Frontier Developments Share Discussion Threads

[sbb1x] 05/1/2024 18:27

Seller still at it.

[yankhanson] 04/1/2024 15:25

lyndley on Realms of Ruin, "I suppose fdev are now in that weird position again, wondering whether if it makes business sense to continue to support it."

FDEV is out of comfortable options. I predict it will do the same as last time, with its previous PC multiplayer combat game. Withdraw support, turn off the servers making all live copies of the game unplayable, then lie to investors that it is "continuing to support the game".

Adding another nail in the coffin of this management's credibility.

[luckymouse] 04/1/2024 15:18

97% off the high plus movement at BOD lvl indicating a chg of policy will bring in the discount base hunters

free stock charts from uk.advfn.com

[yankhanson] 04/1/2024 15:06

Good question. The profit warning following the December trading mentioned in the last update should be 'without delay' according to AIM rules. So, real soon now.

Expect FY revenue to get a substantial downgrade from the current £90m analyst concensus. I note that even an upramper on this board was a few days ago saying £80m.

[jfbonner] 04/1/2024 10:10

+6% ands rising. When is this profit warning YH? and how do you know so much about FDEV seeing as they fired you years ago?!

[smithie6] 03/1/2024 14:52

+4% today.
139p now

[smithie6] 02/1/2024 09:04

+3%

Clearly FDEV has some fans.

[smithie6] 02/1/2024 08:37

>since you seem to be claiming that the co. has no sales & makes no margin on sales

Nonsense. On the contrary, I just recently here reported the slightly-above-zero sales of the latest game Realms of Ruin.

======

Expected annual turnover £80 million.
That is a big amount.
Realms of Ruin has not sold well but clearly some games are selling.
Company cap. value <£55million.
Quite cheap for a games developer. Sure, the company needs to turn around it's sales trend & get past this difficult stage of reducing staff numbers.

[yankhanson] 01/1/2024 23:26

Paul Jourdan's Amati fund is quitting FDEV. See the latest newsletter.

For those who don't know, Amati was FDEV's first fund investor. Following IPO, Amati with Lansdowne owned 10% of the company. Lansdowne too has quit.

[yankhanson] 01/1/2024 22:18

> since you seem to be claiming that the co. has no sales & makes no margin on sales

Nonsense. On the contrary, I just recently here reported the slightly-above-zero sales of the latest game Realms of Ruin.

> The key question is how much of the recent poor performance is in the share price.

No, the key question is how much of the FUTURE performance is in the share price, inc. raising cash to keep lights on through the long wait for next new game release in 2025.

[smithie6] 01/1/2024 18:02

Have you got a short open on this ?

since you seem to be claiming that the co. has no sales & makes no margin on sales and the accounts say you are not telling the truth.

The last annual report gave a gross profit of £67 million on sales of £104million.
And that the co. was operating then at roughly breakeven if ignore the game developer in Canada that was bought.

Sure, the turnover & gross profit will be lower this financial year & the company has had to make cuts.
The key question is how much of the recent poor performance is in the share price. And the opinions on that will vary from person to person.

[yankhanson] 31/12/2023 22:24

Smithie6, re whether I'm "more skilled" than /Tencent director James Michell in evaluating shares, I'll just refer you to the fact his skill has left him sitting on a £12m loss. Mine has not.

Regardless, don't mistake his recent purchase as confidence in the value. I think you'll find it's no more than an attempt to protect his much larger existing holding. hoping the Director Deal notice reverses the fall in share price, allowing a placing to raise sufficient cash to avoid a bankruptcy which would wipe out his entire holding.

Your "income from existing games must surely be mostly nett cash since the cost to make those games was spent X years ago" indicates a severe lack of research. Frontier's takings on existing games must cover tax, shop fees, support, promotion, rented servers, continued development such as updates and DLC, maintenance, and rights-owner licence fees.

As for your "could sell the future cash income from one of those games", again, try research. 's web store product listings will show you the company is already tearing up those floorboards to throw onto the fire.

[lyndley] 30/12/2023 10:47

>On Smithie6's seeking sales info, see hxxps://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=1844380,2287220&release . Blue line = Realms of Ruin players

That's kinda nuts, peaking at 150 or so players over the xmas period. Not played the game but it seemed the multiplayer was a key aspect of this game.

