Gaming

Flexion Q4 Report – 31 December 2021

Published

2 years ago

March 11, 2022

George Miller

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Flexion produces record results: 52% growth in revenue, 63% growth in gross profit and 163% growth in EBITDA

October 2021 to December 2021 performance

Total revenue increased by 52% to GBP 10.5m (GBP 6.9m)*
Gross profit increased by 63% to GBP 1.5m (GBP 0.9m)
Adjusted EBITDA^‡ increased by 163% to GBP 0.33m (GBP 0.13m)
Operating profit increased to GBP 0.63m (GBP 0.06m)
Earnings per share amounted to GBP 1.28 pence (GBP 0.13 pence)
Cash amounted to GBP 14.5m (GBP 12.4m)

April 2021 to December 2021 performance

Total revenue increased by 46% to GBP 26.1m (GBP 17.9m)*
Gross profit increased by 43% to GBP 3.4m (GBP 2.4m)
Adjusted EBITDA^‡ increased by 68% to GBP 0.43m (GBP 0.25m)
Operating result increased by 734% to GBP 0.56m (GBP 0.07m)

Important events during the quarter

Launch of Evony: The King’s Return from Top Games Inc.
Launch of The Ants: Underground Kingdom from StarUnion
Launch of Puzzles & Survival from 37Games
Signing of Mahjong Treasure Quest from Vizor

Important events after the quarter

Strategic investment in mobile game influencer, Liteup Media UG
Alignment of the financial year with the calendar year by closing the current financial year after 9 months in December 2021

* Comparable number for the same quarter of the previous financial year in brackets
‡ The Company defines adjusted EBITDA as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, finance costs, impairment losses and other income. Adjusted EBITDA (adjusting operating profit for several non-cash items) is used by the Company for internal performance analysis to assess the execution of our strategies. Management believe that this adjusted measure is a more appropriate metric to understand the underlying performance of the Company

Notes from the CEO

What a great quarter we had – our best so far! We entered the 4^th quarter with three new top titles leading up to the important Christmas period and I am really pleased that we managed to launch all of them and benefit from store promotions during the festive season.

Evony: The King’s Return, The Ants: Underground Kingdom and Puzzles and Survival are some of the biggest titles in the market and generated more than USD 40m in Google Play during December. These are now part of our portfolio and contributed to our strong performance in Q4. We experienced 52% growth in quarterly revenue compared with the same period last year and an increase of 46% for the whole year, which was in line with our guidance. The strong performance can also be seen in gross profit and EBITDA, up 63% and 163% respectively.

In 2021, we reached critical mass on the platform, and that’s why we now see a positive effect on our EBITDA for each new game we launch. I am also very happy that we generated GBP 0.6m in net profit for the period partly thanks to the recovery of GBP 0.4m from the impairment write-down we made in March 2020. These titles performed better than expected and are now generating positive contribution.

We added one more leading developer during the quarter, Vizor Games, and we are preparing to launch their title Mahjong Treasure Quest. On the back of our current strong performance and growing portfolio, we are actively phasing out low performing titles. This will help us improve the overall portfolio’s performance and increase the average revenue per game. Our top-tier monthly average has improved from USD 560K in Q3 to USD 730K. This can be seen in our KPI section on page 12.

We have now started to invest in new strategic initiatives within paid user-acquisition, with focus on influencer marketing and performance marketing to support our core business and to expand our footprint into the game services market as previously announced. The plan involves acquisition of talent through investments and acquisitions, but we are also strengthening our development and product teams to support these new initiatives. Our first step into influencer marketing was the investment made in January 2022 in Liteup Media. Liteup Media is a promising German start-up that has set out to disrupt influencer marketing and make it more mainstream and accessible to mobile game advertisers. This investment is attractive to us as we get a foot in the door in influencer marketing, while we have the option to acquire the company.

Looking at the wider market, we can see some clear market trends in favour of new services such as influencer marketing. This is partly due to privacy changes such as deprecation of IDFA by Apple, which makes it more difficult to target and track users. Google have also announced that it will make similar changes adding to the problems for traditional performance marketing. In parallel, we are seeing new demand for influencer marketing from blockchain-based games and NFTs. New marketplaces outside the traditional app stores are evolving for these games, adding to more market fragmentation. This in turn will drive new trends in user acquisition which we want to capitalise on. Other interesting recent moves that will expand our market is Microsoft’s support for Android on Windows 11, through their Amazon Appstore partnership. This project is now publicly launched by Microsoft, and Flexion is already supporting it. In addition, Netflix has entered the overall games market principally to support their core business and recently announced it stepped up its push into gaming by acquiring Next Games, a NASDAQ First North listed game developer.

