Frontier Developments Share Discussion Threads

[hastings] 13/1/2017 20:44

Mamas & Papas!

[nmulm] 11/1/2017 18:13

Suing Atari for $2.2 mil

[marbenswe] 11/1/2017 09:26

Also, for top grossing positions for all of G5 Entertainment's games, go to:

hxxp://www.g5info.se/spelstatistik_ipad.php

Updated daily

[marbenswe] 11/1/2017 09:20

Have you read about Swedish game developer and publisher G5 Entertainment? Prestigo Research issued this report a while back. In January 2017, the company released its sales figures för Q4-16. 184 MSEK,+82% and the stock is booming. Listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Small Cap

G5EN:SS

hxxp://www.g5e.com/corporate
hxxp://www.g5e.com/documents/PRESTIGO_Flash_Note_G5E.pdf
hxxp://www.g5e.com/corporate/share

[culford] 10/1/2017 14:30

Mark4231
Yes - i take gross sales figure (price of game x numbers sold) and divide by 1.12 to get to net sales (i.e. after the 12% average VAT FDEV pays). I then multiply by 70% (or deduct 30% for the Steam/Xbox distribution charge) giving the gross profit or contribution.

FDEVs cash costs, mostly salaries, are running at c£14m, meaning that at sales of c£20m (past two years) it has broadly broken even in cash terms. This was on one cylinder, Elite Dangerous. From end November it has been on two cylinders and most of the gross contribution of Planet Coaster should fall to the bottom line. It looks as if in first full year it might sell between 1m and 2m games at an average discount of say 15%. At the bottom end of that range that would be 1m games x £30 x 85% = £25.5m gross sales, £22.8m net sales after VAT and a gross contribution of £15.9m. If cash flow has gone from break even to >£15m then the market cap should rise to at least £150m, or 450p. At top end of range then the cash flow will be double and valuation significantly higher too :)

[bamboo2] 10/1/2017 13:28

abrar, The apex of trendlines that form wedges or triangles potentially indicate a turn in the price. These are marked by a vertical red line on my charts.

Will update chart later. There are a few of these imminently, that could indicate some potential volatility.

culford, yes target still 366

edit, abrar, basically it's a calculated guess.

[mark4231] 10/1/2017 13:04

Culford, do your figures take into account that Steam take a big cut in sales through their store? Something in the region of 30% I read elsewhere.

[culford] 10/1/2017 12:59

Bamboo - will still look v cheap at 366p - is that still showing up as your target?
Lets hope update comes Thursday.

[abrargundroo] 10/1/2017 12:49

Bamboo2 what signals are telling you the update is coming on Thursday?

[bamboo2] 10/1/2017 12:48

Added. Somewhat difficult to buy, placed order eventually.

[bamboo2] 10/1/2017 07:24

Chart suggesting to me that update will be this Thursday.

[culford] 10/1/2017 00:31

Planet Coaster is in third tier (Silver or top 40 games) of Steam's best selling games (gross revenues) for 2016, not bad for a 17th November launch. ED is not in top 100 games for 2016, although this may be a result of it being split into 3 offerings; ED, ED Horizons and Commander the combined offering.

SteamSpy was down for 24 hours and has just resurfaced with significantly higher owners for many games including PC. We will need to wait to see whether the data gets corrected but at present owners/sales have leapt to 665k last night, up from just over 500k previously. This would imply gross sales of c£18.3m to date, net sales (ex vat) of c£16.3m and gross profit/contribution of c£11.4m.

[hastings] 09/1/2017 18:59

Is there anybody out there!http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/business/technology/scary-video-confirms-existence-aliens-12427284

[culford] 09/1/2017 11:08

The alien Thargoids have been seen in ED which has caused a flurry of interest and driven sales of the game back up the Steam best seller charts. Pretty good timing in advance of PS4 launch in next few months. PC sales beginning to fall off but still in top 10. Overall a period of consolidation now and I am very interested in see trading update and what new game might be!

[bamboo2] 07/1/2017 15:43

Continuation or Breakaway Gap formed at the open yesterday. Price rose early in the session, retreating slightly at former historical resistance.

Not all Gaps are created equal. Looking at the stats this gap is likely to stay open for a considerable time, over four months on average, often becoming markers for a support area.

Apex [red line] of the acute Falling Wedge marks a likely turning point in the price.