I suppose fdev are now in that weird position again, wondering whether if it makes business sense to continue to support it.

[smithie6] 30/12/2023 10:08

What value do you give to the existing games & the income/profit they provide ?

Noting that the income from existing games must surely be mostly nett cash since the cost to make those games was spent X years ago.

Btw, could FDEV sell the future cash income from one of those games if the company wanted to raise some cash ?
I assume it could.
(It is common practice to sell the ownership of the rights & future income, in music, films etc)

From annual results
"Frontier's post-launch nurturing strategy delivered another strong performance in FY23, with games released before the start of the financial year delivering 72% of the total revenue in the period".

72% !
That has a value.

[smithie6] 30/12/2023 09:50

Btw
Would you agree that for the last financial year the co. roughly broke even at the cashflow level if one ignores the cash used to acquire a software company in Canada ?

[smithie6] 30/12/2023 09:48

Btw
Did you use to work for FDEV ?
Were you 'let go' ?

[yankhanson] 29/12/2023 17:35

On Smithie6's seeking sales info, see hxxps://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=1844380,2287220&release . Blue line = Realms of Ruin players, green = break-even comparator. I recently said here the game needed an immediate price drop to cut the £23m losses, and the next day Frontier did just that, cutting price by 40%/45%. Day 30 onward on the above graph shows the outcome, which unfortunately you'll need a magnifying glass to see. The 98% shortfall dropped by only TWO points.

This spectacular price insensitivity shows game's problem is much deeper than poor value for money. As one expert said, "Frontier Developments created a strategy game that is so simple that it ends up shooting itself in the foot by alienating fans of the strategy genre." Feedback from genre fans shows a level of abhorrence indicating Frontier would probably fail to ship significant numbers even at £0.

An occasional blunder can be forgiven, but the real concern here is this is the fifth major consecutive disappointment under this management, who, like before, right up to launch apparently genuinely believed they had a big hit on their hands, despite all signs to contrary. As Tempus in The Times recently put it: "Frontier Developments has a big credibility problem. The flop ... raises questions over its ability to deliver another hit." "Avoid" " Another profit warning seems likely".

[smithie6] 29/12/2023 17:30

So, you have no confidence in the sizeable recent share buys by 1 director or his wife ?

A director that has a 10/10 CV, including in asset management & evaluating/valuing shares in this sector.

Are you sure that you are more skilled than he is in evaluating the FDEV shares ? (& noting that he listens to, & takes part in, the BOD deliberations)

Perhaps the bad news is already in the share price.

[yankhanson] 29/12/2023 16:49

Smithie, no disrespect intended, but you're substantially behind on the news.

"Warhammer-maker Frontier sees shares plunge as sales of latest game flop"


So no, neither Amazon nor the Warhammer brand owner is likely to allow Frontier anywhere near this again.

[sbb1x] 29/12/2023 14:53

Looks like the seller is back.

[yankhanson] 29/12/2023 12:06

"More funding is required" is a definite. Surely a cash-raise placing must be incoming, preferably before January's inevitable profit warning.

About the games pipeline, the biggest concern is whole calendar year 2024 with no new game. This is surely unplanned, so I assume it is collateral damage from the F1 and Warhammer disasters e.g. the missing 2024 game was another licenced IP and Frontier lost the licence, or decided the risk was now unaffordable.

[smithie6] 29/12/2023 10:58

So, FDEV & the Canadian game maker they acquired have recent experience in making games for the Warhammer genre.

On 17th Nov. '23 FDEV released it's game
"Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin"

Amazon are investing in that Warhammer genre & promoting it. Amazon Prime being a mass market streaming service.

Looks good imo. With Amazon pushing Warhammer it should help sales of any existing Warhammer game including Realms of Ruin.

And perhaps Amazon might invest in new games in the Warhammer genre & FDEV might get work/income out of that.

------

Any news/info available on-line for sales of the FDEV recent release Warhammer: Age of Realms ?

[danmart2] 29/12/2023 08:06

Thus is a disaster, surely more funding is required.

The concern is the lack of good games in the pipeline, they are running on fumes.

[yankhanson] 29/12/2023 00:20

Smithie, I'm sure lots of people are monitoring. I sure am. What do you want to know?

[sbb1x] 28/12/2023 16:24

Hope nobody was scared out by that fake drop. 140+ tomorrow peeps