VU Games revenues drop again in September quarter

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Publisher Vivendi Universal Games has announced its revenue figures for the quarter ended September 30th, revealing that sales declined by some 18 per cent year on year as this year's release schedule failed to impress in comparison to last year's.

Revenues for the quarter stood at 63 million Euro, which represents a total decline of 18 per cent but a slightly smaller decline of 14 per cent if currency fluctuations are taken into effect, since Vivendi does much of its business in US dollars but reports in Euro.

News source: gamesindustry.biz

Cont...

The division pointed to last year's strong line-up of titles during Q3 by way of explanation for the decline - this time last year the firm had published titles including The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Homeworld 2, which is much stronger than its Q3 line-up this year.

However, VU Games is hopeful that it will be able to turn around that position in the fourth quarter, as between now and Christmas it will launch two hugely anticipated PC titles - Valve's long-awaited first person shooter Half-Life 2, and Blizzard's massively multiplayer title World of Warcraft.

The games division's tough result compares with an overall improvement in the situation for Vivendi Universal group as a whole, which actually saw a six per cent rise in like for like earnings during the September quarter, bringing revenues to 4.7 billion Euro - although actual figures were down 20 per cent due to the disposal of much of the company's media business earlier this year.

(2 replies) #1 devinlamothe on 10 Nov 2004 - 21:48

Maybe the sales from HL2 will bring that up a bit in the next quarter. :/

#1.1 redFX on 10 Nov 2004 - 22:06

Lol. I was thinking the same thing.

#1.2 [ timko ] on 11 Nov 2004 - 14:46

HL2 will probably double, triple or even quadruple their figures for the next quarter.... ok so that's probably exagerrating it a bit but if I was VU's CEO I wouldn't be sweating it

(1 reply) #2 C_Guy on 10 Nov 2004 - 22:12

Ha ha, this doesn't surprise me even a little bit.

The new Leisure Suit Larry is a joke and a slap in the face to Al Lowe. You think Sierra can't be more dead on the street and then VU manages to screw up the company even more.

Once a well respected empire, a well-known household name, now only well respected digital antiques.

Very sad.

...C_Guy

#2.1 cappuchok on 11 Nov 2004 - 09:41

Sierra is no more. VUGames shut down their offices this August. 5€ says that they'll hang on to the brand name and abuse it just like Infogrames is abusing the good name of Atari.

(2 replies) #3 Firen™ on 11 Nov 2004 - 07:17

anyone think HL2 will get record breaking sales like HALO 2?

#3.1 mikey on 11 Nov 2004 - 07:56

we'll see...

#3.2 R1CK13 on 11 Nov 2004 - 13:55

I think so

#4 cappuchok on 11 Nov 2004 - 09:39

Duh! And just what did they expect, after shutting down Sierra and destroying the Larry series, No One Lives Forever and half-a-dozen other good properties, some of which were 90% through development when cancelled.

#5 ElectricDemon on 11 Nov 2004 - 10:17

HL2 probably won't bring VU's revenues up as much as it could because Valve is pushing people to buy it via Steam. At the moment there are more incentives to buy it over Valve's network (i.e. Gold/Silver packages contain the back catalog games etc.). Whereas the retail packages (Where VU Games comes into play) doesnt offer as much. I think I read somewhere that Valve and VU have been to court over this (and probably still are). So I think that HL2 retail sales wont really be very beneficial to VU, time will tell....

#6 Mx² on 11 Nov 2004 - 19:48

HL2 should definately increase these figures

#7 tiddlie on 11 Nov 2004 - 19:51

To be honest i dont think half life 2 will help either. I think had it being released on time a year back we'd have seen the hype now surrounding halo2, but realistically how many shops have put on an effort for half life 2? Theres not even posters in the game i work in - only 10 display boxes. The rest is halo 2 motif

#8 andyboy2k2 on 11 Nov 2004 - 19:57

There's also world of warcraft coming out

#9 redFX on 12 Nov 2004 - 01:05

Now that I think about it... maybe they intentionally are holding back HL2 so that it comes out during their next fiscal year. Doing that will make that quarter look great and the company look like its worth something.

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