it is clear aoc will be dead by the end of summer along with failCON and good riddens fc should have learned that you do not lie to your player base if i remember $OE did that and now swg has like 3 people playing
I wondered how long it would be before SOE somehow made it into this thread. So much anger over video games. I wonder what some here will do when something important happens in their lives.
easy one.. they will blame SOE for their misfortune and mental state .0.
MMOs currently playing: - About to play: Lord of the Rings Online Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
I'll ignore the ad hominem and focus on the facts. Funcom stock was trading at 47 NOK last year at this time...it's now at 6. Sure its tracking off its lows of 3-4...big deal. Perhaps when it trades at 50% of its IPO we can talk. Until then the stock is a lightly traded gamble based on investors and professionals who obviously look at balance sheets instead of the company. Its balance sheet gets a C+, maybe a B-, but its product line gets an F. Lit
The reason for the stock being traded at 47 NOK wasn't because there was a real value in the company that made it worth this much. financial analyst's in Norway at that time said the stock was hyped up, they estimated the real value to be around 16-18 NOK not 46+++. But the hype surrounding the game made a huge amount of people in terested in the stock and it kept climbing until it fell like a bomb.
Professionals = good report, buy the stock.
Apparently you did not learn over the last 18 months that many 'professionals' have no clue what they are doing or base their forecasts on irrelevant data. And not to mention, with the pitiful amounts of Funcom traded daily, these are hardly professional funds involved. More like a few penny stock traders in Norway trying to be nationalistic. Lol.
Litigator = The game I haven't played in a year sucks, even though I haven't played it and I don't really know what I am talking about. I make suppositions and try to cast them in the light of facts, when they're really just BS to support my demented agenda, the company is going bankrupt.
Never said the company was going bankrupt. I said Age of Conan is dying (true) and as a function of that they need a resurgence or else they will eventually go bankrupt.
Funcom itself said it benefited from the plunge in currency...and considering it raised a good chunk of its cash position from sale of stock, there is a good chance much of it is in NOK. So, you've contradicted yourself here. They didn't benefit from the flucuating currency rates ('plunge in currency doesn't make any sense'), but it makes their USD numbers look better. The facts that I pointed out, are still all accurate, while yours still don't make any sense. If their revenue comes in a weak currency, and their expenses are in a strong currency... well, ask someone who took an Economics 101 class to explain to you why that's bad.
I didn't contradict myself...you just aren't smart enough to understand what it means. The plunge in currency (I don't know why this term is confusing to you...a currency plunge is self-explanatory if you have any financial common sense) allowed them to reduce their operating costs relative to their incoming revenue streams which are in USD. And who said their revenue is coming in a weak currency? I didn't. I think you are mistaking 'cash position' with 'revenue'. I'm sorry I made this too complicated for you.
And as for revenues decreasing because it is not Christmas? MMO's are not seasonal...people don't sign up for a month and then quit. Box sales are seasonal. Duh!
If you had been involved in this conversation from the outset you would realize what folly this statement is. Funcom gets about 20% of the box price. Not only were very few boxes available, but the price has been heavily discounted. And if you are attempting to say they sold a whole bunch of copies (digitally or otherwise) around Christmas, wouldn't those subscribers be a boon to Funcom's revenue numbers? After all, even if you only keep 20% of those players, the revenue numbers over a quarter would be even. So either Funcom has the worst retention of new customers ever, or they didn't sell many boxes over the holidays, and therefore your box revenue argument is nullified. Clear? Thanks.
BUT if they did, that revenue would roll over into Q1 to the exclusion of Q4. Which...if your tangent is true...means Funcom's situation is even worse. The work that has gone into making the boxes is done. The money they get from box sales is profit-manufacturing and distribution. That wasn't my point. But eitherway, pray tell, what does "the money they get from box sales is profit-manufacturing and distribution" mean? I've tried to splice that sentence into something coherent, but no matter how much leeway I give for poor punctuation it doesn't make sense. But I don't wish to use your own line of argument against you...especially when it is based on flawed premises. That people buy computer games for Christmas? Yes, that's a flawed premise. You're a sharp one. No, not that one. The one where if your revenue is derived from box sales it necessarily means your subscription revenue is less. Consider that a friendly reminder that you aren't going to sneak nonsense past me. Duh!
"The average customer acquisition cost through marketing for Age of
Conan has been lower than the estimated customer value, and the
Company will increase marketing spend in the next months to test if it
can grow the game profitably."
Let me try to make that even more simple for you "We spend $10 to get a new customer, and we get $40 for spending that $10".
Oh please. The "estimated customer value"? You mean some mythical number based on how long they think new subscribers will now stay? Yes, almost every single company does this. Did you take any business classes when you were getting your universtiy of Phoenix online degree? This is how you forcast sales, you don't just lick your finger and stick it in the air,
And intelligent companies can derive an estimated customer value. But I can't tell whether Funcom has an intelligent person/group responsible for this. Why?
1. If Funcom was managed intelligently, and they could stick $10 out there and get $11+ back, why have they not done so? Why have they waited so long?
2. Of course, there is always the chance that Funcom has bright people involved, and that metric is based on some half-truths. Meaning they recognize diminishing returns. Because there might be a few thousand people out there who are easily accessible and are cost effective, but at some point the next customer is going to be more expensive...to the point that they are not economically feasible.
