Now, to the Banquet results...

...presented objectively without editorialization or malice: Netmarble 2024 Q4 Earnings results, re: Kabam MCOC.

Marvel Contest of Champions accounted for 13% of a total Q4 revenue of 649 billion KRW, or 84,370,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $58,539,507. Average over 3 months is $19,513,169.

This is roughly a 6% improvement from the previous year, 2023 Q4, where MCOC accounted for 12% of 664.9 billion KRW, or 79,788,000,000 KRW. Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $55,360,320. Average over 3 months is $18,453,440.

2024 Q4 numbers are also up 54% compared to 2024 Q3 numbers, where MCOC accounted for 8% of 647.3 billion KRW, or 51,784,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $35,929,949.75. Average over 3 months is $11,976,649.

That all said, the numbers as reported by Netmarble to shareholders indeed indicates that this Q4 result, which incorporated the Banquet, Cyber week sales, a ten champ giveaway and other stuff, resulted in the highest revenue for the game since 2021 Q4.

Now, 1 bit of editorialization, re: Why Everything Go Bad In Game When Make (relatively) So Much Money?

See the red circles?

Shareholders and Companies alike really enjoy when that number can be as low as possible. Everything else (commission, marketing) can be managed and explained away quarter to quarter, but that labor cost should never trend up, regardless of how much dough you're rolling in. That's why you get overworked employees cross-covering and limits on new hires as replacement hires capped at a percentage of replacement salary. Shareholders don't really enjoy Net Profits in red either, but if you see Year over Year improvements, you feel less like a sucker. Sometimes.

Fellow number crunchers feel free to use date-specific exchange rates to clean up the USD conversions posted. Everyone please feel free to editorialize what this potentially means for future Banquets.

Comments

kvirr

That’s just 2% of MSDs total worth

TotemCorruption

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

ahmynuts

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.

winterthur

Have to find the actual financials which includes additional data and hopefully find if Kabam itself is profitable.

TotemCorruption

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.

Ok, but who cares which aspect of Banquet people on the forum think was a failure.
It clearly wasn't a failure in terms of what actually matters.
Kabam made record money. Its customers spent record money.
People on the forum can complain and Kabam will listen but they should realize they're not the majority and if they all quit it wouldn't matter one bit....

Herbal_Taxman

...presented objectively without editorialization or malice: Netmarble 2024 Q4 Earnings results, re: Kabam MCOC.

Marvel Contest of Champions accounted for 13% of a total Q4 revenue of 649 billion KRW, or 84,370,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $58,539,507. Average over 3 months is $19,513,169.

This is roughly a 6% improvement from the previous year, 2023 Q4, where MCOC accounted for 12% of 664.9 billion KRW, or 79,788,000,000 KRW. Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $55,360,320. Average over 3 months is $18,453,440.

2024 Q4 numbers are also up 54% compared to 2024 Q3 numbers, where MCOC accounted for 8% of 647.3 billion KRW, or 51,784,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $35,929,949.75. Average over 3 months is $11,976,649.

That all said, the numbers as reported by Netmarble to shareholders indeed indicates that this Q4 result, which incorporated the Banquet, Cyber week sales, a ten champ giveaway and other stuff, resulted in the highest revenue for the game since 2021 Q4.

Now, 1 bit of editorialization, re: Why Everything Go Bad In Game When Make (relatively) So Much Money?

See the red circles?

Shareholders and Companies alike really enjoy when that number can be as low as possible. Everything else (commission, marketing) can be managed and explained away quarter to quarter, but that labor cost should never trend up, regardless of how much dough you're rolling in. That's why you get overworked employees cross-covering and limits on new hires as replacement hires capped at a percentage of replacement salary. Shareholders don't really enjoy Net Profits in red either, but if you see Year over Year improvements, you feel less like a sucker. Sometimes.

Fellow number crunchers feel free to use date-specific exchange rates to clean up the USD conversions posted. Everyone please feel free to editorialize what this potentially means for future Banquets.

Good stuff. Do they disclose what % of revenue goes back to Marvel for licensing?

TotemCorruption

Have to find the actual financials which includes additional data and hopefully find if Kabam itself is profitable.

I know it's not publicly available because Netmarble doesn't disclose its individual subsidiary profit margins, but I just assume Kabam operates at similar margins to other mobile games, so 20-30% profit margin.
Which would be what, around $150M-$225M in annual profits before taxes and corporate overhead?

TotemCorruption

...presented objectively without editorialization or malice: Netmarble 2024 Q4 Earnings results, re: Kabam MCOC.

Marvel Contest of Champions accounted for 13% of a total Q4 revenue of 649 billion KRW, or 84,370,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $58,539,507. Average over 3 months is $19,513,169.