We are now entering a new financial year and the traditionally weaker Q1 period. Our performance has so far been in line with expectations, we are focusing on growing revenue and audiences for our new top titles. On the back of our strong momentum coming into the new year, we expect our annual revenue to grow with 40-60% and our staff cost by 8-12% during 2022. This growth is driven by our core strategy, while new initiatives are ramping up during 2022. Overall, it should set us up for another strong and exciting year.

I would also like to comment on Flexion’s exposure to the terrible events happening in Ukraine and our thoughts are with all those affected. As a company with business in global markets, we have to date not seen any political events where mobile games have been sanctioned and we do not foresee that happening here either. We are very fortunate that our staff have not been exposed to the region, none of our developer contracts are with Russian companies and our settlement structure is relatively well protected against payment freezes or delays. The risks we see lie within the highly volatile Russian Ruble and the ability of our channel partners to transfer funds out of Russia. So far, the effects on Flexion have been limited and in February less than 10% of our global revenue was generated in the Russian market. The situation is very fluid, and we are monitoring it closely.

Finally, I would like to thank all Flexion staff for a fantastic year and welcome our new colleagues at Liteup Media to the Flexion Group.

Jens Lauritzson – CEO

Gaming

Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City

Published

1 week ago

May 9, 2024

Niji Narayan

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Reading Time: < 1 minute

Flexion, the games marketing company, has partnered with Jam City, a leading mobile entertainment company behind some of the world’s highest-grossing and most enduring mobile games, to bring a selection of the publisher’s best-in-class games to the Alternative App Stores: Amazon Appstore, Huawei App Gallery, Aptoide, ONE store, Samsung Galaxy Store, DT Hub and Xiaomi GetApps.

“We are always looking for new opportunities to build our network of global players, and Flexion is a proven partner that will help introduce our award-winning titles to new audiences in the alternative stores,” Curtis Barnes, Senior Director of Publishing Operations for Jam City, said.

“We’re all about helping developers like Jam City reach the full potential of their games. We’re delighted they have chosen us to add revenue and audiences for their games on the alternative app stores,” Jens Lauritzson, CEO of Flexion, said.

The post Flexion Enters into Partnership with Jam City appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now

Published

1 week ago

May 7, 2024

George Miller

mobile-games-index:-analysis-of-95m-game-interactions-reveals-shifting-engagement-trends,-available-now

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The anticipated fourth edition of the annual Mobile Games Index, powered by adjoe and Statista, is now available.

The latest report offers a clear look into the current state of the mobile gaming sector, analyzing the past 12 months of the first-party data from 95 million app interactions across 27 million users. The MGI 2024 reveals what people choose to play on their mobile devices, filling the gap in industry knowledge and enabling game developers and user acquisition specialists to benchmark their products and ultimately target the right audiences with the right content.

Moving forward, it is up to the industry decision-makers to analyze the findings and promptly adapt to the newly-emerged engagement trends from MGI 2024, effectively engaging desired audiences.

A Peek at Shifting Engagement Trends to Capitalize on

Based on predictions from Statista, the overarching trend in the market is its robust growth with a forecasted expansion from $166.1 billion in 2024 to $227 billion by 2028.

Remarkably, Card games are expected to grow the most dramatically at 13.8% a year, nearly doubling their global revenue by 2028. Judging from the engagement charts of MGI 2024, the main driver of growth in this category is Solitaire games. The audience is showing a clear preference for Solitaire – these games hold 7 out of 10 positions in the top list of card games worldwide by time spent with titles from MobilityWare, Gimica, Scopely, and Playvalve, among others.

What allows the market to show revenue growth is the positive changes in global daily time spent. After the dip in engagement highlighted by the last year’s Index, adjoe confirms that average daily sessions have rebounded to 21.5 minutes from 17.3 minutes reported last year, marking a 22% increase.

The most engaged demographic of mobile gamers globally is the 40-49 age group, which has experienced a remarkable 33% increase in daily gaming time, now at 23 minutes daily. The strategies targeted at older demographics over the past 12 months can be deemed successful. However, this has led to a loss of focus on engaging Gen-Z, which has shown only modest growth in time spent.

The MGI also reveals that women are outpacing men in daily gaming time across most genres – as reported for the 4th edition in a row. This consistent and high performance makes the female audience a continuously safer bet when it comes to user targeting.

Another continued trend is the dominance of top publishers such as Supercell, Garena, King, and Playrix, while there’s still space to occupy for smaller publishers. For instance, ForgeGames tops the engagement charts with their game Special Forces Group 2 – capturing over 43 minutes of average daily engagement.

The insights continue in the MGI 2024, going granular to segment and visualize global mobile game engagement data from adjoe by genre, region, and demographic. At the same time, Statista’s extensive market research provides a macro-view of the current and future industry, offering figures for global downloads and revenues with forecasts extending to 2028.

