EQ1 Numbers Revealed

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by KrakenReality, Dec 2, 2020.

  1. KrakenReality Augur

    EQ1 according to the presentation has 82k Monthly Active Users, with 66k of those being members.

    EQ1 has made approximately $1 billion in lifetime bookings.

    YTD EQ1 has made $11.5 million in bookings second highest revenue, but is the most profitable by EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Deprectiation, and Amortization).

    The average user spends $37.5.

    21.2% of the bookings are from accounts at less than 1 year. (<1month: 6.5%, <3 months: 6.4%, 3-12 months: 8.3%)


    I included the link for the presentation below and the DBG/EQ1 stuff begins on page 11.

    https://www.enadglobal7.com/wp-cont...entation-Dec-2020-Acquires-Daybreak-Games.pdf


    Numbers look strong, but it is a bit bitter sweet feeling seeing the $1 billion in lifetime bookings. Considering, how little they actually reinvested back into their top performer.
    Coagagin, Fenthen, Leerah and 10 others like this.
  2. KrakenReality Augur

    Too late to edit, but I missed this quote the first time:

    “Fortnite of its generation.”
  3. Captain Video Augur

    82K active users - 66K active members = 16K FTP accounts actually being used, which is higher than I thought. A lot of mules out there.

    Based on a highly theoretical assumption of an average of two subscribed accounts per person, that means 33K distinct players; I had been guessing 25K, again higher than I thought. Or, the assumption is wrong, suggesting there are more TLP 40-boxers than I thought.

    Remember that untold tens of millions of dollars were flushed down the drain in the EQ Next fiasco. 66K subs after more than 20 years, when the all-time peak was just over 500K, isn't too shabby. There should be just enough money in the budget to re-hire Prathun, he has to be sick of Blizzard by now anyway. :)
    Stymie, Fenthen, Bardy McFly and 3 others like this.
  4. Sancus Augur

    One thing also to remember is the booking and EBITDA numbers are YTD as of September 30th, 2020. That will have excluded any ToV preorders or ToV purchases on launch, and also will exclude any CoV preorders. I'd imagine expansion purchases are a relatively small portion of revenue relative to subscriptions/microtransactions, but I would be curious to see LTM numbers (or FY2020 numbers once they're available) nonetheless.
    Stymie, Bronut, Szilent and 4 others like this.
  5. Sobmre Augur

    they really should take a hard look at how they release content, stop the year cycle of copy pasting.

    perhaps 1-3 zone micro expansions. a few times a year
    Fenthen likes this.
  6. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    Daybreak deserves some serious street cred and respect now.

    For years, people and the gaming media have counted out the company and its IPs as backwater, has-been, and in maintenance mode.

    The data dump by EG7 actually inspires quite a bit of consumer confidence.
  7. Hekaton Augur

    They tried that with COTF. They were having trouble keeping up
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  8. KrakenReality Augur

    I agree with what you’re saying almost 100k MAUs is nothing to be ashamed for a game coming up on its 22nd anniversary.

    A data drop like this would’ve been even sweeter in February after the Q4 sales. Pure speculation, but probably looking at 20million USD for YTD numbers. Expansion sales and I think Q4 has a higher probability to see high subscription sales. From a combination of returning players for expansion launch and 12 month subscription renewals.
    Skuz, Benito and Sancus like this.
  9. Aegir Augur

    When you consider that back in 99, their target subscription customer base way lower, these are impressive numbers indeed ( think it was somewhere between 20.000 - 40.000?. Of course what happened after the release is history and the subscription base just exploded. But looking back, I doubt Smed or anyone else in 98 expected this game to have 80.000+ members in 2020 :)
    Zunnoab, Skuz and trakk like this.
  10. Sancus Augur

    As far as actual analysis of the numbers, one big takeaway for me is that while EQ has about 2/5ths of DCUO's bookings ($11.5M vs $26.7M), it has higher EBITDA than any other title. Bookings isn't quite the same as revenue (which is used to calculate EBITDA), but if you treat bookings as revenue for the sake of approximation, you can find an implied amount of operating expenses, excluding D&A. Here's a quick table comparing games:

    [IMG]

    It (unfortunately, in a sense) confirms what many suspect, which is that very little of what EverQuest makes is reinvested into it relative to any of the other games. Again, this isn't perfect given various accounting distinctions (e.g. between booking and revenue), but it's the best we'll get. Also, as mentioned, my guess is EQ and EQII perform somewhat better relative to these other games were this to include Q4.

