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LONDON (Alliance News) - Frontier Developments PLC Tuesday reported a swing to a pretax profit in its recently ended financial year, as revenue growth was boosted by the launch of its 'Elite Dangerous' title.
The video game developer reported a pretax profit of GBP1.6 million for the year to end-May, swung from a pretax loss of GBP1.6 million a year before, as a more than doubling in revenue to GBP22.8 million from GBP9.5 million was partly offset by higher cost of sales and administrative expenses.
Frontier Developments has been transitioning towards self-publishing, rather than for third party publishers. During the period it launched its first major self-published title 'Elite Dangerous' on PC and Mac, which is a sequel to the pioneering video game 'Elite' that Chief Executive Officer David Braben originally co-authored and published in 1984.
Sales of the title made up 84% of the company's sales during the year, and Frontier Developments said that in 2016 it expects 100% of its revenue to come from self-published titles.
The company said that as at the end of August, it had sold 825,000 paid units of the product. It has since subsequently released the title on the Mac and Xbox One platforms. A new title, 'Planet Coaster' is set for public release in the fourth quarter of 2016.
"This has been a great year for us, and the first part of our transition has been successfully completed. The process of the beta and then release of Elite Dangerous went very smoothly and the regular delivery of new elements for the game has helped build an ever-growing fan base," said Chief Executive David Braben in a statement.
"With our first franchise about to enter its second season, and the announcement of our second, Planet Coaster, Frontier is in a very strong position, and very well placed for an exciting future and further revenue growth," Braben said.
Shares in Frontier Developments were down 0.8% at 198.50 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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