Mobile Games Index 2024 Is Available in Open Access

The MGI 2024 goes deep below the surface of market data and creates a comprehensive snapshot of the mobile gaming industry today. Inside are

For developers and marketers, this report is the green light to benchmark performance against industry leaders and align their products with the rising expectations of mobile gamers. This comprehensive tool is now available for free to inform decision-making and help optimize strategies for short- and long-term actions.

The post Mobile Games Index: Analysis of 95M Game Interactions Reveals Shifting Engagement Trends, Available Now appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Gaming

The German Games Industry Association congratulates all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024

Published

4 weeks ago

April 22, 2024

George Miller

the-german-games-industry-association-congratulates-all-winners-of-the-german-computer-game-awards-2024

Reading Time: 3 minutes

• “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games is ‘Best German Game’ 2024
• Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg wins in the ‘Studio of the Year’ category
• ‘Best International Game’ is Baldur’s Gate 3
• ‘Player of the Year’ is Maurice Weber

High-quality games, great entertainment and many well-known personalities from the games industry and the cultural, societal and political spheres – the German Computer Game Awards 2024 (DCP), presented this evening in Munich, featured all that and more. Numerous guests celebrated the best games from Germany and the creative minds behind them in person at Eisbach Studios in Munich. The award show, which was hosted by Katrin Bauerfeind and Uke Bosse, was additionally followed by hundreds of thousands of viewers via live stream. A total of 800,000 euros was awarded in cash prizes. “EVERSPACE 2” by ROCKFISH Games was chosen ‘Best German Game’. The ‘Studio of the Year’ award went to Pixel Maniacs from Nuremberg, which has made a name for itself with successful games like the party racing game “Can’t Drive This”, its multifaceted involvement in the game industry and its promotion of young talent, as well as with its innovations in the area of marketing. The ‘Special Jury Prize’ was awarded to the project “Gaming ohne Grenzen” (Gaming without Borders), an initiative that enables young people with disabilities to participate actively in game culture – for example, by assessing in inclusive game testing groups the accessibility of various games as well as the ability of certain technologies to help overcome barriers in video games. In voting by the community and the jury, Maurice Weber was selected ‘Player of the Year’. The games editor and Twitch streamer regularly analyses current developments in the games industry and takes a critical look at them, while at the same time formulating a clear stance for more diversity and against extremism in games and society.

The German Computer Game Awards, which honour the year’s best German-produced games, are hosted by the German Federal Government, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and game – The German Games Industry Association.

‘Congratulations to all winners of the German Computer Game Awards 2024!’ says Felix Falk, Managing Director of game. ‘Even in these very challenging times for many German firms in the industry, German games companies have created high-quality and successful games that have deservedly been honoured on the big stage of the DCP. Around half of these outstanding games were developed with the support of federal game funding. This once again demonstrates the potential that we can leverage when the underlying policy framework for game development in Germany provides for truly predictable and internationally competitive conditions – conditions that allow games from Germany to shine even more brightly all over the world and achieve even greater success on the national as well as international stage. We must make this our goal!’

Overview of all winners:
Best International Game (not endowed)

Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)

Best German Game (endowed with 100,000 euros)

EVERSPACE 2 (ROCKFISH Games)

The other nominees will each receive 30,000:

Atlas Fallen (Deck 13 Interactive/Focus Entertainment)
Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)

Best Family Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Spells & Secrets (Alchemist Interactive/rokaplay)

Newcomer Award – Best Debut (endowed with 60,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit/Assemble Entertainment)
Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Newcomer Award – Best Prototype (endowed with 50,000 euros)

Misgiven (Symmetry Break Studio)

The other nominees will receive 25,000 euros each:

Bloodletter (Katharina “Mikey” Müller, David Cafisso, Marvin Braun, Alica Schneider/Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin)
EcoGnomix (Lars Hinnerk Grevsmühl, Lars Eble, Bahy Nguyen, Marcel Zurawka, Alec Shae)
Footgun: Underground (Eduard Dobermann, Theo Lohmüller, Georg Nimke, Robert Pistea, Lukas Salewsky)
REPLICORE (Sarah Inés Roeder, Rody Nawezi, Leonhard Gläser, Maximilian Götz/ HAW Hamburg)

Best Innovation and Technology (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Marble Maze (Fox-Assembly)

Best Serious Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Friedrich Ebert – Der Weg zur Demokratie (Playing History/Stiftung Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte)

Best Audio Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Ad Infinitum (Hekate/NACON)

Best Game Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Lose CTRL (Play From Your Heart)

Best Graphic Design (endowed with 40,000 euros)

The Bear – A Story from the World of Gra (Mucks! Games)

Best Mobile Game (endowed with 40,000 euros)

Cat Rescue Story (Tivola Games)