News business Sony, Vicarious Vision, CD Projekt… The business news of the week
Published on 04/17/2022 at 17:00
Sales figures, studio takeovers, financial statements, developer transfer window, investments… if these topics interest you, you’ve come to the right place. We offer you an update on the business news of the past week.
Summary
- Sony invests once more in Epic Games!
- Vicarious Visions: The disappearance of the studio is effective
- CD Projekt RED Provides Sales and Financial Update
- Cloud Gaming: A new “market” that is starting to weigh heavily
- Briefly in the business news of the week
Sony invests once more in Epic Games!
In July 2020, Sony announced in the press that it had invested 250 million dollars in Epic Games, in order to support the technological development of the company behind the Unreal Engine 5. In April 2021, once more, this time with the sum of 200 million dollars. A new agreement celebrated by Aloy’s arrival from Horizon : Zero Dawn in id:45791 Fortnite|sponsored=false]. Finally, Sony seems to want to go much further in its idea, since Epic Games has announced this week that the Japanese firm had injected 1 billion dollars additional. In focus: technological development and implementation of the metaverse.
Today, Epic Games announced $2 billion in funding to advance the company’s vision to build the Metaverse and support its continued growth.
The other billion comes from KIRKBI the family holding and investment company behind the LEGO Group. These additional investments should not upset the established order since the press release specifies that Epic Games remains under the control of Tim Sweeney. Obviously, the press release leaves the floor to Kenichiro YoshidaChairman of the Board of Directors and PDG de Sony Group Corporation :
As a creative entertainment company, we’re excited to invest in Epic to deepen our relationship in the realm of the Metaverse, a space where creators and users share their time. We are also confident that Epic’s expertise, including its powerful game engine, combined with Sony’s technologies will accelerate our various efforts such as the development of new digital experiences for fans in sports and our virtual production initiatives. .
Vicarious Visions: The disappearance of the studio is effective
On January 22, 2021, we learned that Vicarious Visions, which was part of Activision Publishing, was going to integrate Blizzardwith the mission of sustain the developments of the creators of Diablod’Overwatchfrom
Starcraft or the universe Warcraft. It is to this studio that we owe the GBA version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, several opuses of the Guitar Hero licenseor the remakes Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 et Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.
For more than a year, the studio therefore no longer has the possibility of directing the development of a game, working on Diablo II : Resurrected and assisting in the production of Diablo IV. At the time of announcement, Jen O’neal, studio director Vicarious Visions, had been promoted to executive vice president of development at Blizzard. A position she left three months later. In November, the integration of the Vicarious Vision teams was completed, but the entity still existed. This week, a short tweet from the studio account announces that the merger is now completewhich effectively leads to the disappearance of Vicarious Visions
We’ve officially merged with Blizzard Entertainment. Our development team will remain in Albany, NY and fully dedicated to Blizzard games. We invite you to follow us @Blizzard_Ent
— Vicarious Visions (@VvisionsStudio) April 12, 2022
We have officially merged with Blizzard Entertainment. Our development team will remain in Albany, NY and will be fully dedicated to Blizzard games. We invite you to follow us on @Blizzard_Ent.
It is therefore following 28 years of existence that Vicarious Visions bows out to become Blizzard Albany. We just have to wait to find out what the developers of the old studio have in store for us.
CD Projekt RED Provides Sales and Financial Update
If the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 been calamitous for the image of CD Projekt, the company is doing very well, and is even beginning to recover credit from its public. At the same time, the studio formalized the development of a new saga The Witcher sous Unreal Engine 5, and a major reorganization of the studio has been underway for many months. Shortly following the end of the fiscal year, CD Projekt announced that it had got the next-gen porting project from The Witcher 3postponed indefinitely to assess the remaining work, while preparing the presentation of its results for the year 2021. It is now done, and we can say that the company is finedespite a very significant drop in results.