This is roughly a 6% improvement from the previous year, 2023 Q4, where MCOC accounted for 12% of 664.9 billion KRW, or 79,788,000,000 KRW. Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $55,360,320. Average over 3 months is $18,453,440.

2024 Q4 numbers are also up 54% compared to 2024 Q3 numbers, where MCOC accounted for 8% of 647.3 billion KRW, or 51,784,000,000 KRW.
Converted to USD (today's conversion rate): $35,929,949.75. Average over 3 months is $11,976,649.

That all said, the numbers as reported by Netmarble to shareholders indeed indicates that this Q4 result, which incorporated the Banquet, Cyber week sales, a ten champ giveaway and other stuff, resulted in the highest revenue for the game since 2021 Q4.

Now, 1 bit of editorialization, re: Why Everything Go Bad In Game When Make (relatively) So Much Money?

See the red circles?

Shareholders and Companies alike really enjoy when that number can be as low as possible. Everything else (commission, marketing) can be managed and explained away quarter to quarter, but that labor cost should never trend up, regardless of how much dough you're rolling in. That's why you get overworked employees cross-covering and limits on new hires as replacement hires capped at a percentage of replacement salary. Shareholders don't really enjoy Net Profits in red either, but if you see Year over Year improvements, you feel less like a sucker. Sometimes.

Fellow number crunchers feel free to use date-specific exchange rates to clean up the USD conversions posted. Everyone please feel free to editorialize what this potentially means for future Banquets.

Good stuff. Do they disclose what % of revenue goes back to Marvel for licensing?

Isn't it usually between 5% and 15% of revenue for typical IP licensing contract?

Agent_T

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.
Ok, but who cares which aspect of Banquet people on the forum think was a failure.
It clearly wasn't a failure in terms of what actually matters.
Kabam made record money. Its customers spent record money.
People on the forum can complain and Kabam will listen but they should realize they're not the majority and if they all quit it wouldn't matter one bit....

So people aren’t allowed to voice how they feel in regards to the event? How the mass majority feel does not matter in the slightest all because Kabam made hella change?

Herbal_Taxman

Hard to say because of the tax they pay to Marvel, which I’m assuming is quite large.

If MCOC does $58M in q4 revenue, let’s assume that’s their best quarter in an average year. So maybe they do $180-200M revenue for the year. Nothing to sneeze at, but I assume any game built on 3rd party IP has very different eco mics than what is typical for mobile games in general.

TotemCorruption

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.
Ok, but who cares which aspect of Banquet people on the forum think was a failure.
It clearly wasn't a failure in terms of what actually matters.
Kabam made record money. Its customers spent record money.
People on the forum can complain and Kabam will listen but they should realize they're not the majority and if they all quit it wouldn't matter one bit....
So people aren’t allowed to voice how they feel in regards to the event? How the mass majority feel does not matter in the slightest all because Kabam made hella change?

I never said they aren't allowed to voice their frustrations. I voice my frustrations about the game too sometimes.
I'm just saying the mindset that because you or I think something is a failure for ourselves that it then means it was a failure for everyone else is delusional.

Not saying you don't know that, just clarifying that this was my point.
Banquet was a huge success for Kabam and its customers loved spending money on it.
There was strong backlash on the forum but it represents only a very vocal minority whose actions don't drive revenue or set trends other than when Kabam decides to implement based on forum reactions out of pity or because it coheres with their own internal goals and desires.

DNA3000

Fellow number crunchers feel free to use date-specific exchange rates to clean up the USD conversions posted. Everyone please feel free to editorialize what this potentially means for future Banquets.

Based on the exchange rates on the dates the financials were released (which conforms to my understanding of IGAAP) 2023Q4 generated approximately $60.14M USD. However, because Netmarble reports revenue percentages in whole percent these calculations have an intrinsic 0.005 margin for error (0.5%). Which means 2023Q4 could have landed anywhere in the range of $57.63M - $62.64M USD. Similarly, I calculate 2024Q4 to be $58.1M USD but the same margin for error means the reporting range is between $55.87M and $60.34M USD.

This presumes that Kabam collects revenue from the app stores in USD, and then Netmarble performs the calculations to report in native currency. If there is a more complex thing going on there, that would alter the numbers by unpredictable (but probably not drastic) amounts.

In terms of what this says about the relative success of the banquet event, that's not entirely straight forward. I did an analysis of the actual banquet numbers after the event ended and guestimated the event generated about $35M USD in net revenue for the game on about $47M USD of player spending (Kabam doesn't get all the money spent as the app stores take a sizeable chunk, and it is likely that the majority of spending is still via in-app purchase and not the web store). The Netmarble revenue numbers are consistent with that calculation. In terms of whether this was a success or not, there are lots of qualitative analyses that point to the fact that it was, but the main financial quantitative one we can perform is to look at not a direct comparison between 2023Q4 and 2024Q4, but rather the relative performance of Q4 in the two consecutive years.

