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Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,714
4,337
This company bought a ton of dead/dying IPs lately. Most likely they won’t put any money into EQ and more likely if EQ turns a profit that profit will be used to subsidize the margins on the other games they’ve snapped up.

In other words, business as usual. It will be sold again at the end of 2025.
 
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Wynt

Trakanon Raider
80
57
"Daybreak has a total of approximately 178 million registered users"

"Daybreak has a total of approximately 178 million registered bot armies"

Fixed.


Actually makes sense now why I saw summit1g streaming Planetside 2 the other day. DBG attempting to pump up the numbers before the sale?
 

Naxi Qayreon

Trakanon Raider
32
48
The Swedes paid 10x EBITDA, which is a pretty expensive pricetag to just milk a dying game. Usually, buyouts of a company are 3-6x unless they want the IP, location, have strategic plans, etc. Kind of interesting to see how they handle the wink wink agreement Daybreak had with the EQ EMU community.
 

Whidon

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,880
2,906
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Regime

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
16,350
37,560
This may kill Everquest.
Season 1 Lol GIF by DREAM CORP LLC
 
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Whidon

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,880
2,906
I think its rather obvious why dpg has been so gunshy about banning botters. The plan was always to sell. A sudden drop in sub numbers would decrease the price or even ruin the sale.

Certainly the whole idea that eq is barely scraping along and needs those cpl K MQ2 accounts to survive was wrong.
 
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Cinge

Vyemm Raider
6,986
2,050
Some actual numbers on how EQ and other DBG properties in terms of subs/income ect.


Guess the guys here who thought LTRO had 10x the numebrs of EQ were wrong.

According to this EQ1 is DBG's second most successful game financially and has the most paid subs by a a rather massive amount.


Damn, DPG wasnt actually doing too bad. Sure its not eyepopping numbers, but that looks like decent incoming money to me for old ass games. I wonder why they were so scared to tell anyone anything specific.
 
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Metalhead

Blackwing Lair Raider
880
2,322
Man I hope this new owner will do something positive with EQ. I've always thought it was criminal how badly EQ was ran over the years. It's one of their bigger cash cows to this day after 20 years and that is just amazing to me since its had basically no effort or money put into it in a decade or more.
 
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Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,922
872
Huh. Those numbers are actually higher than I would've expected for just about all the games (except maybe the pop on EQ2...). It's no WoW, but considering that I would've halfway expected to find out Daybreak was circling the drain... Maybe there is actually a little hope that that hinted-at Everquest sequel will become a thing.
 

Naxi Qayreon

Trakanon Raider
32
48
The money relating to those subs isn't a good indication of much financially because it doesn't have the in-game store income or sales of the next expansion coming up, etc. A lot of the membership of accounts is via krono, not just the direct credit card charge method. There is a whole breakdown of the sale floating around, but I am not going to publish it here for various reasons. It details Daybreak's EBITA, how the purchase is financed, etc. They certainly paid an unusual price according to their 300m tag and Daybreak's EBITA. The EQ newsletter today mentions their recent hires and projects they can't talk about yet. Will be interesting if they really do have plans for new things and not just the milk until its dead approach. It seems strange to suggest they are going to flip it eBay style when they paid a premium already.
 

ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
<Banned>
25,295
48,789
The money relating to those subs isn't a good indication of much financially because it doesn't have the in-game store income or sales of the next expansion coming up, etc. A lot of the membership of accounts is via krono, not just the direct credit card charge method. There is a whole breakdown of the sale floating around, but I am not going to publish it here for various reasons. It details Daybreak's EBITA, how the purchase is financed, etc. They certainly paid an unusual price according to their 300m tag and Daybreak's EBITA. The EQ newsletter today mentions their recent hires and projects they can't talk about yet. Will be interesting if they really do have plans for new things and not just the milk until its dead approach. It seems strange to suggest they are going to flip it eBay style when they paid a premium already.
Uh, doesn't a single krono cost more than a single month subscription? At some point that krono was bought for $17.
 
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Naxi Qayreon

Trakanon Raider
32
48
Sure, but is that Krono considered an in-game store purchase or a sub? It just says "Members defined as customers who have purchased a monthly membership". The monthly sub is 14.99 and 1 Krono is 17.99. But then you have other price ranges like buying bulk krono and 1 month, 3 month, 5 month, 12 months, and lifetime subs. A membership subscription of 14.99 gives you access to EQ1, EQ2, Planetside, and DCUO. How many of those subs are the same account holder etc.? The 11.5 million earning on subscriptions for EQ doesn't include in-game purchases, etc

TLDR; the basic numbers given on the graph above with subs and YTD Bookings are flawed at face value in the context of how much money Daybreak is earning. If you dig deeper on the internet you see a bigger breakdown of the acquisition with more meaningful numbers is my point.
 

Whidon

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,880
2,906
I think you guys saying they overpaid are looking at it wrong.

I know industry trade shows often go for 8x to 20x ebitda, well pre covid at least. Because they have the advantage of low fixed costs, a good history of consistant revenue, and an excellent probability to stay as such. Plus they are essentially niche markets unlikely to have real competition. They can be very valuable when showing revenue growth like dbg had.

Seems like mmos like EQ would fit in the same category. Its very different then pricing most businesses.
 

Animosity

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
6,422
5,410
Honestly surprised that DCUO is their biggest earner. I thought that was gonna be at the bottom of the list.
 

Blitz

<Bronze Donator>
5,630
6,148
So DCU is their "biggest" game, but unless I'm reading that wrong not necessarily it's most financially important? Someone with a better understanding of Saas would have to clarify, but YTD "Bookings" doesn't exactly mean revenue. Isn't it akin to the potential revenue that it can garner, and not what it actually does?

That information is pretty much a wink towards that "TBA" Project, being Everquest. Seems like a given they'll dump some effort into EQ and DCU. I mean they pretty blatantly say their investments going forward will be focused on those IPs.
 
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