Between January and December 2020, CD Projekt had achieved a turnover of 478 million euros, for an operating profit of 260 and a net profit of 257 million. For the period from January to December 2021, the figures are less encouraging, but remain positive. We thus learn that turnover is 194 million euros, operating profit is 50 million and net profit is 45 million. The significant drop in revenue is due to the fact that Cyberpunk 2077 did not carry the companybut also by a overall wage increase of 23%and by the many investments made. On the other hand, GOGthe DRM-free sales platform, loses money with a net loss of 6.4 million euros.
It is with the games that CD Projekt gargles, since we have learned that The Witcher 3 had sold over 40 million units even before its next-gen release, and the franchise’s total sales exceeded 65 million copies. On the side of Cyberpunk 2077, we are much further, but we are all the same to more than 18 million copies sold from the exit. We are therefore very far from the flop, and we can imagine that the studio is preparing a plan to boost sales on the occasion of the arrival (undated) of the extension. Moreover, the balance sheet only speaks of a single extension, and Adam Kiciński, the CEO, indicates that the multiplayer support project by the RED Engine has been abandoned.
We should also remember that CD Projekt recently bought out The Molasses Flood, following making Digital Scapes CD Projekt Red Vancouver. Finally, here is an overview of the evolution of the workforce distribution between December 2020 and February 2022. We note that most developers are now working on new projects (including the new The Witcher), which the team of Gwent is maintained and works on a new single player mode, that the one dedicated to the expansion of Cyberpunk 2077 is growing, and that The Molasse Flood is getting stronger.
Cloud Gaming: A new “market” that is starting to weigh heavily
Appeared in 2003 with OnLive, cloud gaming will have taken almost 20 years to begin its real democratization. We had to develop technology, infrastructure, and wait for Internet speeds to increase. Now installed with GeForce Now de Nvidia, xCloud (Xbox Cloud Gaming), PlayStation Now, Shadow, Amazon Luna, Stadia and many more, cloud gaming would already weigh 1.5 billion dollars according to the recent Newzoo report. In the documents accompanying the analysis, we learn that cloud gaming would now concern 21.7 million users worldwide, with continued growth expected.
There is even talk of a multiplication of income, which might reach $6 billion by 2024. To give an idea of the progression, know that in the previous report, Newzoo indicated that this market weighed “that” $ 671 million. But how to explain this sudden progression and these mind-blowing forecasts?
On the one hand, we find the difficulty in obtaining high-performance equipment due to costs and shortages. On the other hand, we note a great simplification of access to cloud gaming, the deployment of 5G and the acceleration of fiber optics, and a global advancement in technology linked. But to continue, it will be necessary to improve the capacity of the servers, to continue the work on the reduction of latency, and to hope that the improvement of the connection will attract new customers.
Briefly in the business news of the week
- Bungie has announced that it will become a “digital first” company, allowing residents of several states in the United States to work 100% remotely. More info here.
- A DFEH lawyer resigned, saying that California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom allegedly interfered in the case involving the state and Activision-Blizzard. All the details of this new development in our dedicated news.
- Nintendo paid €36.6 million to buy land and build a new building opposite his current HQ. The building will be dedicated to R&D and delivery is scheduled for December 2027.
- 41% of digital sales from LEGO Star Wars : La Saga Skywalker took place on Xbox consoles. On this point, the Microsoft console is ahead of the PlayStation consoles (34%), the PC (18%) and the Switch (7%).
- Embracer Group (THQ, Gearbox) intends to buy other studios. Currently, the company has 62 studios and has paid a total of $8 billion.
- Epic Games invests in the Brazilian studio Aquiris (Horizon Chase Turbo). The studio has signed a publishing agreement and will receive investment to develop future projects. The amount was not disclosed.
- Capcom announced that The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had elapsed at 500,000 copies in the world
- Despite appearing on the PlayStation Studios banner, Kojima Productions “is and will remain an independent studio”said Hideo Kojima.
- Pokemon Unitethe light MOBA developed by TiMi Studios now exceeds 70 million downloadsall mediums combined.