My guess is Funcom overestimates its retention rate and underestimates the costs of gaining subscribers outside of advertising on MMO sites lol.
In addition, the cost based on their evaluation of the single "kick at the cat" free trial that they offered? Good Lord. If they use that metric they will be in a world of trouble...after offering that free trial, beyond offering free time to old players, every single subscription past that will cost them WAY more money. It's really amazing that you could spend times on these forums and be so blatantly ignorant of the business model of MMO's. MMO's spend money in developement and start up costs, then make a shit load of profit with very little additional overhead. The variable cost for a new subscriber is surely less than $1 a month, unless you want to add in new servers, but since they don't need to buy any servers at this point, that doesn't apply. Seriously, what do you think costs so much money?
As was stated in a post before, Funcom has admitted to outsourcing key components of Age of Conan which keeps its overhead much higher than that. The variable cost per subscriber for Age of Conan's servers, for example, is $2 a month. Funcom does not own its own servers. But of course, I agree with you to the extent that MMO development and start up costs are the major costs and that the upkeep costs for adding new subscribers are at healthy levels.
But the variable cost for new players, of course, is advertising. Getting them to purchase the game and subscribe. And I know you believe that Funcom can simply put money into the advertising system and based on their anticipated customer value increase revenue and profit. I say that the numbers tell the truth, that Funcom's revenue is dropping, and either they are incompetent or they are not telling the truth. Or please explain to me why Funcom's revenue is going to drop, based on its own forecasts, anywhere from $700,000 to $2.7 million next quarter?
And that fact is based on something called common sense. Offering free trials to new players and free time to old players is the most cost efficient way to bring in new players. But it works best the first time...and after that the returns will be diminishing. Funcom has used one of these already and it doesn't look like it worked well. What are they going to do after that? This is the reading part. Right there in the report, which I quoted to you, it says it did work well, and that they are going to... focus here, all of your 34 functioning synapses please... increase spending on advertising. If it didn't work, why would they do that? Seriously.
Apparently you have never heard of the word called "spin". Their advertising costs for their only major initiative, the free trial, were less than the estimated customer value. But that does not mean their next venture will turn out that way. Because the free trial is easy and cheap comparatively to lure back customers. What is the next step? It is obvious what the next step is...free time for previous players. But after that, Funcom is in trouble. With 100 other viable MMOs out there, Funcom is going to have to pony up a lot of cash to get new subscribers...and based on Funcom's track record of retention, it will probably be a money losing proposition. But hey, maybe you will have proved me wrong when Funcom earns a larger profit and greater revenue over the next 3 quarters...right? I won't hold my breath.
i respect the info.... but so what. I really dont care much about there financial info. i can tell if they are doing bad or not when i log into the game.
or we could be just regular gamers sitting at the house on a rainy day waiting on our game of choices servers to get back up from their weekly maintenance
everything isn't a conspiracy you know
quite frankly I wish I did enjoy AoC right now, I am bored with forum cruising
For someone that says LOTRO is his favourite mmo, you spend a weird amount of time on the AoC forum...
I'm not sure why you fanboys are trying to fight this, even Funcom has admitted to AoC being a financial burden. I'm only sad I wasted time on my PoM (52). I had hopes the game would get its act together so I could go back, but I made a new account for a trial recently and the game still felt as broken as before...and now empty.
If Funcom didn't have AO to help them they'd have gone already, or at the very least not had the revenue to invest in a third title. I view AoC like I viewed Tabula Rasa; they both had potential and are not/were not living up to it. One is about to join the other in gaming heaven.
ps - don't use that as an excuse to make a run on TR's problems and conspiracy theories, it's already been established NCS just didn't like the moron...stay on topic.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
or we could be just regular gamers sitting at the house on a rainy day waiting on our game of choices servers to get back up from their weekly maintenance
everything isn't a conspiracy you know
quite frankly I wish I did enjoy AoC right now, I am bored with forum cruising
For someone that says LOTRO is his favourite mmo, you spend a weird amount of time on the AoC forum...
LoTRO does not have a Amazing Avery like AoC does and I doubt LoTRO devs ever read the MMORPG forums. When I want to discuss LoTRO I go to the official site. I probably spend more time there than I do on all of MMORPG.com's forums combined. You will notice that when I do post on the LoTRO forums here that most of the time I recommend people use the official forums over at forums.lotro.com/ if they want real information.
Anyway being a old Conan fan since the 70's I had high hopes for this game and still hope that maybe they can pull it out of the hole they dug for it, or at least sell the game to someone who can.
When the hell did everyone become a Financial expert all of a sudden? Cant we just blast game mechanics of games we dont like? Must we pull out the spread sheets with annual profits? Aren't we geeky enough for playing God damn MMOs? Must we add onto that and add stock market lackies also? AoC suxs ass. I hope AoC dies and when AOs graphics Revamp Failcom realizes that they made a massive mistake by pulling the devs off a much better MMO. AO>AoC Easily!!!!
I don't involve myself much in these financial discussions because quite simply it's all a bunch of hot air to me but I must say Lit has often showed he knows what he's talking about and I do enjoy the debates that go on in these finance posts.
Another thing is with the shady practices mmo devs use by not being upfront and honest about server numbers and such they only invite this kind of talk which is the only true way to guage if a product is doing good hence worth spending money to try.
