Category Archives: General Gaming
[EA] [AB] EA and Activision Blizzard Report First Quarter Financials
Star Wars: The Old Republic’s subscriber tally fell sharply as EA revised down its projections for the current fiscal year, causing stocks to plunge 5%. This contrasted better than expected reports for the first quarter of 2012. Part of the downward revision for the year was what the company referred to as a “major” game title which has been pushed out of the year. No further details on this was released.
EA reported $1.37 billion in revenue for the quarter and net income of $400 million.
“In terms of the quarter, they met expectations,” said Colin Sebastian of Robert W. Baird, adding “but I don’t think anyone was expecting a 400,000 decline in ‘Star Wars’ subscribers.”
EA said that the first quarter was driven by the recently hit release of “Mass Effect 3”, “FIFA Street 4,” “SSX” and “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.” Star Wars: The Old Republic saw its subscriber based fall to 1.3 million at the end of the quarter down from 1.7 million at the end of December.
Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said the numbers for “Star Wars” during the quarter suggest the game might “level off” at the 1-million-subscriber mark, compared to some earlier estimates of 1.5 million subscribers, “so the franchise is far less valuable.”
Activision Blizzard, the world’s biggest game publisher saw quarterly revenues of $1.7 billion, up from $1.5 billion last year. Net income, however, fell to $384 million from $503 million last year.
“Our better-than-expected first-quarter performance was driven by global consumer demand for Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3”, and “Skylanders Spyro’s Adventures” as well as Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft” which remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG in the world,” Activision Blizzard chief executive officer Bobby Kotick said.
Activision Blizzard will launch Diablo III on May 15 while Call of Duty: Black Ops II will be launched this November.
[GG] Activision Blizzard, Nexon, EA To Report Q1 Financials This Week
Three of the world’s largest gaming companies by net corporate worth, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA:US), Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI:US), and Nexon Co. Ltd (3659:JP) are set to report their first quarter for the 2012 calendar year earnings on May 7, May 9 and May 10, respectively. EA has a net worth of $5 billion, Activision Blizzard a net worth of $13,9 billion and Nexon a net worth of $7.9 billion. The reports for all of these huge companies which all have a special connection to me will be posted on the Msupdate Blog, with Nexon’s being the most covered.
Zynga Inc. (ZNGA:US), with a net worth of $6.1 billion, reported first quarter revenues of an internal record $321 million and 182 million monthly active players to its social games.
Both Zynga and Nexon went public last December with $1 billion and $1.2 billion initial public offerings.
For the 2011 calendar year Activision Blizzard reported revenues of $4.8 billion. Nexon reported revenues of $1.2 billion. EA reported revenues of $3.8 billion. Zynga reported revenues of $1.1 billion.
Keep posted!
Frequent M&A Change Market Shares in South Korea’s Online Game Industry
Another very interesting read.
Large-scale game makers’ frequent merger and acquisition activities are changing the market shares in South Korea’s online game industry. After four well-known acquisitions, Nexon has reinforced its leadership in South Korea’s online game industry, leaving other competitors far behind, while at the same time, NHN and CJ E&M are gradually being kicked out. The R&D power of large enterprises and the deepening of the online game market have attracted wide attention aroused the great attention of many industry insiders.
Upcoming Mabinogi 2
During this merger and acquisition wave, Nexon really showed its mightiness. Many South Korean developers, including Wizet, Neople, Ndoors, Gamehi and JCE were taken over by Nexon, as a direct result of which 8 hot-selling games in South Korea, including Maplestory, Dungeon Fighter Online, Atlantica Online, Sudden Attack, Free Style, FreeStyle Football, Free Style 2 and Cyphers, joined Nexon’s lineup.
[GMS] My Advance of the Union and Justice Predictions
The percentage chances predicted below are the chance that we will receive the first part of each major update in the month stated.
Advance of the Union
March: 30%
April: 45%
May: 10%
June: 10%
July: 5%
Justice
May: >1%
June: 15%
July (or very late June): 70%
August: 15%
I say we’ll get the Advance of the Union (revamps) as our Spring update and then the bigger Justice update with the new classes over the Summer.
The msupdate Blog 