Frontier Developments Share Discussion Threads

[cirlbunting1] 29/9/2023 08:24

No regulated portfolio manager will let this stock go down more than 30-50% without averaging down/cutting or removing it from their portfolio completely.

[yankhanson] 29/9/2023 00:16

phowdo, sector drop is only a small part of FDEV's drop e.g. the last year saw TM17 drop by 20% but FDEV by 84%. I.e. FDEV's underperformance is mostly its own fault alone.

[phowdo] 28/9/2023 19:18

Gaming downturn continues, even Epic laying off staff now

[phowdo] 28/9/2023 10:05

Gaming was a growth sector to be in but its always been cyclic and post-pandemic is now shrinking fast (except those companies with the biggest franchises). Eg the likes of Embracer desperately disposing of studios (A roll-up company that took on too much and has now imploded) the writing has been on the wall for a good while.
See also shareprice performance of KWS,TM17 and many foreign listed videogame companies. Some of us remember the first time around with the likes of EID,RGE,AGT,SEG listed in the UK all going to the wall.

[mortal1ty] 28/9/2023 09:40

As I have said before, portfolio managers might have had 0.5% of their fund in a stock like this. After the drop it might be 0.1% now?

Even if FDEV shares went to 0, they might lose another 0.1% performance. They don't care if they crush the share price, they have already written it off in their own minds and their portfolio.

Imagine if you had £1k of your £200k portfolio in it. Now its worth £200. Do you really care if you have to smash the share price to get out? I mean, its just £200 at risk now.

So... its going to go towards net-cash like the rest of these sorry video games companies.

[sbb1x] 28/9/2023 09:33

Seller /shorter is unstoppable here.

[fuji99] 27/9/2023 13:14

mortaL1ty: This is the bleakest account on a company I have red for many years. a testimony of staff losing any hope and just surviving till something happens - basically a sinking boat till the end.

[p1nkfish] 26/9/2023 19:46

Only a BoD purge will right this boat imho. A clean sweep.

[mortal1ty] 26/9/2023 16:48

Just spent some time reading the glassdoor reviews on FDEV. It sort of echos the discussions we have been having on here, but to be honest everything sounds worse than I thought. Include some below. Interestingly, pretty much every single review states that the pay is below average for the industry, especially given people live in Cambridge.

"Unclear what the future plan is Poor/no top down communication Many poor performers are able to cruise through unnoticed All work is to please shareholders Getting promoted seems inconsistent and depends on which management sign it off Some teams work very long hours while others down tools at 4pm on the dot Salaries are well below current market rates with no inflation based increases"

"The games felt rushed in development. And hurt their reputation. Was hard to be proud of the product you worked on when no one seemed to really care about quality control. High turnout, people coming and leaving quickly, people who left usually were core members and replaced with interns. Promoting from within to seniors. Which is good for employees. But bad for overall growth if they have never worked elsewhere and could have brought valuable insight and skills."

"The company culture is tainted with laziness and people who have been worn out over the years and thus don't care any further. Game sales have been so low that the bonus has been terrible, which makes a difference for a lot of people as salaries are also some of the lowest in this industry that I have encountered in the UK. Execs have been blaming this on the economy but the fact is the games aren't competitive enough and don't appeal to new players and certain design features have lost an enormous amount of casual and even hardcore players. Frontier operates on a status quo basis that may have worked 10 years ago but isn't adequate for what players nowadays want. Player research isn't a given on each project and interesting features are cut for more traditional but increasingly outdated design. As a senior designer I have witnessed too many times that graduates aren't shown the ropes, get lost, develop bad habits, and become very ego-driven as opposed to engaging with team spirit. This isn't surprising as the culture at Frontier is almost non-existent. Most leads don't like devs who challenge and push for new and improved ways. On the other hand I've witnessed fantastic, experienced designers also become totally ego-driven, uninspired and spiteful, which is a culture testimony. Anyone with ambitions will become jaded after a few months. A director once said to me 'Frontier is the Pleasantville of game studios'. It's very true - superficially friendly, complacent and colourless. It's been a miserable few years being surrounded by this kind of unproductivity and I'm sad to say that I regret having joined Frontier. It has stalled my career and it's been strikingly eye-opening now that I've worked in a different studio for a few months. Sadly I've also experienced Frontier not being the most LGBTQ+ - friendly environment. HR had no interest investigating concerns and thus a bunch of LGBTQ folks left silently. I know of 2 who were even too afraid to state these reasons as the person who did speak out was under so much scrutiny, it was affecting their mental health. The fact is Frontier mostly hires the standard white straight male graduate and doesn't invest in representation. Thus this isn't an isolated experience but most departments have stories of active discrimination from leads or seniors towards dev. The strict hierarchy and culture of not challenging the status quo, isolating devs who disagree and disinterest from HR and recruitment to make actual changes lend themselves to these avoidable developments."