I have to assume there are laws in place or some such that does not allow the movie industry to lie about how well their product is doing why is it so common for mmo companies to get away with all this bullshit secrecy?
The saddest thing about my above post is alot of these companies would gladly take your money today with the knowledge that they are going to close the doors tomorrow.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Well said, You can rest assured that any MMO that doesn't release sub numbers is likely either leaching subs consistently (as most all MMOs do over time) or even if they are stable they are in the 100-150k or so range most MMOs are in and have nothing to crow about.
I'll get the admissions out of the way first: 1. Funcom did better than I thought they would. By a good million dollars. By every indication I had the company losing ~25% of its revenue. That number was apparently ~12.5%. Good for Funcom. Now to the facts: 1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here. The technical term for this is 'talking out of your ass'. The report actually says "this combined with an increase in new customers in Q1 2009 has lead to a stable and solid subscriber base for the game". 2. The situation is only getting worse. Funcom is losing revenue from AO (whatever amount of the $1 million/quarter it was earning in 2007-2008 being a mystery) and from Age of Conan. How can you know this? Well you don't, but history makes it pretty clear. Funcom has NEVER missed its guidance and its guidance is anywhere from $700,000 to $2,700,000 lower. That means Funcom is anticipating losing anywhere from 10% of its revenue to nearly one third. You can spin a 10-33% loss in revenue ANYWAY YOU WISH, but it is still a horrible situation. Remember, Funcom has 6 weeks of the 12 week data already in. They know. Here in the real world Funcom had an EAT of about 1.5 million USD. 3. They still have 14 million dollars in short term debt (or equivalents). As those come due over the next year, it will continually eat at their supposed "strong cash position". Not to mention to have any hope of being viable they will need to spend heavily on advertising The Secret World and the AoC expansion. A lot of stupid things here. You're complaining about their revenue but then telling them to spend money on advertising The Secret World - which brings in no additional revenue. They have 14 million in STD, and 39 million in cash. 39-14= 25 million, which at their current rate of operating expenses plenty to pay for 5 years of supporting two games and making a third. 4. No doubt they are making a US profit...their operating expenses are plunging as the currency gets hammered. But it also eats at their cash position. Cash that is increasingly becoming hard to find as revenues decrease EVERY QUARTER. A significant part of their revenue (I would actually guess the majority of their revenue) is in USD, which they then have to convert to pay for their servers and employees, so most of this is already reflected in their report. You don't know what currency their 'cash position' is held in. Assuming that it is held in USD because they do their reporting in USD is stupid. Almost every consumer goods company has revenues decrease from the 4th quarter to the 1st quarter. Have you ever heard of something called 'Christmas'? 5. A game can't grow if they can't afford to advertise it. And the continual cost cutting (in two quarters Funcom has cut its operating expense by 60%). At some point you can't cut your operating expense anymore and you are left with spending and going into debt or cutting staff. For someone who is so quick to throw up a wall on nonsense text, it's really amazing that you can't read. "The average customer acquisition cost through marketing for Age of
Conan has been lower than the estimated customer value, and the
Company will increase marketing spend in the next months to test if it
can grow the game profitably." Let me try to make that even more simple for you "We spend $10 to get a new customer, and we get $40 for spending that $10". So sure, spin this quarterly report anyway you want. To me it looks dismal. I agree something is dismal, but it's your business acumen, not Funcom's viability. Since the beginning of the month, Funcom's stock price has climbed by 20%, and it rose after the quarterly report was released. You know why? Because professionals who evaluate companies for a living read the Q1 report and were pleased with what they saw. If you litigate as well as you go through financials, you should be disbarred.
I'll get the admissions out of the way first: 1. Funcom did better than I thought they would. By a good million dollars. By every indication I had the company losing ~25% of its revenue. That number was apparently ~12.5%. Good for Funcom. Now to the facts: 1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here. The technical term for this is 'talking out of your ass'. The report actually says "this combined with an increase in new customers in Q1 2009 has lead to a stable and solid subscriber base for the game". 2. The situation is only getting worse. Funcom is losing revenue from AO (whatever amount of the $1 million/quarter it was earning in 2007-2008 being a mystery) and from Age of Conan. How can you know this? Well you don't, but history makes it pretty clear. Funcom has NEVER missed its guidance and its guidance is anywhere from $700,000 to $2,700,000 lower. That means Funcom is anticipating losing anywhere from 10% of its revenue to nearly one third. You can spin a 10-33% loss in revenue ANYWAY YOU WISH, but it is still a horrible situation. Remember, Funcom has 6 weeks of the 12 week data already in. They know. Here in the real world Funcom had an EAT of about 1.5 million USD. 3. They still have 14 million dollars in short term debt (or equivalents). As those come due over the next year, it will continually eat at their supposed "strong cash position". Not to mention to have any hope of being viable they will need to spend heavily on advertising The Secret World and the AoC expansion. A lot of stupid things here. You're complaining about their revenue but then telling them to spend money on advertising The Secret World - which brings in no additional revenue. They have 14 million in STD, and 39 million in cash. 39-14= 25 million, which at their current rate of operating expenses plenty to pay for 5 years of supporting two games and making a third. 4. No doubt they are making a US profit...their operating expenses are plunging as the currency gets hammered. But it also eats at their cash position. Cash that is increasingly becoming hard to find as revenues decrease EVERY QUARTER. A significant part of their revenue (I would actually guess the majority of their revenue) is in USD, which they then have to convert to pay for their servers and employees, so most of this is already reflected in their report. You don't know what currency their 'cash position' is held in. Assuming that it is held in USD because they do their reporting in USD is stupid. Almost every consumer goods company has revenues decrease from the 4th quarter to the 1st quarter. Have you ever heard of something called 'Christmas'? 5. A game can't grow if they can't afford to advertise it. And the continual cost cutting (in two quarters Funcom has cut its operating expense by 60%). At some point you can't cut your operating expense anymore and you are left with spending and going into debt or cutting staff. For someone who is so quick to throw up a wall on nonsense text, it's really amazing that you can't read. "The average customer acquisition cost through marketing for Age of
Conan has been lower than the estimated customer value, and the
Company will increase marketing spend in the next months to test if it
can grow the game profitably." Let me try to make that even more simple for you "We spend $10 to get a new customer, and we get $40 for spending that $10". So sure, spin this quarterly report anyway you want. To me it looks dismal. I agree something is dismal, but it's your business acumen, not Funcom's viability. Since the beginning of the month, Funcom's stock price has climbed by 20%, and it rose after the quarterly report was released. You know why? Because professionals who evaluate companies for a living read the Q1 report and were pleased with what they saw. If you litigate as well as you go through financials, you should be disbarred.
Winner!
With all these 'new' players.. how is that Funcom themselves are telling you that revenues will be down 25% in the 2nd quarter compared to the 1st quarter. Seeing as almost all of Funcom's revenues come from AOC, it's pretty clear that subscribers are dropping by at least 20%.
With all these 'new' players.. how is that Funcom themselves are telling you that revenues will be down 25% in the 2nd quarter compared to the 1st quarter.
It would be more accurate to label them "non-paying players", instead of "new".
With FC's earlier claim that 50% of a sub goes to cover Server Leases and Bandwidth.
Simple math time: for every 6 players on the free trial, one would need to sign up for a subscription for them to meet those costs.
That sounds like an awfully tight quota to make.
And they still wouldn't be covering the actual company's day-to-day costs.
Well that depends on your definition. The vast majority of MMO's are "Dying" if what you mean is they are losing more subs then they are gaining. It's the way of MMO's, people rush out and buy the game, 33% quit at end of free trial, 33% quit during the games lifespan for various reasons (imba, boredom, no more content left) and the rest are dedicated fans that usually stay the full course.
The only freak MMO's that have had unexpected periods of anything resembling growth after launch are few and far between. EQ2 and WOW to name 2. (and WOW is simply a one-off freak fullstop and cant be compared with).
I've been playing MMO's since 97 and they all go through the same motions, and people repeatedly come on here and cry and for some bizarre reason I never did get, and seem to get joy out of slamming into the developers like they owe them something. If you dont like the game, dont pay/play. (the vast majority of whom, likely havn't played the game since launch).
AOC is a year old, its not going anywhere and its also never gonna be the size of WOW. We know this, but it does have a sizeable base of loyal players and they arn't gonna be easy to shift. So yeah, the games subs will dwindle as time goes on, but no faster then any other mainstream MMO out there.
As for AOC, it's improved hugely, me and my gf have resubbed and are having a great time. Yeah there's things i'd change, but you wont find a better looking mmo right now, nor better animation or combat system imho. The classes are also really fun and different.
Bottom line, this shit is all just scaremongering, hell even Vanguard is still going and that games name has been through the gutter more then any.
Play it or don't but just stop the pointless economic "sky is falling" bullshit.
1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here.
FC improved AOC a lot, but i agree with your point1. Made the trial, Tortage was full of players but i saw few players on stygia, cimmeria and other places...Saw only HL players on NT...
I'll get the admissions out of the way first: 1. Funcom did better than I thought they would. By a good million dollars. By every indication I had the company losing ~25% of its revenue. That number was apparently ~12.5%. Good for Funcom. Now to the facts: 1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here. 2. The situation is only getting worse. Funcom is losing revenue from AO (whatever amount of the $1 million/quarter it was earning in 2007-2008 being a mystery) and from Age of Conan. How can you know this? Well you don't, but history makes it pretty clear. Funcom has NEVER missed its guidance and its guidance is anywhere from $700,000 to $2,700,000 lower. That means Funcom is anticipating losing anywhere from 10% of its revenue to nearly one third. You can spin a 10-33% loss in revenue ANYWAY YOU WISH, but it is still a horrible situation. Remember, Funcom has 6 weeks of the 12 week data already in. They know. 3. They still have 14 million dollars in short term debt (or equivalents). As those come due over the next year, it will continually eat at their supposed "strong cash position". Not to mention to have any hope of being viable they will need to spend heavily on advertising The Secret World and the AoC expansion. 4. No doubt they are making a US profit...their operating expenses are plunging as the currency gets hammered. But it also eats at their cash position. Cash that is increasingly becoming hard to find as revenues decrease EVERY QUARTER. 5. A game can't grow if they can't afford to advertise it. And the continual cost cutting (in two quarters Funcom has cut its operating expense by 60%). At some point you can't cut your operating expense anymore and you are left with spending and going into debt or cutting staff. So sure, spin this quarterly report anyway you want. To me it looks dismal.
