Not that it’s a surprise (consoles are a big market) but it looks like Jeff Strain‘s out to make a console-centric (read not for PCs) MMO. It’ll be interesting to see how it fairs in a post-L4D world. I’m guessing he’ll choose a Guild Wars-like model so you can have “rooms” that mimic the L4D experience with a lobby to interact and trade.
Pun intended.
I know this is relatively old news by Internet standards but Cryptic announced that it had 1 million characters created on Champions Online. I’m sorry. “characters created”?!? As anyone knows, just about everyone eventually creates at least one more character. Sure they might not create it that early after the release of a game. But, then again, this is a game where the best part of it is creating that character.
Knowing that, it makes that statistic (and whoever their marketing person at Cryptic is) look stupid. It’s like when Funcom went nuts about its subscriber count when they were barely two months out from release. Now, how’s that subscriber count, Funcom? Well, they won’t say because they’re afraid to screw their stock prices. Funny that. You’d think that if they had a good number to throw back the conversation would’ve definitely included some numbers or better wording like “100k? That’s ridiculously low. I can’t go into details but I can tell you it’s well above that number.”
If you look at their quarterly numbers, you can guesstimate a range at least of potential subscriber numbers. First, you have to remember that Funcom has published a couple of adventure games (The Longest Journey)–which might be the inspiration for the upcoming Secret World MMO–and is still (yes, still) running Anarchy Online.
But, let’s take it to extremes for a sec. Their Q1 2009 revenue was $7.7 million. If we just take that and assume that’s 100% subscriber fees (no other games, no box sales), you’re looking at a max of 513k subscribers (assuming everyone’s paying the $14.99 subscriber fee).
Now, none of Funcom’s games were on the radar for retail PC game sales in January of 2009 (which I’ll assume continues into March). Also, you can grab a box for $9.99 or less these days so it’s doubtful box sales amount to much.
So, let’s ignore box sales revenue as negligible (remember, Eidos published the boxed game so they’re retaining some of those pennies from box sales).
Anarchy Online subs are in there but they’re using a tiered model for subscriptions (free for basic content, $5/mo for two of the expansions and $19.95/mo for the full content). However, if you look at Q1 2008′s revenue it’s at $928k. Q1 2008 was before AoC was launched and while AO was still running. And, since it’s doubtful AO saw a dramatic increase in revenue since then, we’ll just take that $928k out of the revenue figure.
That still leaves $6.7 million on the books for AoC. There’s also a note about $800k in royalties that are being applied in Q1 2009 but were carried over from 2008. That brings us to a final figure of $5.9 million. There’s the potential that some of this revenue is deferred revenue resulting from the recognition of pre-paid subscriptions (quarterly, yearly or lifetime subs) but in the interests of simplicity, let’s just make that an asterisk on the final sub count.
That gives us a final sub count of 398k. Or a general range of 400-500k. Pretty sizable for an MMO that’s “dying” by some accounts.
Still, I can’t help but think that’s high for an MMO that gained initial popularity but had a slew of problems that took over a year to fix. The fact that they had their free weekend to entice people in tells me they’re not happy with their numbers either. If the 100k number that’s been thrown around is anywhere near true, their revenue numbers would be closer to $2 million.
So, unless they’re cooking their books some how or doing something a bit shady like recognizing box sales as deferred revenue over time, it looks like they’re holding on to a sizable subscriber base. Mind you, there is probably a portion of that revenue that represents “inertia” subscriptions like mine that I only recently canceled despite not playing the game for almost a year. It’s the gym model: you lock in that monthly/recurring subscription in the hopes that the subscriber will hold on for a while before they realize they’re wasting $14.99 a month on a game they aren’t playing.
And, by the way, I realize I’ve been working on Q1 numbers despite Q2 numbers being available. All this does, though, is just show the trend and adjust the current subscriber numbers. Assuming $1.6 million is purely subscriber revenue, you’re talking about a 100k drop in subscribers. Ouch. Now, our estimates are at 300-400k subscribers.
In addition, you can see a significant drop in EBITA which is due to increased operating expenses. This is most likely from them ramping up The Secret World MMO development and marketing. Bad timing though. Your revenue is decreasing due to subscriber losses and while The Secret World sounds intriguing it’s likely to be a niche MMO like all your others.
Oh, and don’t forget that WoW Cataclysm is going to be coming out sometime in 2010 around the time your new MMO is coming out. Fubar sounds like the best way to describe it.
Good luck!
g afk