    Happy that EQ is clearly pulling in quite a bit of money (and therefore is unlikely to go anywhere any time soon), but also frustrated given that it feels like a marginal investment could significantly improve the game.
    Skuz, Stymie, Fenthen and 12 others like this.
  11. MyShadower All-natural Intelligence

    EverQuest in a table with this "other" IP makes me wonder when we will get a series on <insert preferred streaming service here>.
  12. Captain Video Augur

    DCUO's development staff is much larger than EQ's. They are producing at least three new episodes per year, any one of which is equivalent in content to any recent annual EQ expansion. They are also marketing much more aggressively, with a visible presence on Steam. Plus they are cross-platform, so those revenue numbers will also include sales on the PS4 and on the Switch. My guess is that if we could see average annual revenue/subscriber across all platforms, DCUO and EQ would be pretty close.
  13. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    EQ1 is twice the game that EQ2 is when it comes to revenue and profits. Yet they put almost as much money into EQ2 as EQ1. That is lame. Take those resources from EQ2 and give them to us.
    Fenthen, Maedhros, FubarEQ and 2 others like this.
  14. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    Ding ding ding we have a winner. <bow> as always sir Sancus.

    It's almost like the workhorse is pulling the weight for the whole farm, and the fancy new stud brings in cash, but eats twice it's share in licensing fees.

    Lost my metaphor there. ;)
    Fenthen, Caell, Sancus and 1 other person like this.
  15. IblisTheMage Augur

    Yeah, EQ 1 drives 30% of the EBIT on 15% of the turnover... that is AMAZING.

    I watched https://tv.streamfabriken.com/eg7-press-conference-december-2020?seek=1063 <--

    The CEO is former Everquest player, and if you drink every time he says Everquest in the presentation, you will get quite a buzz. He is really happy about that part of the IP.

    He mentions updating GFX engines on old games, and revitalizing IP via more content release. Also, he is really loving that titles like EQ get the revenue directly, and does not have to give a cut to a platform like Steam or Playstation.

    I would bet a coke and a beer that we will see an increase in content release rate for EQ, and I will not be surprised if we will get a big splash in a couple of years in the form of a new gfx engine (perhaps as a progression server-type launch, keeping the game engine, but redoing zones and monster art for EQ Classic). Sorry, I know this sugestion is silly, but I am just so thrilled by the actual state of EQ. I am blown away by the number of people playing EQ, and by the immense profitability of the game. It is literally carrying Daybreak Games. Darkpaw as a seperate entity makes so much sense in this light.

    Oh, and Swedish transparency is over the top. They have public salaries for crying out loud (taxable income to be precise)... As a dane, I must say that is a bit over the top... :-D
    Fenthen, Leerah, Raptorjesus5 and 8 others like this.
  16. Nennius Curmudgeon

    You seem to know something about Swedish laws in this area, certainly more than I do. What sort of consumer protection laws exist in Sweden? Several folks have asked about their credit card info. etc. being protected.

    The presentation does a good job of stating the positive. I hope it's accurate and I hope that the new owners bring new life to EQ.
    Cazmac likes this.
  17. IblisTheMage Augur

    I would not claim that I know Swedish law, but Norway, Denmark, and Sweden are very similar, and I would trust my personal and financial data in general and if necessary to well established companies there. I think the level of order and organisation that permeates these cultures are quite good.

    If this is interresting, maybe the following ramble can give you an idea of how we think in Skandinavia... But I warn you, it is a ramble!

    An example: a good friend of mine, a business man and former EQ player, moved to the US to start a small business with his wife and kids, while his son was in US on some sort of exchange-student-thing, and from him I got an account of some of the cultural differences.

    First culture clash came when he told his banker that he was not expecting to use checks. We haven’t used checks for 20 years.

    everybody has online banking, we have a national credit card, and a national automated payment system for monthly payments (that predates online banking), run and supported by all the banks, and it is integrated with our national government-driven 2-factor identificantion system (Nem ID, or Easy ID, that we use in all interactions with all public and many private institutions. All online banking is with Nem ID.