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
I'll get the admissions out of the way first: 1. Funcom did better than I thought they would. By a good million dollars. By every indication I had the company losing ~25% of its revenue. That number was apparently ~12.5%. Good for Funcom. Now to the facts: 1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here. 2. The situation is only getting worse. Funcom is losing revenue from AO (whatever amount of the $1 million/quarter it was earning in 2007-2008 being a mystery) and from Age of Conan. How can you know this? Well you don't, but history makes it pretty clear. Funcom has NEVER missed its guidance and its guidance is anywhere from $700,000 to $2,700,000 lower. That means Funcom is anticipating losing anywhere from 10% of its revenue to nearly one third. You can spin a 10-33% loss in revenue ANYWAY YOU WISH, but it is still a horrible situation. Remember, Funcom has 6 weeks of the 12 week data already in. They know. 3. They still have 14 million dollars in short term debt (or equivalents). As those come due over the next year, it will continually eat at their supposed "strong cash position". Not to mention to have any hope of being viable they will need to spend heavily on advertising The Secret World and the AoC expansion. 4. No doubt they are making a US profit...their operating expenses are plunging as the currency gets hammered. But it also eats at their cash position. Cash that is increasingly becoming hard to find as revenues decrease EVERY QUARTER. 5. A game can't grow if they can't afford to advertise it. And the continual cost cutting (in two quarters Funcom has cut its operating expense by 60%). At some point you can't cut your operating expense anymore and you are left with spending and going into debt or cutting staff. So sure, spin this quarterly report anyway you want. To me it looks dismal.
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
I think OP is making some interesting points and also it's educational. Some people like to talk about financial stuff because it's very important for the future of the game.
Are we not allowed to talk about financial stuff just because you have a hard time understanding them? Question is: why do YOU care so much? If you don't like the thread just stop replying to it and move on. Geez..
With a masters in economics, the thread had my interest. But it is so obvioussly hyped in a negative light against Funcom, and I cant see why that is. Its like there is this vendetta against them. "look at the numbers" "they are failing" "nr 1 guild leaves".
Its like having a party celebrating someones demise. I do not see the point.
We can all go and check out the numbers, and they are all reflected in the prize of their stock, there is no surprise in them.
Bringing them into an already biased descussion, spawns nothing but provocation, as I see it.
I'll get the admissions out of the way first: 1. Funcom did better than I thought they would. By a good million dollars. By every indication I had the company losing ~25% of its revenue. That number was apparently ~12.5%. Good for Funcom. Now to the facts: 1. Funcom is not keeping trial players. You really only get one kick at the cat with a free trial, and Funcom failed miserably here. 2. The situation is only getting worse. Funcom is losing revenue from AO (whatever amount of the $1 million/quarter it was earning in 2007-2008 being a mystery) and from Age of Conan. How can you know this? Well you don't, but history makes it pretty clear. Funcom has NEVER missed its guidance and its guidance is anywhere from $700,000 to $2,700,000 lower. That means Funcom is anticipating losing anywhere from 10% of its revenue to nearly one third. You can spin a 10-33% loss in revenue ANYWAY YOU WISH, but it is still a horrible situation. Remember, Funcom has 6 weeks of the 12 week data already in. They know. 3. They still have 14 million dollars in short term debt (or equivalents). As those come due over the next year, it will continually eat at their supposed "strong cash position". Not to mention to have any hope of being viable they will need to spend heavily on advertising The Secret World and the AoC expansion. 4. No doubt they are making a US profit...their operating expenses are plunging as the currency gets hammered. But it also eats at their cash position. Cash that is increasingly becoming hard to find as revenues decrease EVERY QUARTER. 5. A game can't grow if they can't afford to advertise it. And the continual cost cutting (in two quarters Funcom has cut its operating expense by 60%). At some point you can't cut your operating expense anymore and you are left with spending and going into debt or cutting staff. So sure, spin this quarterly report anyway you want. To me it looks dismal.
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
I think OP is making some interesting points and also it's educational. Some people like to talk about financial stuff because it's very important for the future of the game.
Are we not allowed to talk about financial stuff just because you have a hard time understanding them? Question is: why do YOU care so much? If you don't like the thread just stop replying to it and move on. Geez..
With a masters in economics, the thread had my interest. But it is so obvioussly hyped in a negative light against Funcom, and I cant see why that is. Its like there is this vendetta against them. "look at the numbers" "they are failing" "nr 1 guild leaves".
Its like having a party celebrating someones demise. I do not see the point.
We can all go and check out the numbers, and they are all reflected in the prize of their stock, there is no surprise in them.
Bringing them into an already biased descussion, spawns nothing but provocation, as I see it.
Vendetta?
Lets take that "nr 1 guild leaves" as an example. How would YOU have said it?
"nr 2 guild leaves"
"nr 428 guild leaves"
"nr 1 guild DIDN'T leave"
"Age of Conan was so much fun that nr 1 guild couldn't take it anymore and left!"
You see number 1 guild on that server quiting the game is a FACT. The guild quit and that is big news on that server. Why can't we talk about? Because it's a 'negative' post? Come on..
I think its fair to talk about stuff like that. I just get this bad taste in my mouth, its like watching Fox news.