[makw61] 06/1/2017 19:46

Looks like the Thargoids have appeared in ED which seems to have boosted interest in the game again and pushed it back up the charts.

GLA

[bamboo2] 06/1/2017 08:29

Hi culford, volume doesn't affect the target price for the chart pattern, but will be needed to get it there! Sometimes lack of selling pressure is enough to drive a price. There were, for example, some quite low volume mainly buying days in the previous run up.

[culford] 05/1/2017 23:35

Hi Bamboo,
V low volume today - does that impact on your analysis?

[bamboo2] 05/1/2017 22:53

Got the turn today. Looking now toward an ultimate tp of approx 366 in this pattern.

[culford] 05/1/2017 12:45

From the reviews on Steam, ED now being played on VR, mainly Oculus Rift and Steam VR.

Sales lept by another 11k yesterday on SteamSpy which is v strong in 2nd day after sales - presume its a lag from the sales period reporting.

[p1nkfish] 04/1/2017 21:12

CES is upon us and VR will be a central interest. Hockey stick for VR not far off and will carry along those publishers ready for it.

[m4ybe] 04/1/2017 19:46

I think there would be a meaningful loss of detail for VR, because it requires a top frame rate to be running and also two displays. Games seem to be cutting a lot of detail, so given that's a selling point in PC I expect they are in wait and see on that one and will be ready when it's profitable enough.

[makw61] 04/1/2017 19:05

I'm hoping for a trading statement next week. The company should have a good handle on its H1 numbers by now, so it's more a question of what the board wants to say on the full year outlook. That will depend I suppose on the anticipated PS4 launch date for ED.

I'm not concerned however about which particular reporting period a release falls into. I'm looking for a run-rate here of around 2m units on a rolling 12 month basis, probably consisting of 1.25m PC and 0.75m ED. That should give a very satisfactory level of profit vs market cap.

We've a reasonable handle on PC sales where I suspect most are via Steam, or even if direct from Frontier end up in people's Steam accounts so that they can use Steam Workshop, (my understanding of Steamspy is that it will pick up PC in someone's account regardless of how it got there). Happy to be corrected on that if anyone knows any different? I'm less sure of the split for Steam vs direct with ED and obviously Xbox sales are separate to that. Be good to reconcile my model with some concrete figures from the company. Clearly the model is only as good as its assumptions on volumes, and the split of sales of PC at £30 vs ED at £20 vs ED Commander pack at £40 and what proportion of sales incur a 30% Steam commission. As I said, looking forward to the trading statement and then the interims in Feb to refine the model.

Frontier seem to have a very clear road map for the company which I think demonstrates their long experience in the industry. By my reckoning this is roughly:
1. announcement of third franchise - soon!
2. PS4 launch for ED May/June
3. I'm expecting a third ED module around Q3 this year (Horizons launched June 2016)
4. Then probably some paid DLC for PC maybe November 2017
5. Announcement of fourth franchise H1 2017
6. Third franchise to launch maybe H2 2017?

etc etc

I have some concerns around the current level of ED sales but I feel it is improving all the time and could still be a massive hit once pilots can walk around ships/stations/land and once landing on all planets is available. Boarding ships would be pretty awesome....

I agree both games are also very suited to VR so be interesting to see when VR starts to really reach critical mass. I seem to recall FDEV saying that VR is probably a couple of years away for PC as the hardware needs to catch up. It takes a pretty decent rig to run it, so I guess you need to roughly double that horsepower for VR?

The share price has undergone a healthy correction since Christmas on relatively low volume and is only back to where is was around 20th December so my philosophy is just to pretend the Christmas spike never happened! My average cost here is around £1.80 so I'm very happy to hold this for 3-5 years and see what the company is worth then.

GLA

[bamboo2] 04/1/2017 17:29

Simon, Thanks for the chart. This has retraced further than I thought it would, although 50% is not uncommon on a flag pole imo. I had this level around 265 earmarked, although guess it could go back further to support around 250.

I have a turn date for late today/tomorrow, but for some reason all my advfn charts seem to be mixed up at the moment, I think it might be due to the two recent half day trading sessions or closed days over xmas. This has mucked up my timing based trades by one day, so it could be the turn won't happen until Friday. Advfn claim to be sorting the problem, but I'm not holding my breath. Cheers

[simon gordon] 04/1/2017 16:18

On the daily Ichimoku the red line looks like a potential support point as it retraces after the pre Xmas exuberance: