Frontier's Annual Results have been published (June 2018 to May 2019), showing a record year and Elite passing 3 million basegame sales

Season? What that word? It comes from TV land? Is that like a Series or something? Please, do educate me further...

Yes, Season is pretty much the same as Series. It's mostly used in the US, but since Netflix and stuff it's also used in the UK. The term got adopted by the video games industry and means a series of updates (see Season Pass).
So for everyone who knows a bit about language and video games it's pretty clear that Season didn't refer to meteorological Seasons, which wouldn't make ANY sense anyway, because in that case Horizons wouldn't have been called SEASON but YEAR and the individual updates would've been called SEASON.


Regarding the original quarterly delivery estimates for Horizons (from FDev themselves), you know, Spring, Summer & Autumn 2016? Can you not possibly, conceiveably, just a little bit, think how some people might just have thought “Winter is Coming” implied a Winter release? Like, not the Winter the year after?
No.
 
Yes, Season is pretty much the same as Series. It's mostly used in the US, but since Netflix and stuff it's also used in the UK. The term got adopted by the video games industry and means a series of updates (see Season Pass).
So for everyone who knows a bit about language and video games it's pretty clear that Season didn't refer to meteorological Seasons, which wouldn't make ANY sense anyway, because in that case Horizons wouldn't have been called SEASON but YEAR and the individual updates would've been called SEASON.



No.
Like "the Season to be jolly" that's only once a year!
 
By the way, regarding output is too slow for 100 Devs... Apart from not knowing what all of them are working on and how complicated even small QOL additions might be... I just took a look at Taleworlds / Mount & Blade 2. They have a 100 Dev team as well. They are in development since 2012. 2020 will be early access. The game itself is just a better looking version of the original game with more features.
 
Yes, Season is pretty much the same as Series. It's mostly used in the US, but since Netflix and stuff it's also used in the UK. The term got adopted by the video games industry and means a series of updates (see Season Pass).
So for everyone who knows a bit about language and video games it's pretty clear that Season didn't refer to meteorological Seasons, which wouldn't make ANY sense anyway, because in that case Horizons wouldn't have been called SEASON but YEAR and the individual updates would've been called SEASON.
I didn’t really mean it. Please don’t condescend educate any more...
Somehow... I’m surprised precisely this much: not at all.

Perhaps I don’t hold FDev in such low regard as to think they didn’t intend to meet a quarterly release schedule for Horizons. I don’t think Mr B said “Winter is Coming” while secretly giggling at misleading all his customers.
 

DeletedUser191218

D
https://otp.tools.investis.com/clie...regulatory-story.aspx?cid=1725&newsid=1326478
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/czh95j Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/czh95j/frontier_annual_results_june_1st_2018_may_31st/

Copy pasta of paragraphs/sections with specific mentions of Elite Dangerous from the report

In financial year 2019, Frontier grew revenue by more than 160% and operating profit by nearly 600%, representing record financial performance. This was delivered through the success of Jurassic World Evolution (June 2018), and the ongoing performance of Frontier's first two self-published titles, Elite Dangerous (2014) and Planet Coaster (2016).​
Frontier's strategy of supporting and nurturing its titles through active community engagement, free updates, and chargeable content (paid downloadable content or 'PDLC') continues to deliver, with Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Coaster, and Elite Dangerous all continuing to entertain existing players and attract new ones.​
Elite Dangerous, launched in December 2014, continues to deliver exciting game experiences to active players whilst welcoming new ones. In December 2018, Frontier delivered the fourth chapter of the Beyond season of free updates, which added a number of gameplay features and further narrative to the Elite Dangerous universe. In January 2019, Elite Dangerous crossed the 3 million base game unit threshold.​
The launch of Jurassic World Evolution, combined with the ongoing performance of all three titles, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Coaster and Elite Dangerous, propelled the Company to a record financial performance for the year ended 31 May 2019.​
Frontier's first three self-published titles, Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, and Jurassic World Evolution, continue to perform well, in line with expectations, supported by the Company's strategy of active community engagement, free updates, chargeable content and price promotions.​
Taking into account the ongoing performance of Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, and Jurassic World Evolution, including the expansion content for each of those games, and the planned launch of Planet Zoo on 5 November 2019, the Board is comfortable with the current range of analyst revenue projections of £65 million to £73 million for financial year 2020 (the 12 months to 31 May 2020).​
David Braben, Chief Executive, said: "I am delighted to report a record level of financial performance, which reflects the skill and hard work of our talented team and the support of our players around the world. We continue to nurture and enhance all three of our existing titles (Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution), and I look forward to the release of our fourth highly anticipated game, Planet Zoo, later this year. Earlier in 2019 we celebrated our 25th anniversary as a company, and while I am very proud of all of our achievements to date, it feels like we are at the start of our journey. The opportunities we have now are better than ever. I am more excited about our future, our next 25 years, as a result, as we continue to expand our horizons and grow our portfolio, our team, and our partnerships."​
The hard work of our amazing team has delivered a set of record financial results; of which we are all extremely proud. This has not happened by accident. Over the last 25 years our talented personnel, led by David Braben and Jonny Watts, have established a culture and reputation for high quality, as well as for creating enduring and authentic game experiences. It's this sharp focus on quality that led us to achieve our best year yet in FY19 through the success of our biggest launch to date, Jurassic World Evolution, and the ongoing popularity of Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster.​
The five years since we transitioned to a self-publishing model have been really exciting. We continue to successfully execute the strategy we set out at IPO, building a great portfolio of our own games in the process. FY19 has been our best yet, and I am very pleased to report a record level of financial performance, which reflects the skill and hard work of our talented people and the support of our players around the world. We continue to nurture and enhance all three of our existing titles (Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution), and I look forward to the release of our fourth, Planet Zoo, later this year. Our roadmap for future releases both as a developer and publisher is looking particularly strong, including our announcement in March 2019 that one future launch, in 2021, will benefit from a major global IP licence. More IP licences are anticipated.​
We use this proven, rigorous and repeatable model to invest our resources with the intention of creating world-class games with strong franchise potential and plans for strong post-launch product support to help realise this potential. With Elite Dangerous we knew there had been significant success in the past, not least because of our own games in that area in previous decades, and also that there were no games like it at the time. We verified that there was a significant appetite for such a game with Kickstarter crowdfunding at the end of 2012 and early 2013, and the game itself has now vindicated that decision with continued success in its fifth year since full release.​
Our future franchise portfolio is likely to contain some with Frontier owned IP (like Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo) and some with third party licensed IP (like Jurassic World Evolution). Games based on owned IP provide Frontier with the benefit of having complete creative freedom, whilst games based on licensed IP have the potential to more easily reach very large audiences, such as with Jurassic World Evolution. We will review the value of licensing proven third party major global IP versus developing our own IP for each potential future franchise on a case-by-case basis. We will also consider the long term benefits of relationships with these IP partners and how it can help with future opportunities as the wider entertainment sector continues to change, presenting ever more new opportunities for new types of entertainment.​
Elite Dangerous is now in its sixth financial year since release in December 2014. Since launch we have continued to release expansions to the original Elite Dangerous game, simultaneously on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as those platforms have been added. Simultaneous releases on all supported platforms are planned to continue going forward. These updates add to the quality of the game, renew the interest of existing players and also generate additional awareness across traditional media and social media platforms, resulting in new sales. The attach rate of Elite Dangerous: Horizons to the base game continues to grow steadily, helped by the regular updates.​
Having the base game and Horizons expansions in the market covers mid-price entry to the franchise with an upgrade path, and we bundle the two together and add some digital items to create a Deluxe edition for a premium price point entry. We believe each product offers great value individually and a compelling premium package together.​
The Horizons season of chargeable expansions launched in December 2015 with Planetary Landings and concluded in September 2017 with The Return, with each release in the season providing new headline gameplay features plus a large number of quality of life enhancements and other tweaks, fixes and improvements.​
The Beyond season of free updates was announced in October 2017 at the Frontier Expo 17 fan convention, and released in four chapters during the period February 2018 to December 2018. Each Beyond update was free for all players, regardless of whether they had the Horizons season pass, providing enhancements to the overall player experience, bringing foundational changes to the core systems of Elite Dangerous and delivering new in-game content for Commanders to experience as they explore the massively multiplayer galaxy.​
Elite Dangerous is Frontier's biggest selling game franchise to date. The franchise continues to perform strongly as we continue to focus on enhancements within the strategy of further improving perceived quality and sentiment, adding significant long-term new features and supporting the unique evolving player-driven story, which all players experience together. We will continue to support existing players and further expand the player base over the next financial year through the addition of new content.​
The launch of Jurassic World Evolution in June 2018, combined with the ongoing performance of all three titles, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Coaster and Elite Dangerous, propelled the Company to a record financial performance for the year ended 31 May 2019. Revenue increased by over 160% to £89.7 million (FY18: £34.2 million) and operating profit grew by nearly 600% to £19.4 million (FY18: £2.8 million). Cash balances increased by £11.2 million during the year to £35.3 million (FY18: £24.1 million) reflecting the strong trading performance.​
Jurassic World Evolution accounted for a large proportion of the total annual revenue of £89.7 million in the period (FY18: £34.2 million) through its strong launch in the first month of the financial year on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster continue to deliver sustained revenue from both sales of the base game and PDLC, and sales of Jurassic World Evolution in the second half of the financial year, i.e. beyond its initial launch period, were encouraging in terms of both base game sales and PDLC. The ongoing performance of all three titles reflects Frontier's approach to supporting and nurturing each of its franchises.​
Capitalisation of development costs on franchise assets and other game related intangibles accounted for £14.8 million in the period (FY18: £13.4 million). As a consequence the percentage of gross research and development costs which were capitalised reduced to 70% compared to 85% for the last financial year. This reduction resulted mainly from the interaction of two factors. Firstly, the Company refined the application of its capitalisation accounting policy with effect from 1 June 2018, such that only development activity associated with new chargeable products would be capitalised (subject to the usual criteria set out under accounting standard IAS 38). Secondly, during the first six months of the financial year a substantial number of Frontier's development team were engaged on the Beyond series of free updates for Elite Dangerous (which concluded in December 2018) and a number of free updates for Jurassic World Evolution and Planet Coaster. Whilst costs for those activities were not capitalised during the period as they were developments of existing released products rather than new products, Frontier believes that investment in free updates is an important part of its strategy in supporting and nurturing games after launch. A higher percentage of costs were capitalised in the second half of the financial year and to date in the current financial year as a greater proportion of staff have been working on development activity associated with new chargeable products, including paid downloadable content (PDLC) for existing game franchises.​