The sole reason why i would be interested in financial reports would be to check if the game will exist next week....I play these games for fun but also to achieve something....a dream, a community, you name it.
Game companies will not help the situation by being over optimistic about how things go. And as a player i have the memory of an elephant: if you fool me once about a game i loved to play, a little voice will tell me that that company will easily do it again next time. But without my money thats for sure (EA comes to mind, RIP Earth and beyond).
If Funcom is honest about their problems and asks the community to help out (or show its good will with nice events, good customer service, updates, timeslimes that are met, some free items now and then or whatever ......) it might help them recover. The stock broker, for one, wont help them one bit.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained. Played: almost all MMO pre 2007
Comments
I wondered how long it would be before SOE somehow made it into this thread. So much anger over video games. I wonder what some here will do when something important happens in their lives.
easy one.. they will blame SOE for their misfortune and mental state .0.
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
The reason for the stock being traded at 47 NOK wasn't because there was a real value in the company that made it worth this much. financial analyst's in Norway at that time said the stock was hyped up, they estimated the real value to be around 16-18 NOK not 46+++. But the hype surrounding the game made a huge amount of people in terested in the stock and it kept climbing until it fell like a bomb.
Professionals = good report, buy the stock.
Apparently you did not learn over the last 18 months that many 'professionals' have no clue what they are doing or base their forecasts on irrelevant data. And not to mention, with the pitiful amounts of Funcom traded daily, these are hardly professional funds involved. More like a few penny stock traders in Norway trying to be nationalistic. Lol.
Litigator = The game I haven't played in a year sucks, even though I haven't played it and I don't really know what I am talking about. I make suppositions and try to cast them in the light of facts, when they're really just BS to support my demented agenda, the company is going bankrupt.
Never said the company was going bankrupt. I said Age of Conan is dying (true) and as a function of that they need a resurgence or else they will eventually go bankrupt.
Funcom itself said it benefited from the plunge in currency...and considering it raised a good chunk of its cash position from sale of stock, there is a good chance much of it is in NOK. So, you've contradicted yourself here. They didn't benefit from the flucuating currency rates ('plunge in currency doesn't make any sense'), but it makes their USD numbers look better. The facts that I pointed out, are still all accurate, while yours still don't make any sense. If their revenue comes in a weak currency, and their expenses are in a strong currency... well, ask someone who took an Economics 101 class to explain to you why that's bad.
I didn't contradict myself...you just aren't smart enough to understand what it means. The plunge in currency (I don't know why this term is confusing to you...a currency plunge is self-explanatory if you have any financial common sense) allowed them to reduce their operating costs relative to their incoming revenue streams which are in USD. And who said their revenue is coming in a weak currency? I didn't. I think you are mistaking 'cash position' with 'revenue'. I'm sorry I made this too complicated for you.
And as for revenues decreasing because it is not Christmas? MMO's are not seasonal...people don't sign up for a month and then quit. Box sales are seasonal. Duh!
If you had been involved in this conversation from the outset you would realize what folly this statement is. Funcom gets about 20% of the box price. Not only were very few boxes available, but the price has been heavily discounted. And if you are attempting to say they sold a whole bunch of copies (digitally or otherwise) around Christmas, wouldn't those subscribers be a boon to Funcom's revenue numbers? After all, even if you only keep 20% of those players, the revenue numbers over a quarter would be even. So either Funcom has the worst retention of new customers ever, or they didn't sell many boxes over the holidays, and therefore your box revenue argument is nullified. Clear? Thanks.
BUT if they did, that revenue would roll over into Q1 to the exclusion of Q4. Which...if your tangent is true...means Funcom's situation is even worse. The work that has gone into making the boxes is done. The money they get from box sales is profit-manufacturing and distribution. That wasn't my point. But eitherway, pray tell, what does "the money they get from box sales is profit-manufacturing and distribution" mean? I've tried to splice that sentence into something coherent, but no matter how much leeway I give for poor punctuation it doesn't make sense. But I don't wish to use your own line of argument against you...especially when it is based on flawed premises. That people buy computer games for Christmas? Yes, that's a flawed premise. You're a sharp one. No, not that one. The one where if your revenue is derived from box sales it necessarily means your subscription revenue is less. Consider that a friendly reminder that you aren't going to sneak nonsense past me. Duh!
"The average customer acquisition cost through marketing for Age of
Conan has been lower than the estimated customer value, and the
Company will increase marketing spend in the next months to test if it
can grow the game profitably."
Let me try to make that even more simple for you "We spend $10 to get a new customer, and we get $40 for spending that $10".
Oh please. The "estimated customer value"? You mean some mythical number based on how long they think new subscribers will now stay? Yes, almost every single company does this. Did you take any business classes when you were getting your universtiy of Phoenix online degree? This is how you forcast sales, you don't just lick your finger and stick it in the air,
And intelligent companies can derive an estimated customer value. But I can't tell whether Funcom has an intelligent person/group responsible for this. Why?
1. If Funcom was managed intelligently, and they could stick $10 out there and get $11+ back, why have they not done so? Why have they waited so long?
2. Of course, there is always the chance that Funcom has bright people involved, and that metric is based on some half-truths. Meaning they recognize diminishing returns. Because there might be a few thousand people out there who are easily accessible and are cost effective, but at some point the next customer is going to be more expensive...to the point that they are not economically feasible.
