Quite a few negative numbers... http://www.mindark.com/press/financial-reports/documents/SemiAnnualReportJanJun2010_eng.pdf Pennsif
Ouch. Cash Received from customers: 32m, while salaries and creditors: 37m. This seems to indicate that the customer-paid income simply is not enough to even cover the current employees. (Well, that, or MA has been buying lots of stuff on credit). Small wonder they want to sell of the Dresden property ASAP. I also got confirmation on something I have thought from the very first moment this was mentioned. There seem to be two developments. 1 is that PC will be sold off, as we knew. Now the income model set up by MA works as following: MindArk 50% - Planet Partner 50% I am guessing that the part sold off is the Planet Partner 50%, apparently estimated at 6M USD. It simply would not make sense if the 50% on the other end of the equation would be the part in question, as that would mean a 1-term cash-shot, but a long term commitment to basically support FPC for free. Then the other development is selling off revenue from a planet to a partner. If I read that right, it means MA gets another cash-shot, but then the equation will look different: MindArk 35% - Planet Partner 65% Data above is totally fictional and an example only. Interesting. Would be nice to find out who is who in both of the above scenarios, though I doubt we will hear much more about the second agreement. Edit: I also cannot help but wonder. In the report they admit their marketing is pretty much non-existant. Yet, they (Well, FPC) employ a director of marketing. Something there does not quite add up.
Interesting, I wonder what was responsible for the drop in income, and from where the recovery in income is coming from - new customers or existing customers increasing their activity? - Deathifier
Thanks for the update, It definitely doesn't look very good from what I have read, ouch. It will be interesting to see the recovery when the other partners come online, if there is a recovery and all goes as planned.
We would know more exactly if one of our swedish friends could provide a really proper translation of this: EDIT: No idea why the quotes a broken apart, can't get rid of it. If I understand the following correctly it will be 30% MA and 70% planet partner: However, most interesting question for me: Who is it who bought PC? David Simmonds (and ND) are coming to my town tomorrow. I would go there and ask them but it's 249 € unfortunately: (http://www.gameplaces.de/index.php?option=com_mkschedule&task=detail&return=preview&Itemid=61&id=79)
I notice liquid assets are now only c 8 million SEK which equates to c US$ 1.23 million. How many top players would need to cash out to empty the pot? What happens then? >>The Group's liquid assets as of June 30 2010 were approximately 8 million SEK compared to approximately 23 million SEK the previous year. Pennsif
if say uber porn avatar wanted to cash out, those buying would have to raise the funds. either they deposit or they sell stuff to other who need to deposit. there's (i would imagine) relativly little liquid cash sitting on ped cards and storage.
People constantly miss the point aridash has made above. No one can sell out unless someone else buys. Net gain/loss for MA is $0. Auction fees go to the loot pool. If the game goes belly up you will only be selling to the TT machine, (provided they are not stealth disabled the day before the announcement of shut down). One question I have: If I'm reading this right. MA has 8.089 Million SEK in cash and bank balances. Is the "Unconsumed user holding" number the total TT value held by the players? If so, then don't hold your breath waiting for your payment if things go belly up. One thing to remember is that the first half of 2010 some(many?) people were not able to play at all because of the VU 10 increase in hardware requirements. Some probably never came back. The second half of 2010 should give a better picture of how FPC is doing. I wonder how much TT value is sitting in dead accounts? The new "planets" will either make or break EU. I think next year will be the turning point one way or another for MA. They really really really need to clarify what is going on with the sale of FPC. My thought is that FPC is the company buying Calypso form MA. Maybe they didn't really own it before but were just operating it.
