national chain of stores, where we have to go over a profit/loss report monthly (today as a matter of fact) with corporate. If you have any other questions, ask away.
And this is fair...but realize Funcom also has far more cash in hand than they did back then too. They haven't spent all of it.
The risk/reward ratio was there for all to see. If AoC pulled 500k subscribers they would generate 22.5 million in revenue a quarter and they would be in the black with enough money to fund all their future revenue titles and Funcom stock would explode...making many investors rich. If it backfired...well...it was going to get ugly.
But i think even in their wildest imaginations they didn't think the situation would implode this fast.
Lit
I appologise for not being clearer. I was more addressing his comment on the loans. My opinion on how the company is doing is a much longer and more involved post I have decided not to bore everyone here with.
me good at number, one, two, three... me know big thing about market, me guru of wall st.
ook pea brains, just out of curiosity i looked at the companys finc. statements to see what all the hoopla is about. and these ARE THE FACTS.
the company has ample liquid assests in the form of cash equivalents (this is good thing, you know, money)
the company's revolving debt (attributed to creation and sale of physical product) to is more or less on par with its short term accts receivables (attributed to things such as subs, and box sales) - (these should be equal, with FC it is for the most part, this is a good thing)
the company' debt equity (D/E) ratio, is 0.2 ballparking it without a calculator, this is VERY conservative, most companies run around a D/E of 3, meaning should they need to they can borrow cash in a heartbeat.
their cash flows are at 1.2x those of 2007 at 1/2 year end, with the company investing the cash heavily - all good things considering as the company is looking to expand and grow (my 1st thought, its difficult to tell with such consolidated finc. statements)
What I - as someone who actually knows what he's talking about - would keep an eye on is future free cash flows. furthermore, the repost presented by FC, is not in the least bit a full financial report it's simply Q2 YTD (year to date) earnings, and if they manage to meet their expected revenues in Q3 and Q4, the game WILL be a sucess. - given you'd need to do a project irr, and npv analyses, for truly accurate results but the info just isnt there and companies dont disclose that sort of thing. and finally the company has a positive return on equity of 4.55 - no idea what the average in their industry is so I can adequately compare.
NOW - as for all you hairless simians, pointing to the stock price falling. it has historically floated in the 20's based on their earnings expectations, with average volume being - again - i'm eyeballing the figure, about 60-100k shares traded daily since the company went public. I'm exlcuding form this number large institutional investors (your i-banks - sorry - investment banks, you know like Merrill Lynchs, JP Morgans) as they tend to throw numbers off a bit. meaning not a hotly traded company in the least bit - meaning, higher trading volumes can adversly affect the stock price of the company.
then as all co's seem to do, the stock begins balooning prior to product launch, and then falls flat to the levels it was prior to launch of any product, especially in companies that are not diversified. This is ofen seen in post IPO (initial public offering) performance of literally 90%+ of companies, the one who managed to bypass this was amazingly Google.
Now, post launch of this game - volumes have surged sometimes to 4.000.000+ shares traded on very specific dates, this leads me to believe that instutional investors are betting on margins, and moving the market. a famous case is when Soros destabilized the british pound. with FC, this is to a much smaller scale, but it's blatantly evident when looking at the trading volume.
The only thing I would do as funcom, is perhaps leverage myself a bit more (take on more debt) and invest tha into the current projects that I'm working on based on my future cash flow expectations from this and other products.
as for the stock, i would follow it, and wait until sales volumes drop off to their pre-AoC levels, or there about, and buy the stock when if and when it reaches below 18ish, i wouldnt say hold or sell at the moment as i have no idea of what the insitiutional investors want to do. but it will be hover at around the 20's - and even at this price the P/E (price to earnings ratio) is still ridiculously high - though I dont know the industry average, it could be perfectly normal - but if it is high, THIS MEANS, that the natural value of the stock should be less, meaning, that because it is so high, INVESTORS believe in the company.
finally as for cash flows - they are based of subscriptions, and while they may be falling in the US, having stable growth rate in the EU, and launching in Poland, Russia soon, and followed by Asia. their market WILL expand, this is a 100% given, and with an expanded market, you have more customers, and more customers, long term, or short term mean revenues, that relate to income, and the bottom line.
as for me, I used to work in investment banking in both New York and London, and decided to quit and have a much more relaxing life as a playwright. Be well chimpies, facts are facts, if you have intelligent comments to make please do so, and not, OMG SUBCRIPTIONS FALLING, FAILCOM DID THIS ON PURPOSE TO MAKE MY AND EVERYONE ELSES LIFE HORRID!!!!!! I QUITTED A YEAR AGO!!!
Comments
You do realize that technically if they have two paying customers you could say that they retain customers right?
Just saying..
Fungerer som det skal
Ahh here we go out of business by January.
Care to tell us where the loan came from?Out of all the things that have been speculated this is the 1st ive heard of a "loan".
No, there was no loan. 30 million to make the game came from Funcom employees' personal savings.