In most recent years, Q2 and Q4 are typically significantly higher in revenue, almost certainly due to J4 and Banquet/CW sales. Q1 and Q3 then represent quarters that lack large dominant sale events. If we consider the average revenue during those quarters to be a baseline of sorts, we can look at how much higher 2023Q4 was from the 2023 baseline and the same for 2024. If we do that, we get that 2023Q4 was about $15.8M USD higher than the 2023 baseline, and 2024Q4 was about $22.26M USD above the 2024 baseline numbers.

This does not necessarily mean that the 2024 banquet generated $6M USD more than the 2023 banquet. These calculations are not that precise (we are also blending banquet and CW together in to Q4). But they do suggest that it is more likely the 2024 banquet generated more revenue than the 2023 banquet than vice versa, and factoring in the other participation numbers from my prior analysis, that would imply a very strong likelihood that the banquet met or exceeded its targets for revenue and participation. I don't see any possible way the numbers could somehow "hide" widespread dissatisfaction with the event in spite of the fact that was a very common complaint. Or rather, while players might have been dissatisfied, they were not dissatisfied enough to stop spending cash or units, or otherwise participating in the event on a relative basis.

winterthur

Have to find the actual financials which includes additional data and hopefully find if Kabam itself is profitable.
I know it's not publicly available because Netmarble doesn't disclose its individual subsidiary profit margins, but I just assume Kabam operates at similar margins to other mobile games, so 20-30% profit margin.
Which would be what, around $150M-$225M in annual profits before taxes and corporate overhead?

Now if any Summoner can assist with translation, this is for FY2023.

Average_Desi

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.
Ok, but who cares which aspect of Banquet people on the forum think was a failure.
It clearly wasn't a failure in terms of what actually matters.
Kabam made record money. Its customers spent record money.
People on the forum can complain and Kabam will listen but they should realize they're not the majority and if they all quit it wouldn't matter one bit....
So people aren’t allowed to voice how they feel in regards to the event? How the mass majority feel does not matter in the slightest all because Kabam made hella change?

Vocal minority*

peixemacaco

Have to find the actual financials which includes additional data and hopefully find if Kabam itself is profitable.
I know it's not publicly available because Netmarble doesn't disclose its individual subsidiary profit margins, but I just assume Kabam operates at similar margins to other mobile games, so 20-30% profit margin.
Which would be what, around $150M-$225M in annual profits before taxes and corporate overhead?

Now if any Summoner can assist with translation, this is for FY2023.

Done!

But in vertical with 4 parts

Happy that Mcoc will continue for years 🥳

Average_Desi

But but everyone on the forum told me that Banquet was a huge failure and that Kabam is dying.
Are you telling me that the actual numbers show the complainers on the forum are delusional malcontents??

We already knew it was a monetary success. The failure people were referring to was in execution of how they rolled out the event.

There certainly were threads a out how Kabam does not know their playerbase and how the crystals are useless and nobody would buy them. Of course, until the first r4s started rolling

Toproller89

Watch the numbers trend downward this year.

DNA3000

Have to find the actual financials which includes additional data and hopefully find if Kabam itself is profitable.
I know it's not publicly available because Netmarble doesn't disclose its individual subsidiary profit margins, but I just assume Kabam operates at similar margins to other mobile games, so 20-30% profit margin.
Which would be what, around $150M-$225M in annual profits before taxes and corporate overhead?

Now if any Summoner can assist with translation, this is for FY2023.

At a glance, that appears to be some asset listing, not an operational breakdown for Kabam. It does show Kabam to be profitable (generating net positive revenue) as accounted for by Netmarble, and it shows what Netmarble originally paid for Kabam. But it does not show any details about the profitability of the business unit.

winterthur

This is another related parties transactions schedule but hard to extract (since I don't know what it is, except that I can see the word Kabam and some figures), so maybe just leave as is.

JESUSCHRIST

Players who complain aren't whales
Which is why Kabam doesn't care about the complaints in forums

Whales carried the banquet spending
I never heard of a single whale who complained and stopped spending

Shadow_Shooter

Players who complain aren't whales
Which is why Kabam doesn't care about the complaints in forums

Whales carried the banquet spending
I never heard of a single whale who complained and stopped spending

I did if that matters (banquet top 20)

Chuck_Finley

This lines up with other information about the banquet and the state of the game financially overall. The good news is the game is in good shape to continue on. This also comes with the reality check that there is little incentive to listen to the community frustrations on bug fixes, content, etc. The game continues rolling on irregardless of the concerns and complaints expressed here.