[mortal1ty] 26/9/2023 13:29

agbag, there is a black-out period... but we are not longer in it. The blackout I think is c. 1 month before a trading update is released.

[mortal1ty] 26/9/2023 13:27

I know. To be honest, looking forward to have a nibble on these at properly distressed levels.

[sbb1x] 26/9/2023 13:18

This drip drip drip is just continuous from 6 quid

[agbag] 25/9/2023 17:47

Isn't there a black-out period where directors can't buy in, eg before an announcement that they know about that might change the share price?

[mortal1ty] 25/9/2023 17:09

The other issue is not one single member of the management team has bought recently. I mean... why not? You get paid enough. Must have 20-30k lying around. I mean, if I worked for the company and saw my shares down 90% and thought I could double my money easily, I would do it.

[mortal1ty] 25/9/2023 17:05

60k shares traded... down 4%. There just isn't enough liquidity for the big boys (of which there are many) who will want out of this.

As I said before it needs to fall to properly distressed value to see the volume needed to clear these shareholders. I had in mind 0.5x sales (£80m sales) = £40m market-cap. Plus the £25m net-cash. £65m market-cap.

Another 30% ish to go. Until I see the shares drop into large volume I can't see the point in getting involved. Its just going to drift.... and drift...

[yankhanson] 25/9/2023 16:43

Well then I don't understand your maths. share price drop is 25p per week. That rate will hit 1p near Christmas, but will hit £1 five weeks from now.

[fuji99] 25/9/2023 15:33

By "penny share", I meant any value below £1.

[yankhanson] 25/9/2023 13:24

I doubt the share price will go as low as one penny, but it is really difficult to call.

Normally, it should settle at asset value. The true asset value, not the fantasy value in Frontier's accounts. Allowing for impairments such as redundancy for 900 staff etc., this could be around £30m, making 80p per share.

However this case is not normal. The man who has mismanaged the company into this collapse (President David Braben) still holds 33% and can block any takeover. The company might need to sink to near worthless before he'd release it to a rescuer. Perhaps £5m. 12p a share.

[fuji99] 25/9/2023 11:06

At the speed of decay of the share price this would easily become a penny share by Christmas. Unless a miracle happens.

[sbb1x] 22/9/2023 14:52

Sell 100,000@240

[yankhanson] 21/9/2023 15:31

"churned out basically a lot of garbage." Garbage yes, but not even a lot of it. How on earth can 900 people make only one new game per year??? Because going by the investor call video, that's the board's continued plan.

If they won't cut staff they must at least stop hiring more, or do it secretly and for god's sake stop pitching "growing our teams" as the way out of this mess.

I really recommend you watch the investor video. If only for the priceless irony of this excruciatingly mismanaged company proudly announcing it is betting its future on... management games.

[mortal1ty] 21/9/2023 12:59

YankHansen I agree with you about cutting staff. The staff count was 460 in 2019 when Frontier was doing JWE and Planet Zoo. They've almost doubled staff since then and churned out basically a lot of garbage.

If the business had done nothing since 2019 except make DLCs / expansion packs, and kept headcount and overheads low. Maybe releasing one well thought out game every 2 years, the shares would be much higher than they are now.

[sbb1x] 21/9/2023 11:18

Another 4 percent downPrice action here is just one way.Wait for trend to change