I like this part
"Funcom also says that the average playtime per player is lower than it expected,"
Yea, because those subscribers aren't playing anymore.
This is mainly because Funcom has been billing a lot of people after they cancelled their accounts. I'm sure there are people out there who paid for a month and didn't even know their account is still playable.
The other side it the people who just flat out gave up on the game and are just waiting for their accounts to expire. If you read the official forums, there a ton of people who say " if you hate the game, why are you still posting".. and the response is always that they are just waiting for thier time to expire.
One positive thing for funcom though.. there forums are actually getting more positive, since only a few dozen fanboys remain.
no respect left for avery
goodbye
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
still waiting for your response to my posts OP
Well keep on waiting because i really could care less it us just a game.
I dont even play AoC as i had to quit due to real life.When i did play the game was fine nothing wrong with it.
What is your physical limit?
So far the game has sold-in (to retail and digitally)
over 1.2 million copies and has sold through over
800.000 copies
Taken from FunCom's Q2 2008 report (where gamesutra got their data)
FunCom Q2 2008 Report
1.2 million sold.... (800,000 boxes, 400,000 digital downloads...
415,000 current players .....
33% retention rate
PWND.... consider yourself debunked
33% retention rate = HORRIB
Considering what crap AoC is 33% would actually be good. But wait till they have to give out real numbers for July and August now that most have lost hope and we are downloading the Warhammer open beta. I only know of 1 person from our guild (had 31 people at launch) that is staying in AoC the rest of us have quit or will be in a couple of days when the subs run out.
So far the game has sold-in (to retail and digitally)
over 1.2 million copies and has sold through over
800.000 copies
Taken from FunCom's Q2 2008 report (where gamesutra got their data)
FunCom Q2 2008 Report
1.2 million sold.... (800,000 boxes, 400,000 digital downloads...
415,000 current players .....
33% retention rate
PWND.... consider yourself debunked
33% retention rate = HORRIB
Considering what crap AoC is 33% would actually be good. But wait till they have to give out real numbers for July and August now that most have lost hope and we are downloading the Warhammer open beta. I only know of 1 person from our guild (had 31 people at launch) that is staying in AoC the rest of us have quit or will be in a couple of days when the subs run out.
Funcom announced with it's second quarter numbers that it would not be providing subscription numbers any more. It's kinda like how they set all their servers to show 'medium' load and disabled the /who feature.
The only thing will will definitely be able to see (probably the beginning of November) is how big their loss is for the third quarter... and more importantly how big their negative cash flow number comes in at, and how much cash on hand they have.
Because we can figure out Funcom's other revenue streams with relative precision (within 1 million dollars) determining Funcom's subscription rates should be easy by Q3.
Lit
Ahh here we go out of business by January.
Care to tell us where the loan came from?Out of all the things that have been speculated this is the 1st ive heard of a "loan".It hasnt even been mentioned in any type of news.
Please enlighten us.
It is obvious if you look at the Q2 finacials (not presentation) I will direct your attention to the catagory of "Equity and LIABILITIES" (my highlighting)
at 30 June in 07, they had no long term and 4,766 TUSD short term. By the end of 07 they had gained 1,618 TUSD Long term and 6,486 TUSD Short term liabilities.
Keep in mind this is where LOANS and other debts to outside orginizations are listed.
Fast forward to 30 June 08. Long term has risen to 2,915 TUSD and short term has ballooned to 21, 825 TUSD is liabilities. If I am not mistaken,short term indicates needing to be paid within up to 2 years.
From these facts, I believe quite a few loans were taken.
As for my qualifications? I am a manager of a retail store of a national chain of stores, where we have to go over a profit/loss report monthly (today as a matter of fact) with corporate. If you have any other questions, ask away.
Because we can figure out Funcom's other revenue streams with relative precision (within 1 million dollars) determining Funcom's subscription rates should be easy by Q3.
Lit
I really don't think figuring out subscription numbers will be as easy as you think. The big reason is that even if you assume the 415k number was June 30th, then you still have to figure out what part of that 415k was actually people who subscribed and what part was just 'customers'. Funcom probably threw the kitchen sink into the 'customers' total to inflate the number.
We can probably get close just by taking total revenues /$15 /3months While it will be a little bit favorable to them, but probably fairly accurate. Box sales have completely dried up this quarter, so their 20% take in that should be insignificant, and their revenues from any other source will be negligible also.
The big thing to remember also is that they will be reporting in November for the 3Q which ends Sept 30. There is a very good possiblility that a large portion of their current subscribers will pay all the way until the end of Sept and then jump to Warhammer. So our projected 'subscribers' based on the financial information will be much higher than their actual subscribers as of Sept 30th.
Me personally though, I don't care about subscribers.. what I'm curious about is how fast their cash on hand is deterioriating. My estimate is they will lose about 13M in cashflow and have about 16M cash on hand... which makes January the end of Funcom.
