Last night, we covered EG7’s video pitch to investors, which among other things included a segment during which EG7 and Daybreak boss Ji Ham proposed movement on the long-rumored EverQuest 3, an MMORPG theoretically set for 2028.
But there was more to the three-hour presentation than just the monetization of our EverQuest Next grudges and dreams. As MOP reader and MMO blogger Wilhelm from The Ancient Gaming Noob first noted, Ham also drums up a slide comparing revenue for all of Daybreak’s games – something we haven’t seen in investor reports before.
The obvious caveat is that there aren’t clear revenue numbers. Ham says that’s because the actual figures are “sensitive” data. But the takeaway from the comparative figures is that DC Universe Online is still by far Daybreak’s best performer, as it has been for years. However, Ham argues that the more casual the game – like DCUO and PlanetSide 2 – the more volatile its revenues. He contrasts that with MMOs like EverQuest, which is relatively stable with a core playerbase that can’t be dislodged.
Interesting to note are some significant peaks for Lord of the Rings Online too over the last two years; it’s even surpassed EQ a few times.
There’s a bit of bad news for LOTRO, however. Remember last year when EG7 began talking up a remaster of LOTRO? It’s not happening now. In fact, Ham uses it as an example of poor return on risk. He tells investors it would have cost the company something like $30M – and for that, it could’ve built a brand-new game. So don’t expect that to happen for LOTRO (or any other title in EG7’s portfolio).
Overall, Ham tells investors that Daybreak is on par with where it was before the pandemic jump, when MMO profitability surged, and argues that the portfolio is stable – just as he told investors during the last quarterly report.
This is bit off our beat, but we also finally got an official answer to the weird Cold Iron story, as Ham confirms that while Daybreak did originally pick up the Aliens Fireteam studio, it wasn’t part of the EG7 buyout, hence why the partnership was never mentioned again. Ham now says EG7 will publish Cold Iron’s next game instead of buying the company outright.