My guess is Funcom overestimates its retention rate and underestimates the costs of gaining subscribers outside of advertising on MMO sites lol.
In addition, the cost based on their evaluation of the single "kick at the cat" free trial that they offered? Good Lord. If they use that metric they will be in a world of trouble...after offering that free trial, beyond offering free time to old players, every single subscription past that will cost them WAY more money. It's really amazing that you could spend times on these forums and be so blatantly ignorant of the business model of MMO's. MMO's spend money in developement and start up costs, then make a shit load of profit with very little additional overhead. The variable cost for a new subscriber is surely less than $1 a month, unless you want to add in new servers, but since they don't need to buy any servers at this point, that doesn't apply. Seriously, what do you think costs so much money?
As was stated in a post before, Funcom has admitted to outsourcing key components of Age of Conan which keeps its overhead much higher than that. The variable cost per subscriber for Age of Conan's servers, for example, is $2 a month. Funcom does not own its own servers. But of course, I agree with you to the extent that MMO development and start up costs are the major costs and that the upkeep costs for adding new subscribers are at healthy levels.
But the variable cost for new players, of course, is advertising. Getting them to purchase the game and subscribe. And I know you believe that Funcom can simply put money into the advertising system and based on their anticipated customer value increase revenue and profit. I say that the numbers tell the truth, that Funcom's revenue is dropping, and either they are incompetent or they are not telling the truth. Or please explain to me why Funcom's revenue is going to drop, based on its own forecasts, anywhere from $700,000 to $2.7 million next quarter?
And that fact is based on something called common sense. Offering free trials to new players and free time to old players is the most cost efficient way to bring in new players. But it works best the first time...and after that the returns will be diminishing. Funcom has used one of these already and it doesn't look like it worked well. What are they going to do after that? This is the reading part. Right there in the report, which I quoted to you, it says it did work well, and that they are going to... focus here, all of your 34 functioning synapses please... increase spending on advertising. If it didn't work, why would they do that? Seriously.
Apparently you have never heard of the word called "spin". Their advertising costs for their only major initiative, the free trial, were less than the estimated customer value. But that does not mean their next venture will turn out that way. Because the free trial is easy and cheap comparatively to lure back customers. What is the next step? It is obvious what the next step is...free time for previous players. But after that, Funcom is in trouble. With 100 other viable MMOs out there, Funcom is going to have to pony up a lot of cash to get new subscribers...and based on Funcom's track record of retention, it will probably be a money losing proposition. But hey, maybe you will have proved me wrong when Funcom earns a larger profit and greater revenue over the next 3 quarters...right? I won't hold my breath.
Lit
i respect the info.... but so what. I really dont care much about there financial info. i can tell if they are doing bad or not when i log into the game.
or we could be just regular gamers sitting at the house on a rainy day waiting on our game of choices servers to get back up from their weekly maintenance
everything isn't a conspiracy you know
quite frankly I wish I did enjoy AoC right now, I am bored with forum cruising
For someone that says LOTRO is his favourite mmo, you spend a weird amount of time on the AoC forum...
Best thing of AOC is that AO will become that Dreamworld Engine so my money by purchasing AOC box was not totaly wasted. :O
I'm not sure why you fanboys are trying to fight this, even Funcom has admitted to AoC being a financial burden. I'm only sad I wasted time on my PoM (52). I had hopes the game would get its act together so I could go back, but I made a new account for a trial recently and the game still felt as broken as before...and now empty.
If Funcom didn't have AO to help them they'd have gone already, or at the very least not had the revenue to invest in a third title. I view AoC like I viewed Tabula Rasa; they both had potential and are not/were not living up to it. One is about to join the other in gaming heaven.
ps - don't use that as an excuse to make a run on TR's problems and conspiracy theories, it's already been established NCS just didn't like the moron...stay on topic.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
or we could be just regular gamers sitting at the house on a rainy day waiting on our game of choices servers to get back up from their weekly maintenance
everything isn't a conspiracy you know
quite frankly I wish I did enjoy AoC right now, I am bored with forum cruising
For someone that says LOTRO is his favourite mmo, you spend a weird amount of time on the AoC forum...
LoTRO does not have a Amazing Avery like AoC does and I doubt LoTRO devs ever read the MMORPG forums. When I want to discuss LoTRO I go to the official site. I probably spend more time there than I do on all of MMORPG.com's forums combined. You will notice that when I do post on the LoTRO forums here that most of the time I recommend people use the official forums over at forums.lotro.com/ if they want real information.
Anyway being a old Conan fan since the 70's I had high hopes for this game and still hope that maybe they can pull it out of the hole they dug for it, or at least sell the game to someone who can.
I miss DAoC
I don't involve myself much in these financial discussions because quite simply it's all a bunch of hot air to me but I must say Lit has often showed he knows what he's talking about and I do enjoy the debates that go on in these finance posts.
Another thing is with the shady practices mmo devs use by not being upfront and honest about server numbers and such they only invite this kind of talk which is the only true way to guage if a product is doing good hence worth spending money to try.
I have to assume there are laws in place or some such that does not allow the movie industry to lie about how well their product is doing why is it so common for mmo companies to get away with all this bullshit secrecy?