And this is fair...but realize Funcom also has far more cash in hand than they did back then too. They haven't spent all of it.
The risk/reward ratio was there for all to see. If AoC pulled 500k subscribers they would generate 22.5 million in revenue a quarter and they would be in the black with enough money to fund all their future revenue titles and Funcom stock would explode...making many investors rich. If it backfired...well...it was going to get ugly.
But i think even in their wildest imaginations they didn't think the situation would implode this fast.
Lit
And this is fair...but realize Funcom also has far more cash in hand than they did back then too. They haven't spent all of it.
The risk/reward ratio was there for all to see. If AoC pulled 500k subscribers they would generate 22.5 million in revenue a quarter and they would be in the black with enough money to fund all their future revenue titles and Funcom stock would explode...making many investors rich. If it backfired...well...it was going to get ugly.
But i think even in their wildest imaginations they didn't think the situation would implode this fast.
Lit
I appologise for not being clearer. I was more addressing his comment on the loans. My opinion on how the company is doing is a much longer and more involved post I have decided not to bore everyone here with.
Have a good night
me good at number, one, two, three... me know big thing about market, me guru of wall st.
ook pea brains, just out of curiosity i looked at the companys finc. statements to see what all the hoopla is about. and these ARE THE FACTS.
the company has ample liquid assests in the form of cash equivalents (this is good thing, you know, money)
the company's revolving debt (attributed to creation and sale of physical product) to is more or less on par with its short term accts receivables (attributed to things such as subs, and box sales) - (these should be equal, with FC it is for the most part, this is a good thing)
the company' debt equity (D/E) ratio, is 0.2 ballparking it without a calculator, this is VERY conservative, most companies run around a D/E of 3, meaning should they need to they can borrow cash in a heartbeat.
their cash flows are at 1.2x those of 2007 at 1/2 year end, with the company investing the cash heavily - all good things considering as the company is looking to expand and grow (my 1st thought, its difficult to tell with such consolidated finc. statements)
What I - as someone who actually knows what he's talking about - would keep an eye on is future free cash flows. furthermore, the repost presented by FC, is not in the least bit a full financial report it's simply Q2 YTD (year to date) earnings, and if they manage to meet their expected revenues in Q3 and Q4, the game WILL be a sucess. - given you'd need to do a project irr, and npv analyses, for truly accurate results but the info just isnt there and companies dont disclose that sort of thing. and finally the company has a positive return on equity of 4.55 - no idea what the average in their industry is so I can adequately compare.
NOW - as for all you hairless simians, pointing to the stock price falling. it has historically floated in the 20's based on their earnings expectations, with average volume being - again - i'm eyeballing the figure, about 60-100k shares traded daily since the company went public. I'm exlcuding form this number large institutional investors (your i-banks - sorry - investment banks, you know like Merrill Lynchs, JP Morgans) as they tend to throw numbers off a bit. meaning not a hotly traded company in the least bit - meaning, higher trading volumes can adversly affect the stock price of the company.
then as all co's seem to do, the stock begins balooning prior to product launch, and then falls flat to the levels it was prior to launch of any product, especially in companies that are not diversified. This is ofen seen in post IPO (initial public offering) performance of literally 90%+ of companies, the one who managed to bypass this was amazingly Google.
Now, post launch of this game - volumes have surged sometimes to 4.000.000+ shares traded on very specific dates, this leads me to believe that instutional investors are betting on margins, and moving the market. a famous case is when Soros destabilized the british pound. with FC, this is to a much smaller scale, but it's blatantly evident when looking at the trading volume.
The only thing I would do as funcom, is perhaps leverage myself a bit more (take on more debt) and invest tha into the current projects that I'm working on based on my future cash flow expectations from this and other products.
as for the stock, i would follow it, and wait until sales volumes drop off to their pre-AoC levels, or there about, and buy the stock when if and when it reaches below 18ish, i wouldnt say hold or sell at the moment as i have no idea of what the insitiutional investors want to do. but it will be hover at around the 20's - and even at this price the P/E (price to earnings ratio) is still ridiculously high - though I dont know the industry average, it could be perfectly normal - but if it is high, THIS MEANS, that the natural value of the stock should be less, meaning, that because it is so high, INVESTORS believe in the company.
finally as for cash flows - they are based of subscriptions, and while they may be falling in the US, having stable growth rate in the EU, and launching in Poland, Russia soon, and followed by Asia. their market WILL expand, this is a 100% given, and with an expanded market, you have more customers, and more customers, long term, or short term mean revenues, that relate to income, and the bottom line.
as for me, I used to work in investment banking in both New York and London, and decided to quit and have a much more relaxing life as a playwright. Be well chimpies, facts are facts, if you have intelligent comments to make please do so, and not, OMG SUBCRIPTIONS FALLING, FAILCOM DID THIS ON PURPOSE TO MAKE MY AND EVERYONE ELSES LIFE HORRID!!!!!! I QUITTED A YEAR AGO!!!
Tootles,