Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business news. This edition is all about money, baby. Well, quarterly financials, anyhow. And also crimes! Wait.
NetEase
NetEase hasn’t officially announced its financial results for Q3 2024 – those are coming next week – but it’s headlining our roundup today because its stock has been on the move anyway, and not for ideal reasons. The company’s stock tumbled as much as 5.27% over the last day owing to the fact that multiple Chinese and Korean news outlets have been reporting that NetEase authorities are investigating at least nine execs for fraud and corruption, specifically current and former execs in the esports and distribution/marketing divisions. NetEase itself has acknowledged the investigation but has flatly denied rumors that the possible crimes involve money laundering.(Thanks, r00ch!)
Roblox
Readers might recall that a month ago, a provocative short seller-turned-activist accused Roblox Corp. of juicing its numbers and being super gross about its youth playerbase, all in an overt attempt to sink the company’s stock. True or not, it didn’t work in the medium-term, and in fact, Roblox’s Q3 2024 financials have propelled the stock to its highest point all year now, owing to the fact that the company’s figures beat estimates and even pulled in a 9.5% revenue increase compared to Q3 2023. However, net losses were still nearly $240M for the quarter, not that investors ever seem to care that this company loses more money than it makes every quarter.
Worth noting here is that Roblox announced this past week that it will be restricting access and search for unrated game content for kids under 13. That includes social hangouts and the free-form creation tools.
Krafton
Finally, Krafton has fallen off the MMORPG radar since the demise of Bluehole’s TERA, but we’re still keeping an eye on it because of its multiplayer projects, including PUBG, which continues to make insane money and driving the corp to its “highest-ever quarterly sales.” But we’re watching its efforts in the global market because… we can start covering Subnautica now?
“Under this strategy, the company is preparing several new titles, including inZOI, Dark and Darker Mobile, Subnautica 2, Project ARC, and Dinkum Together. inZOI and Dark and Darker Mobile garnered significant attention at Gamescom in August, confirming enthusiastic responses from Western users. Subnautica 2 will introduce multiplayer co-op to offer an all-new gameplay experience. Project ARC and Dinkum Together will be unveiled for the first time at G-Star held this month.”
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