Försäljningen är ett led i den partnerstrategi som styrelsen tidigare antagit i syfte att öka intjäningsförmågan inom Entropia Universe. Med fler aktörer inom den virtuella miljön kan marknadsföringen av plattformen intensifieras. MindArk och First Planet Company har idag ett vinstdelningsavtal om 50 procent vardera. Om rättigheterna till Calypso säljs ut från koncernen kvarstår vinstdelningsavtalet 50/50 men då med köparen. MindArk förväntar sig en substansiell ökning av Calypsos intäkter när köparen startar marknadsföringen av planeten mot slutanvändare samt börjar tillföra nytt innehåll till planeten. The sale is one stage in the partner-strategy which the board of directors earlier have set in motion in order to raise the earning capability within Entropia Universe. With more participants (as in planet partners.) the marketing of the platfrom can be intensified. Mindark and First planet company has a profit-sharing contract for 50% each. If the rights to Calypso gets sold out from the corporate group the profit-sharing contact is still intact, but with the new buyer. Mindark is expecting a substantial raise of Calypsos revenue when the buyer starts their marketing of the planet to the enduser and starts adding more content to the planet. Any questions? <- Swedish, can translate whatever part you need.
not happy with the numbers ... they seem to be doing everything in their power to maximize short-term profit: sell off different things and introduce new ingame things meant to make players buy them but on the long run what will they do once their assets run out? We might see a slight increase in the latter part of 2010, mostly due to vehicles( know a lot of people who depoed for cars) but I doubt those people will continue depoing just for the 1 week thrill of having a car...
How so, if they've invested into this Huge Graphics update, and have approximately 15% more workforce than last year. Sure they do wanna get out of their Castle investment, but that's the only thing that kinda seems off. The equity ratio is only 6% down, which is understandable in this situation, but again, they are not running at a full capacity. The only question that remains is will the consumers approve of the investments, and that will only the future tell, people will eventually upgrade and more partners will eventually join in. just my 2... naahh 4 cents ;) Some
The expected increase in revenue could also be from the change to tiering. Without the second item requirement, a 100% success rate and no loss of item it will encourage the high spending ubers to spend like mad to tier up their gear no matter what the cost is.
Well in my humble opinion they need to marketing/advertising to bring new players in to depo(Cause most people are impatient and will depo at least a few dollars). Or us as players need to use more word of mouth to bring more players in. And I think it is ok to tell someone hey put 65 dollars and 15 a month after. That’s the same as paying for a new game+the monthly subscription fee in an MMO. New players equal depos for MA. Also the release of Medusa to generate some income from the player base is a good move on their end. I think the introduction of the new PP coming out will increase a lot of new players as well. It’s also up to them to advertise to bring a help boost of the player base and thus boon the economy. We as players can do our part by spreading the word to people we know to come play the game. Well that’s my 2 cents on the matter. MA you can give me my 10,000 PED now… just kidding.
I'd agree the drop of players depositing was probably down to the update and the players catching up machine wise. Yes I know some folk went out and bought a 8800 as soon as ce2 was coughed but many of us had more sense to wait and then wait some more cause we didn't trust MA to come up with the goods any time soon. TBH I was still pretty shocked in Aug 09 when they launched! I guess players being able to take a break for free has a downside for the owners but ultimately its a good thing I believe. I only came back sometime 2nd quarter and we still didn't have mindforce then. We still don't have robot dungeons and a fair few old locations/landmarks are missing. Still its a shame they are struggling cause right now every update just seems to make thegame better and better. Both features content AND performance wise. Remember the days when every update caused a shit storm of complaints? It doesn't seem its been like that for a while now...
Still wondering who bought Calypso. One thing that comes from the sale is that MindArk will have a lot less employees to pay (nobody there to make content, just the programmers that build the engine and they are there now to) and they will get more income from the planet partners who will be attracting new players. The programmers at MindArk will not be doing much more work with the new planets, because they build the engine for all planets, but more money will be coming in from the planet partners. So they have invested in the engine over the last few years and been developing expansive new features for the planets. So if the planets are indeed bringing in more players, than my guess is that MindArk will be doing much better next year or the year after that. So the bottom line is that MindArk will be making much more money with relatively the same amount of work. Now lets just hope the new planets will attract the amount of players they are hoping.
I agree with you 100% on this. This year may not be the brain buster money falling from the sky year. The future looks bright for profit on their end if they produce stable content with the planet partners for release *crosses fingers
