WAR Games

Paul Barnett always has someting odd to say on his Twitter.  His videos on Youtube are odd at times as well, sometimes funny, and other times informative.  Have a look for yourself.

Mythic in it’s Bitter Rivals Patch 1.2 Public Test Server patch notes is finally addressing numerous bugs and balance issues.  Some of the rumors and opinions that came from Comic Con NY come to fruition, such as the nerf to the White Lion’s Fetch! ability becoming more in line with the Maruader’s Terrible Embrace.

Also, I am grateful on some of the changes to the Shaman, and not so on others. Do sumfin’ useful will now be useful as it will absorb more damage and Gather ’round will cast quicker and heal more. Both very good. But ”
* Gedup!: This ability’s build time has reduced, but its cooldown time has been increased.: not so good. I already have the instant tactic spec’ed for this and now that seems pointless. They don’t say what the longer cooldown period is either, so it may prove we’re no longer the best rezzers in the game; which was something since we are far from being the best healers.

Overall though I like it. They’ve addressed every class in some way, some more, some less, but everyone got something looked at.

I’ll address this more later…time ta WAAAGH!

Massively’s Brook Pilley  recently interviewed Mithan, head administrator at the Warhammer Online Valut Network Boards and PhoenixRed, head administrator for Warhammer Alliance. You can read the interviews here.

Both had some good things to say. I personally think they are needed, as some of the bloggers on Ryan’s Nerfbat have said.

The chart below shows a breakdown of MMOs subscriptions, etc. broken down per game, their market share, and genres as well.

ION 2008 an Analysis of MMOG Subscription Growth

Here’s the survey.

But what do all those numbers in the article below mean?  I’ll try and explain it briefly.

Before I go into this, I want to make sure everyone knows I am not being a Jim Cramer here.  I’m not saying this stock is a good buy.  I’m not saying it’s a bad buy.  No “bull” or “bear” sound bytes.  All I’m doing here is giving my assessment of how I think the numbers announced affect the game I play, Warhammer Online.  It’s my opinion, and here it is.

First, from the filings we see that EA is cash heavy.  They have cash equivilents of roughly $2BN.  This is pretty good.  They could sustain losses such as they had for nearly 3 years.  Their total assets from the balance sheet is $5.2BN; total liabiliaties less the amount of stockholder equity is $2.15BN.  The Current Liabilities line items shows that they are pretty much debt free.

So yes, they are now going to be “agressively managing” the money that they now have by the cost cutting measures such as layoffs and the closing of 12 facilities, company wide, but also on how they bring things to market.  How does this affect WAR?  The new IP as they called it which includes WAR was mentioned as being quite profitable and that is where there is growth strength, in subscription titles; all but Star Wars had made money.  They also were talking up microtransaction based fee income.  We will have to wait and see if this is implemented in WAR.

EA is looking to expand into the Asian markets as well, which would only mean more money for WAR.

Although they hyped the new MMO with Lucas Arts, the new Star Wars MMO, they were talking about sequels for their current titles, including WAR.  John Riccitiello, CEO of EA said “we expect to benefit in the future from increased sales from these franchises. Generally, games with a “2” on them will sell better than the first version – and do so with a lower R&D budget”  So we can expect a WAR 2 at some point.

Final word:  EA is putting it’s dollars behind Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.  We can expect a sequel probably in 2010.  I won’t recommend buying EA stock but I will recommend buying WAR if you haven’t already.  BUY BUY BUY!

EA’s 2008 earnings will be announced during a conference call today at 2:00 PM PST. Besides WAR, EA publishes the Spore franchise which has done very well and is releasing expansions and console stand alone games this year. They also publish the Madden series which has done quite well.

There have been various rumors flying around the web mostly thanks to an unsubstantiated article on joystiq.com. Finally we can put these all to rest. Yes, there have been some layoffs, Mark Jacobs admits to this, as does EA. But read his responses here on WHA (easier than reposting from VN piecemeal)

Once the numbers are out I will post them here; below is a link to EA’s Investor Relations webcasts and conference calls. We all wanted to know the numbers of WAR, and soon we will at least know the financials.

http://investor.ea.com/events.cfm

Update:

There are currently 300,00 plus subcribers currently, generating $150MM profit (which may include all 3 of their IPs including Spore).  This number may be for their full IP lineup including Spore; reading through the 8k and press release now.  Not bad for a game people keep crying doom.  Also, they are predicting for 2010 to grow that number.  Overall the company posted a net loss of around $641MM, which is bad but misleading.

WAR Herald Press Release (Wow, Mythic doesn’t like giving the numbers, it took EA to do that.  This is the report that Mythic linked to)
SEC Filings

Press Release

8K

The below release was actually from back in October.  The current figures are listed above.  Below is what Mythic re-posted

Everyone here at Mythic Entertainment is beaming with pride at the current success of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning! The WAR is raging, players are having a great time, and today we announced that we have 750,000 players registered. This is an incredible number just three short weeks after launch. We want to thank each and every one of you for your support, and we look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with all of you as our numbers continue to grow!

WAAAGH!

Click ‘Read More’ to check out the Press Release.