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Swingman, got any good news about FDEV? Please post it. That will surely cheer you up!

MT Newswires) -- Jefferies on Monday downgraded Frontier Developments (FDEV.L) to hold from buy and trimmed its price target to 1.70 pounds sterling from 5.20 pounds.

A buyer wouldn't want the company for its staff. The open market has cheap game devs galore now there's a wave of layoffs across the entire games industry. And clearly the brand has no value. So that leaves just the back catalog, minus the games that are owned by the franchisers and developers rather than Frontier. Against that, the buyer would be taking Frontier's very considerable financial liabilities. So all in all the share price would have to go a lot lower to reach a value a buyer woukd find attractive.

The analysts covering Frontier Developments plc (LON:FDEV) delivered a dose of negativity to shareholders today, by making a substantial revision to their statutory forecasts for this year. Both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts went under the knife, suggesting analysts have soured majorly on the business.

Following the latest downgrade, the current consensus, from the twelve analysts covering Frontier Developments, is for revenues of UK£90m in 2024, which would reflect an uncomfortable 14% reduction in Frontier Developments' sales over the past 12 months.

https://simplywall.st/stocks/gb/media/aim-fdev/frontier-developments-shares/news/time-to-worry-analysts-are-downgrading-their-frontier-develo/amp

Withdraws target price 610p and provides no replacement.

Liberum note 27 Nov. "Putting forecasts, TP and rating under review".

No prizes for predicting what comes next, considering Liberum has already departed its position as FD's NOMAD.

"we see the company's value now supported more by the potential value of it assets than its medium-term outlook".

Revenue growth forecasts for next two years downgraded by 26% and 31%.

Steam score is in fact 66% - which means extremely poor.

This does not in general mean zero sales, but add the bad press reviews, 69% on metacritic, the insanely niche-of-niche niche genre, and the toxic Frontier brand, and near zero sales is the result. Steam global sales chart has the game at #4876.

I have never ever heard of a £20m game previously die so quickly and completely.

What is tragic is this fail was totally obvious from the negative audience reaction to the game demo/preview. Yet the CEO announced how pleased he was with the positive reaction and released it anyway.

£20m and a hefty chunk of brand value and credibility, up in smoke in one week.

Analysts at Berenberg lowered their target price on video games developer Frontier Developments from 210.0p to 170.0p on Tuesday on the back of news that sales of its Realms of Ruin title had been "underwhelming and materially lower" than many of its other franchises.

https://www.sharecast.com/news/broker-recommendations/berenberg-cuts-target-price-on-frontier-developments--15449842.html

What happened is horrendous failure of what FDEV promoted as "our biggest game ever". Lanched last week. Presently at 931 in the Steam global sales chart, and dropping.

Berenberg reinitiates Frontier Developments with ’hold’ - price target 210 pence

Elite Dangerous Community Manager too.

It does seem logical. These are the two worst performing franchises.

Zeus bullish? "Company's trading momentum may be turning". Not what I call bullish.

Shame the report credibility is mired by reliance on fairytale measures such as "Adjusted EBITDA margin" and Zeus custom-defined "Adjusted EBIT". And blaming COVID for the headcount explosion.

But the big issue is Zeus's forecast FY revenue - miraculously still £108m, a rise on last year. No recognition of the projected £18m underperformance of F1 Manager 2023 nor the inevitable fall due to cutting to Warhammer marketing and development, and staff generally.

Factoring in the dire Warhammer sales performance so far v. the £27m forecast, this FY looks headed for a shortfall of £30m at least. Largest ever for the company, by far.

Zeus provides new detail on the cutback plan.

"reduce expenses significantly without impacting ability to deliver on revenues"

"reduce marketing expenses in first phase" Looks like already happening with Warhammer.

"reduce development budgets by leveraging technology more and focusing on genres where it has prior expertise" F1 Manager and Warhammer DLC RIP, then.

Peel Hunt. Seems to seriously think development layoffs won't impact earnings.

Liberum. Raises forecast loss from £4m to £14m.

"Management should have stepped in much sooner though, took them an age"

Management stepped in as soon as thier stock options went worthess. As RNS shows.

This board rewarded CEO and CFO with obscene payouts, for cooking the books. Then now an audit forces a crippling amortisation, it rewards them again by leaving them in post... to sack innocent workers.

Board should sack itself.

F1 Manager 2023 PC and Xbox versions go free on game pass from today.

Flopped games typically take about 6 months to go free. F1 Manager today sets a new record of 3 months.

I have only one question about today's news. Will these redundancues include the CEO? And the CFO, paid £1m p.a.? And the others responsible for mismanaging the company into this clusterf*ck?

That club would necessarily include biggest shareholder and ex-CEO David Braben. I'd be amazed if they found anyone dumb enough to give more money to him, let alone to a club of people dumb enough to back him.

Keep in mind, every AIM games company that previously did this went bankrupt soon after.

Bergo, Good on you for admitting error. Easy to get conned by the Frontier PR if you are new to it.

Those Warhammer puff pieces dried up soon after people got to play the July test. Following a negative reception, Frontier wisely cancelled the August test ... but then in October blundered by releasing the demo that's drawn this latest round of criticism. PR dept. Woukd be lucky to wangle any positive press out of this mess now. Press doesn't like to be made to look stupid/corrupt, even for money.

I see game isn't even mentioned on Techradar's "Upcoming games 2023: this year’s biggest" https://www.techradar.com/news/upcoming-games

"I spent hours reading through countless reviews of the new game : Realms of Ruin."

Warning: Upramper. Google web search finds no reviews - as you'd expect seeing the game isn't released for 4 weeks.

What it does find is reports from players of the recent free demo. The most frequent word there is "DissapointIng". Here's the headline entry from the biggest discussion on Steam.

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Waited all weekend to give this a try with no expectations. I love the warhammer universe and setting, so I was excited to see how it would translate to RTS. The game simply is not fun. It felt bad to play. Rather boring. I agree with those diagnosing consoleitis. I'm the biggest COH fan there is and if you think COH3 is bad then wow do I have an example of bad for you with this game. COH3 suffers from console port and being watered down but I love how that game feels and plays. This game is like the most watered down simplistic concept of RTS ever all while being completely unresponsive. Felt like a game for people who don't play games. Closer to a mobile game for children, it just looks pretty.

I have no choice with this game but to put it down (possibly as the worst entry) on a growing list of games that have no idea what makes a game fun in the first place.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1844380/discussions/0/3810657811761825879/