    I am required by law to have a bank account where governmental entities can deposit funds (called Nem Konto, guess what that means :-D), and I am required to use Nem ID to receive all communication from governmental institutions, as well as for most governmentally related processes that I parttake in, for example taxes or corona testing.

    When I need a test, I go to coronaprover.dk, (corona tests) where I log in with Nem ID, and I can schedule a test for me or my children down to a 10 min interval on any of the test centers in the country. Currently the test capacity is so that I can get a test near me within a day, faster if I am wlling to drive for an hour. Results are available together with all my health data on sundhed.dk (health) within 48 hs. Test centers are open 7 days a week, from early morning to late evening.

    All these pages and services are driven by the government, and I trust that our data protection laws keeps the data from being misused. On top of that we have the EU data protection laws...

    All these services, healthcare, education, etc is free for every citizen, we pay for it over our huge income taxes, that everybody I have met, conservative or liberal, are quite content with. In Denmark I am a conservative, veteran, upper middle-class type. I think that in the US, many of my views would appear very liberal. It is very confusing. For example, I don’t want to pay less taxes in general, but I want more funds to go to Health Care, Military & Police, Education and Research, and less to people who do not work (I am pro UBI, for example, which is also a bit controversial here). As most fairly well educated danes, I am a heathen. My positions are irelevant (and not particularily well informed), it is just to give you an idea of the contrasts between our cultures. Denmark was the first country in the world to have gay marriage, none in any ends of the political spectrum would ever be against this, it would be absurd to even mention in a political context.

    I am just touching the surface here... my point is: there is relatively speaking an extreme trust in the government, and there is a very high level of registration, automation, digitalization, and order. Danes complain if the train is 1-2 minutes late, show up to a social function between 0-15 (not -1, not 16) minutes after the announced start time (my wife is the exception to the rule), plan dinners with friends months ahead of time, happily pay our taxes (we don’t actually pay them, they are deducted from our salaries by the employer, who has to keep track and master quite a complex tax system, and the year after, we get a regulation from the “IRS”, either as a deposit on our Nem Konto, or as an increase in our automated tax payments for the following year, in the case that we own the IRS less than about 6k usd), and in general expect most things to be perfect.

    Ombudsman is a danish invention, it it a danish word. We have decent consumer protection, it is quite embedded in everything, but it is far from perfect.

    But a quarter pounder is a quarter pounder, no “royale” here!



    A large company who misused customers credit cards would be a _huge_ scandal.

    TLDR: a scandinavian would likely never fear that a large-ish swedish gaming company would misuse their credit card information. Also, any such misuse would likely be the banks problem, not the card holder, which is likely why automated fraud detection is freakishly good.
    Stymie, Zunnoab, Franchise and 3 others like this.
  18. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    Its not an either or thing though and if EQ2 shutdown I doubt all those players would move to EQ.
  19. Jumbur Improved Familiar


    I would be quite happy if this was the new direction for everquest. :D EQ has imho been severely neglected in the technical department, and I imagine it is a very limiting factor when designing new content. Imagine all the awesome ideas DPG had to throw out, simply because "the engine does not support that!".

    If I understand correctly, redoing zones and assets was the plan several years back. We got some beautiful zone revamps, which I think was a solid improvement!(I know freeport was a controversial revamp, but the ones where they stuck to the original "vision", were great).

    Honestly, A complete refactoring, would do wonders for the "feel" of the game. Like proper client-side prediction, to keep the player movement fluid. Stuff, you take for granted in other games...

    I always thought the whole "emote"-game mechanic was just an excuse for not hiring additional gfx-artists, animators and sound-artists. why write stuff in text, if they can develop an engine that can actually show it instead... I want to see actual meteor-storms in skyfire, not just red rings and some text!

    Show! don't tell! :)
    Stymie, Caell and IblisTheMage like this.
  20. KrakenReality Augur

    Feels like the executive leadership has spent the last 18 years thinking this EQ1 thing wasn’t going to work out. I think Shaun Lord mentioned that during one of those chats with one of the old devs. I can’t remember which one.

    Also, how frustrating must it be to work there trying to explain they need to spend more on EQ1 to earn more money.
    Skuz, Cazmac, Caell and 8 others like this.