The saddest thing about my above post is alot of these companies would gladly take your money today with the knowledge that they are going to close the doors tomorrow.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Well said, You can rest assured that any MMO that doesn't release sub numbers is likely either leaching subs consistently (as most all MMOs do over time) or even if they are stable they are in the 100-150k or so range most MMOs are in and have nothing to crow about.
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With all these 'new' players.. how is that Funcom themselves are telling you that revenues will be down 25% in the 2nd quarter compared to the 1st quarter. Seeing as almost all of Funcom's revenues come from AOC, it's pretty clear that subscribers are dropping by at least 20%.
It would be more accurate to label them "non-paying players", instead of "new".
With FC's earlier claim that 50% of a sub goes to cover Server Leases and Bandwidth.
Simple math time: for every 6 players on the free trial, one would need to sign up for a subscription for them to meet those costs.
That sounds like an awfully tight quota to make.
And they still wouldn't be covering the actual company's day-to-day costs.
Dying?
Well that depends on your definition. The vast majority of MMO's are "Dying" if what you mean is they are losing more subs then they are gaining. It's the way of MMO's, people rush out and buy the game, 33% quit at end of free trial, 33% quit during the games lifespan for various reasons (imba, boredom, no more content left) and the rest are dedicated fans that usually stay the full course.
The only freak MMO's that have had unexpected periods of anything resembling growth after launch are few and far between. EQ2 and WOW to name 2. (and WOW is simply a one-off freak fullstop and cant be compared with).
I've been playing MMO's since 97 and they all go through the same motions, and people repeatedly come on here and cry and for some bizarre reason I never did get, and seem to get joy out of slamming into the developers like they owe them something. If you dont like the game, dont pay/play. (the vast majority of whom, likely havn't played the game since launch).
AOC is a year old, its not going anywhere and its also never gonna be the size of WOW. We know this, but it does have a sizeable base of loyal players and they arn't gonna be easy to shift. So yeah, the games subs will dwindle as time goes on, but no faster then any other mainstream MMO out there.
As for AOC, it's improved hugely, me and my gf have resubbed and are having a great time. Yeah there's things i'd change, but you wont find a better looking mmo right now, nor better animation or combat system imho. The classes are also really fun and different.
Bottom line, this shit is all just scaremongering, hell even Vanguard is still going and that games name has been through the gutter more then any.
Play it or don't but just stop the pointless economic "sky is falling" bullshit.
FC improved AOC a lot, but i agree with your point1. Made the trial, Tortage was full of players but i saw few players on stygia, cimmeria and other places...Saw only HL players on NT...
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
I think OP is making some interesting points and also it's educational. Some people like to talk about financial stuff because it's very important for the future of the game.
Are we not allowed to talk about financial stuff just because you have a hard time understanding them? Question is: why do YOU care so much? If you don't like the thread just stop replying to it and move on. Geez..
With a masters in economics, the thread had my interest. But it is so obvioussly hyped in a negative light against Funcom, and I cant see why that is. Its like there is this vendetta against them. "look at the numbers" "they are failing" "nr 1 guild leaves".
Its like having a party celebrating someones demise. I do not see the point.
We can all go and check out the numbers, and they are all reflected in the prize of their stock, there is no surprise in them.
Bringing them into an already biased descussion, spawns nothing but provocation, as I see it.
Why do you care so much? Do you have any stock in the company? No? I thought so.
The OP is just trying to argue to himself, that he made the right choice of quitting. We all need reasons for the actions we do. But why do you want them to fail? What is it with that.
I think OP is making some interesting points and also it's educational. Some people like to talk about financial stuff because it's very important for the future of the game.
Are we not allowed to talk about financial stuff just because you have a hard time understanding them? Question is: why do YOU care so much? If you don't like the thread just stop replying to it and move on. Geez..
With a masters in economics, the thread had my interest. But it is so obvioussly hyped in a negative light against Funcom, and I cant see why that is. Its like there is this vendetta against them. "look at the numbers" "they are failing" "nr 1 guild leaves".
Its like having a party celebrating someones demise. I do not see the point.
We can all go and check out the numbers, and they are all reflected in the prize of their stock, there is no surprise in them.
Bringing them into an already biased descussion, spawns nothing but provocation, as I see it.
Vendetta?
Lets take that "nr 1 guild leaves" as an example. How would YOU have said it?
"nr 2 guild leaves"
"nr 428 guild leaves"
"nr 1 guild DIDN'T leave"
"Age of Conan was so much fun that nr 1 guild couldn't take it anymore and left!"
You see number 1 guild on that server quiting the game is a FACT. The guild quit and that is big news on that server. Why can't we talk about? Because it's a 'negative' post? Come on..
I think its fair to talk about stuff like that. I just get this bad taste in my mouth, its like watching Fox news.
But enjoy.
The sole reason why i would be interested in financial reports would be to check if the game will exist next week....I play these games for fun but also to achieve something....a dream, a community, you name it.
Game companies will not help the situation by being over optimistic about how things go. And as a player i have the memory of an elephant: if you fool me once about a game i loved to play, a little voice will tell me that that company will easily do it again next time. But without my money thats for sure (EA comes to mind, RIP Earth and beyond).
If Funcom is honest about their problems and asks the community to help out (or show its good will with nice events, good customer service, updates, timeslimes that are met, some free items now and then or whatever ......) it might help them recover. The stock broker, for one, wont help them one bit.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained.
Played: almost all MMO pre 2007