Indeed.
Anyone can, and I have googled and datamined a fair bit of information, like the almost quadrupling of the share price (dropped slightly since Covid19) and the gross revenue taking into account asset stripping/buying contracts out and amortising/consolidating capital/debt etc.
It just needs to be out there to provide context.
Careful with the analyses, here.
Operating performances are more than just top-line revenues, alone. Any business can make millions of dollars of revenue. But if they are not turning a profit, they are still going bankrupt.
Case in point, here.
Looks great, for GoW, from this snippet alone that looks only at top-line revenues.
Ok, letâs check the bottom-line of the Profit and Loss statement for the F2P groupâŚ
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is negative 82 thousand??? Losing money??? What happened here?
Thereâs those little problematic issues called expenses that have to be dealt with. Labor costs, server costs, development costs, and so on. While the expense breakdowns by individual games are not given, they are quite substantial.
Itâs very likely the majority of these expenses are tied to GoW. The developer is likely investing in GoW to keep the entire F2P portfolio afloat, as well as develop its only successful game in the F2P category. Iâm skeptical if any of the other games in the portfolio are even profitable at such low revenue generation.
Is GoW doing okay? Probably. Are they rolling in money? I very much doubt it. Their expansions onto other platforms and countries (Russia, China) probably add very significant development burdens that have to be continually maintained. If GoW continues to grow, thatâs going to incur additional expenses, and new sources of revenue are going to be needed.
Just wanna piggy back here, Australia is known for its high cost of living and salaries. Melbourne itself isnt a cheap place either, and with an office there the cost of just having the office would already be significant
Looking at this a little more closely, a huge chunk of the expenses are from increased labor cost:
Up by 29.9%. I somehow doubt that the GoW devs all got such a huge raise, or that they hired a bunch of additional GoW devs. This might be related to a new dev team working on some other not yet released game, they mention a âHawken series video game whose launch is scheduled for next yearâ as part of F2P.
Weâd really need to see the GoW related numbers to understand where the all that GoW revenue ends up at. Itâs still an interesting analysis that deserves a +1. 
All valid points and in the entirity of the post.
If you look at the 2015 accounts, at page 31 you will get this gem;
See the bit about revenue from sales increasing by 538 million euros (historically).
If you look at the 2019/2020 gross revenue, letâs call it 7 million Euro and the gross profit which is 1.08 million Euros and later investigate the rest, you will see that the money spent by the group has been on buying companies, taking on losses, amortising and consolidating, including it seems paying out/buying out contracts. Corporate takeoever (buying companies in adminstration or close to it, tax issues, VAT etc) buying things that are in trouble, which can be profitable for cheap.
Therefore the group is absorbing all of that eexpenditure, becoming larger and larger, earning more money and paying shareholders 9 monthly dividends and had a revenue of nigh 7 million Euro, and posting a huge profit at the time of itâs biggest ever increase and expenditure.
Also there is a contractual asset through the sale of Payday2 of 40 million Euros incorporated.
The share price bottomed at 6.42 Euros and is today trading at 21.35 Euros. Hardly a company that is running a dynamo from a bike to power them up, which gets peddled (pardon the pun) in the message devs have to eat. One shareholder has 30,243 shares and institutional shareholders are over 45% of the 100% available for shares.
Therein lies the next part, the Elite system generating as much revenue possible for the group via the hugely profitable Gems of War.
Outside of companies like Amazon and other big boys. Itâs important to keep in mind that every company between now and this time next year are going to have a down year. So any actual profit right now is most likely being sat on to insure payroll and pay overhead.
So as I eluded to, to others earlier in the week.
Does a small business need money right now? Yes!
Is Infinity Plus 2 a small business? Yes!
Thatâs just common (not mythic) sense.
Keep in mind though all that profit goes to 505 games. How much of the money Infinity Plus 2 sees is anyoneâs guess.
Digital Bros is 505âs parent company, it is they that own the profits to distribute. So IP2 are the engine, the people tasked with generating revenue.
Hereâs another link with the group looking at another buyout 36 million euros.
I think from the forumâs point of view, it is necessary to post this information so we see itâs all part of the mega corporate machine making money hand over fist, against the context of what we are potentially paying for.
I think we could examine it further with all the things stripped away from the game for players, to where we are heading.
