The Enad Global 7 financials dropped last week and, as was the case in Q4 2022, Big Blue Bubble’s title My Singing Monsters was the big draw for the company.
Enad Global 7
The investor’s report for Q1 2023 said the following about My Singing Monsters:
MSM delivered elevated performance throughout the quarter. As of the end of Q1, MSM had amassed 8.5 billion hashtags, 268 million video views, and 1.9 million followers on TikTok, continuing to expand its fanbase.
I still am unsure how the game, which has been around since 2012, took off late last year or if the social media coverage was the trigger or just an effect of the suddenly popularity.
So once again, Daybreak is relegated to second place in earnings when it comes to the EG7 games business segment.
Q1 2023 – Games segment revenue
It isn’t that Daybreak is failing to deliver. Its titles remain as solid as ever. It is just that My Singing Monsters has lit up and is suddenly way more popular than it has ever been over the last decade.
Daybreak remains solid while BBB was suddenly more than 4x expected
And BBB’s income has a lot higher margins, even before the big jump in sales, which probably reflects the difference in effort to support essentially one mobile/PC title versus running, supporting, and creating new content for half a dozen MMOs.
EG7 cautions that it may not stay that way, but says that it expects that its baseline performance will remain elevated going forward. My Singing Monsters is one key brands that the company owns, the list of which was given as:
- EverQuest, considered to be one of the three most iconic fantasy MMO brands in the world together with World of Warcraft and Ultima Online.
- H1Z1, the very first battle royale game that was credited as one of the inspirations for Fortnite, with over 40 million life-to-date (LTD) registrations.
- My Singing Monsters, which has over 135 million (LTD) registrations on mobile and PC, reaching top 10 in over 100 countries in the App Store games category and the No. 1 spot in more than 15 countries 10 years after its release.
I am still not sure how they can put H1Z1 on that list with a straight face. They are doing nothing with it, have announced no plans to do anything with it, and appear to be just waiting for some sort of magic to happen. I supposed lightning striking My Singing Monsters gives them hope.
Aside from the caution about My Singing Monsters, when it came to Daybreak the report mostly emphasized the EverQuest 24th anniversary, the DC Universe Online 12th anniversary, and next year’s 25th and 20th anniversaries for EverQuest and EverQuest II respectively.
Mention of other Daybreak titles was limited to pointing out that some of them represented strong licensed IP opportunities. Lord of the Rings Online, specifically, received no special mention. The timing of the earnings release put it before Amazon’s announcement that they are working on a Middle-earth MMO of their own once more, so there was no expectation that we would hear anything about that. It may, however, get some notice with the Q2 2023 results.
Overall it was a positive report. It opened with record earnings. Also the company reports it remains debt free, has cash on hand, and is focused on long term profitability. The joys of being a modest sized public company registered in Sweden I suppose, because if some Wall Street investment group was running the show they would be demanding stock buy backs and stripping it for quick cash boosts without thought towards the long term.
Related:
- Enad Global 7 – Investor Relations Page
- Enad Global 7 – Q1 2023 Presentation
- Enad Global 7 – Q1 2022 Financial Report
- Massively OP – EG7 pulled in a record $54M last quarter
- MMO Bomb – Daybreak And Standing Stone Parent Company Boasts $54 Million In Revenue
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I have quibbles with two of those bullet points.
1- if you mention UO, you have to mention Asheron’s Call. Along with EQ it was the third big dog back in the day. I suppose it’s not iconic, not being officially around any more, but still. I may be biased though since I was an avid player of it in the beginning.
2- as far as know, PUBG was the first battle royale title. Internet research I just did casts doubt on that but that’s how I remember it.
LikeLike
@Archey: On those points:
1- I had the same thought, but the counter is likely that AC has been closed for years and, while it was of the era and is generally considered part of the big three of that time, it was also the least popular of them.
2- If you go look at PlayerUnknown’s Wikipedia page, you’ll see he worked on H1Z1… I knew that in the back of my head somewhere… before going off to build PUBG. His work before that were battle royale mods for ARMA.
That second is no doubt an indicator as to how much Daybreak squandered what they had in H1Z1.
LikeLike
Do they ever break out how much H1Z1 is making these days? We tend to assume no-one’s playing it because it never gets updates and there’s never any news about it but the DBG Server Status page pretty much always shows some or all of the four regional servers at “Medium” population. (On that topic, I not right now that more EQII servers are at “High” than I’m used to seeing, so maybe there’s good news all round…)
LikeLike
@Bhagpuss – H1Z1 is an odd one because, even back when EG7 was buying Daybreak, they mentioned every game’s revenue except for H1Z1… or Z1 Battle Royale… or whatever the final name is.
I suspect it must be making some money. Steam charts says Z1 is getting 1K players logging into it daily, which means it is in the top 500 titles on Steam.
And then there is H1Z1… actually still called that… on the PlayStation 4. That is still available as well and, while the PlayStation 5 has been out for a while now, I bet it still gets some play by those who haven’t traded up yet.
So, on the one hand, I can in no definitive way state that its earnings are inconsequential to the company. On the other hand, EG7 almost NEVER mentions H1Z1 except to say something like “What a marvelous IP we own that helped to set off the battle royale craze!”
LikeLike