Share price is down 8% on forecast reduced revenues. Just FYI.
 
By the way, regarding output is too slow for 100 Devs... Apart from not knowing what all of them are working on and how complicated even small QOL additions might be... I just took a look at Taleworlds / Mount & Blade 2. They have a 100 Dev team as well. They are in development since 2012. 2020 will be early access. The game itself is just a better looking version of the original game with more features.
It's not really an explanation for perceived slow delivery to cite an example of even slower delivery.
 

DeletedUser191218

D
Good thing I didn't buy any FD shares then.

Would've been good to buy them 5 years ago....perhaps not so much now. Could still rebound like but analysts don't seem to hot on future revenue prospects. Surprising, given the next ED release is next year.
 
Would've been good to buy them 5 years ago....perhaps not so much now. Could still rebound like but analysts don't seem to hot on future revenue prospects. Surprising, given the next ED release is next year.
But that won't show through in the financial results until the year after next. Planet Zoo should be the premier producer of revenue for the next financial year.
 

DeletedUser191218

D
But that won't show through in the financial results until the year after next. Planet Zoo should be the premier producer of revenue for the next financial year.

Share prices usually reflect forecast earnings over more than 1 financial year. Earnings growth is usually measured over 5 years.
 
Share prices usually reflect forecast earnings over more than 1 financial year. Earnings growth is usually measured over 5 years.
unknown.png
 
More comments about Elite from Liberum:

Further free updates are planned in FY20 (sustaining revenue) and a major paid-for release is expected in FY21 (which could result in a jump in sales in that year).​

We showed our revenue assumptions in Figure 26 and they are show again in detail in Figure 33. In terms of upside to these forecasts we would highlight four factors to watch;​
1. The paid-for update for Elite Dangerous could be more material than we expect (historically ED has delivered well over £20m of revenue in a year).​
2. New consoles could provide an opportunity to release Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo on consoles (this led to a major uplift in sales for ED when for example it was released on PlayStation in June 2017)​
3. We expect Management to announce new franchises in development over the next few months. Currently we assume new games achieve revenues in the range £15m to £30m in their year of release. Clearly FDEV could release more games than we expect and any game could potentially match JWE's first year revenue (£65m+)​
4. Third-party publishing (3PP) deals could accelerate over the next 2 years. We currently only assume £10m in our FY22 forecasts for the Haemimont Games deal.​
 
Top Bottom