It just doesnât sit well with me finding this. If you note, itâs not advertised anywhere who is actually the parent company, as far as I am aware.
Edit itâs this bit in that link that should be consideredâŚ
âIn the light of the existing business relationship, Digital Bros considers the increase of its interest in Starbreeze AB as a step enabling the Group to exert greater control over the corporate strategy of Starbreeze AB going forward,â it said via press release.
Does a F2P game with online services and content updates need monetarization?
I hope we donât need to argue about the answer here.
Do you still have fun playing GoW and is $10 a reasonable price for the Elite pass?
Everyone will have to answer this for her-/himself.
I donât care if the money goes to Infinity+2 or 505 games or if Stripes is burying it in the backyard, as long as they pay their taxes. If you find it unethically that a company makes profit, better go and tighten up your tinfoil hat.
No, it doesnât mean anything. It does not matter at all if GoW is made by one coder or EvilMegaCorp Inc. Either GoW on its own is making profit, or it will be shut down sooner or later. Even if they are making billions with âŚDeath Stranding/Payday 2/whatever⌠wtf has this to do with this game?
Youâve not read the links or posts have you ? It is making money, itâs making significant money, and the parent company wants more, so the game is asking for more money, alongside what it makes.
Thatâs good, great in fact for them, but itâs most certainly not âdevs need to eatâ or some pitiful scenario that seems to get portrayed anyone makes an argument that we must continue to support the devs.
Iâve read the financial report of March 2020, and their F2P division has a negative EBIT. We donât know if this is from running GoW (unlikely), or if they are investing in other projects (more likely), but for heavenâs sake, please google the difference between revenue and profit.
And if the reverse was true? If 505 was losing money then would it be Infinity Plus 2âs responsibility to make more money?
You see it as even distribution of wealth. I assure you anyone with any sense of economics will assume the opposite. And no posting the info publicly will only will only âconfirmâ ones own bias.
If an individual doesnât want to spend money then theyâll see it and assume that the company is doing great therefore doesnât need their money.
Where as others may see that info and dismiss it as $4 million euros revenue doesnât tell you the whole story.
All the information does it folks something new to argue over. Just adds fuel to the fire.
Hereâs a basic lesson for those who canât bother to use Google.
If I have a lemonade stand that sells cups for 50 cents and I sell 10 cups. Then my revenue is $5.
However. Since the lemonade and the cups cost (not including my time) $7.00. I ended up losing $2 and not making any profit. Despite my $5 revenue.
Have you read all the bits where they bought and sold companies? That came out of their operating costs. Amortising and consolidating debt pickups, thatâs previous years costs on this years accounts - a lot of depreciation in asset for example.
They paid off taxes for some of the companies. Like Payday was running a loss. Thatâs a lot of the difference between their revenue and profit (in other words costs). That they still made 1.079 million profit is pretty good.
Very true.
Hereâs fact
Half year report 2019/2020.
The associated costs included previous years sales and transactions, depreciation on assets they once had and buying out contracts and companies.
In other words, business is good, ask the shareholders with a 300% profit even accounting for Covid (Italyâs revenue was effected by Covid19 as they were effected earlier than others and it crept into this years financialâs).
Which is what I said when I said still making money, despite a backdrop of significant investment and buying debt, selling off. For example;
Huge investments effecting half yearly financials, but particularly good.
Then there is this;
As you should know, Iâve posted my thoughts about value for return as a paying customer. Everyone has their own bias/opinion/logic. I just donât subscribe to this argument that GOW is poor and we must invest, itâs clearly not and that is a fact. Iâm probably in the camp that everyone should pay something for GOW too.
I suppose the debate is getting convoluted. Not the intention
You know where I go for financial analysis? A video game forum.
Yeah I saw that, too. The guy is too busy playing GoW to think up new material so he just copied and pasted it.
Whoâs making money?
Digital Bros?
505 Games?
Infinity Plus 2?
Sirrian?
Son of Sirrian?
If the discussion was whether or not the parent company is okay. Then sure.
But Infinity Plus 2⌠The actual makers of Gems of War. Is not a parent company. Is not a game publisher. They are a development studio. In fact they have at least one more game out there that could of lost money last year. I donât remember the name and didnât see it in the report.
What was the intention then? Beyond âshow and tellâ?
Whatâs the problem with showing the information then? If itâs fact and not conjectureâŚ
