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Game scored a Metacritic rating of 81 vs 69 JWE, which bodes well ahead of Christmas and Black Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isKS2-xa5-8
looks like a big upgrade on the first game. Reception to the gameplay videos has been very positive, which bodes well.
thank you!
Are you able to put the article on the thread below?
I see it as basically zero chance the T/O doesn't go through. The bid is at a significant premium and has the backing of the founders. The process usually takes around 3 months and so you can get a 3% return in 1 quarter, which annualized is 12%...not bad.
I basically think FDEV will be a £200m revenue business in 2/3 years at 25 percent operating margin. If you put the shares on 35x earnings and discount back, you get a share price >£40. A bid would have to be over £35 to be taken seriously.
Sumo bought out today by Tencent for a 44 percent premium. They also have a stake in FDEV…will they be next?
Tencent also own a stake in FDEV…will they be next? CDM first to go, then Sumo, leaves only TM17 and FDEV in the Uk micro cap space.
Also, JWE film being released in June 2022 will act as a useful marketing tool, and therefore help boost sales in FY23.
JWE 2 is likely to sell better than JWE- why? 1.) Today, the PC/Console base is 30/40 percent larger since it was released in 2018. 2.) it will be released in calendar Q4 (the holiday season). 3.) you are selling into an existing fan base.
4.) JWE has been put on Xbox pass to expand the player base ahead of the JWE 2 launch.
If you look at the initial reviews for planet zoo when it launched, they were quite mixed and now the game has 90 percent positive rating. FDEV will turn ED Odyssey around. Ultimately, it is David Braben’s baby and he is not going to let the game die.
Also, if they are going to fall short of the guidance, FDEV could still potentially release F1 2022. Remember, management are being prudent and assuming it will be released in FY23. I also agree there is upside to numbers with Frontier Foundry- Lemnis gate could be a smash hit. I actually suspect there is a lot of upside to their guidance and feel they have decided to push out F1 2022 because they want to smooth the revenue profile. All IMHO.
Must admit I am pretty surprised at the share price reaction today. The FY21 results were broadly in-line with consensus, which I actually thought that could be taken well given the ED Odyssey issues. In terms of guidance, it is pretty much in-line with the previous commentary except that they will delay F1 from FY22 to FY23. Despite this delay, they reiterated the guidance range of £130-£150m. They decided to not raise FY23 guidance range and that has been taken negatively but I just think management are being conservative here. Also, if JWE 2 is massive success and achieves sales of >£100m (JWE was FDEV's most success game launch to date achieving sales of close to £80m), they would smash guidance and so essentially by delaying F1 they are trying to smooth the revenue profile for the outer years in order for the company to grow YoY.
Jurassic World 2 announced…coming in 2021!
predictions for tomorrow?
I suspect sales for FY21 will come in ahead of market expectations. They had a very strong Easter in terms of sales with all of their games on Steam in the top 50 of the charts.
the second title from their Frontier Foundry label announced today, which is exciting news and will further support revenues in FY22. Also, the trading update is scheduled for the 11th of June, which coincidently is the same day as the release of the Jurassic World Dominion trailer...could this be the unannounced major IP title for FY22?
if you look on Steam they had very similar issues with Planet Zoo i.e game initially launched with bugs/server issues etc. The game now has nearly 90% positive feedback. The company is releasing a patch on Thursday and that will further iron out more of the issues. The actual feedback for the underlying game itself is good, the negative feedback is related to the bugs, server issues, which will be fixed. You also have to realise this game will contribute to less than <10% of revenues in FY22 and i still expect the game to sell well once the issues are fully fixed.
the reviews are understandable as a lot people have experienced bugs, server issues etc. It would appear things are now more stable and so i expect the reviews will soon improve. It is also worth mentioning that despite the issues you have seen record engagement for the game since the release, reaching 29k users (nearly 50% higher than the previous peak) on Steam, and so from a financial perspective, i would still expect them to deliver results ahead of market expectations. I do agree that sentiment for the shares could remain lacklustre until the issues are fully fixed and we get an update from the company in early June.
agreed...they did release a patch last night to solve some of the issues. One thing for sure is they will get it right and this update will take the game to the next level. You also have to remember we are less than 48 hrs and games often launch with bugs/glitches etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxmIlTwnhXQ worth a listen from 27 mins to 40 mins...David Braben speaks about the game.