T17 and Devolver's comments to the City in past week or so have highlighted that catalogue is king right now and we have experienced that ourselves at Curve with Human Fall Flat selling 250,000 units in a promotion and darting back into the China Top 20 and Global Top 50 along the way as a brilliant new Museum update landed and VR announced. But market growth is new IP, extended globalisation, new business models and, crucially, collaborations. With publishers of all shapes and sizes learning tough lessons but also learning quickly, I'm feeling positive. And so are the commentators. Smart analyst Patrick O'Donnell right here: "Following a tough 2023 with all publishers downgrading, the results from both Devolver and Team17 signify increasing confidence in forecasts and a firm focus on the cost line. "In addition, Devolver has a very strong pipeline for the coming three years of over 30 titles including Human Fall Flat 2... this may drive a rerating like what we have seen in Team17 in recent weeks."
Dave Bailey
2mo
100%! Nobody should invest in video games without being prepared to ride out some tougher times. Overnight successes aren’t made overnight 😃
Shahid Ahmad remember our 2011 conversation about 'Lifecycle management';) think everyone is finally getting my message! Stuart Dinsey its all down to evolution of digital distribution the magic is how you build year on year from release ideally by title but worst case portfolio.
Stuart Muckley
2mo
Great to see it (and 250K sales of Human Fall Flat is not to be sniffed at so well done Team Curve :) )
Adam Keating
2mo
Stuart Dinsey - great comments on catalogues. Good games always sell. The over-simplification of game play mechanics is impacting unit sales in a massive way. People want to enjoy, not just be impressed with Graphic and Framerates. And the usual Top Tier insight from Patrick O'Donnell
Ian Goodall
2mo
Good post Stu. Good to see some positivity. Time to all look into 2025 - Evolve and thrive maybe rather than survive til 25.
Peter Weile
2mo
Can't be anything other than happy, when reading a post with a positive mood and message confirming it is not all as bad, as some will make it...
Great post, Stu! Let's hope this marks a real turning point, with the games industry not just surviving but evolving and thriving as we head into 2025.
Empowered - I salute x
Head of Technology and Growth Research at Goodbody
2moThanks for picking up my comments Stuart Dinsey. New release is really tough right now for the listed players ( whether that’s players waiting for sale; econ environment etc) but back catalogue is growing so strongly for the listed players driven by increased focus on pdlc; title promotion; porting, new territory expansion growing the audience cohort and longevity and other innovative publishing methods; which makes the risk of new release revenue less of a high bar on forecasts which admittedly are now a lot more sensible. At this stage, the deliveries in H1 are derisking the full year with all publisher pipelines weighted to h2. It means that the risk of downgrades now has to be neglible in the uk which will have been on investor minds coming into these results and forecasts remain super conservative. The sector as such should start to regain more attention from institutional investors again in my view and regain its growth opportunity/sector status.