Hood: Outlaws & Legends, and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Grounds are being blamed for Focus' first-half drop in revenue.
Focus Entertainment dropped its financial results for the first half of fiscal year 2021/2022 (and its third-quarter results for the same period) last week, and it appears the French publisher had some revenue-related struggles due to underperforming games.
The financial report contains some disappointing news for Focus for its overall annual performance. In the six-month period ending September 30, 2021, Focus earned €85.1 million in revenue (about $96.4 million), which is down 18 percent from the €103.6 million it earned in the same year prior.
This meant Focus' profits took a hit in the same period too. Its net income for the first half was only €5.5 million, down 39 percent from the €8.9 million it earned the prior year.
What drove the decline? Focus named the weak sales performances of Hood: Outlaws & Legends and Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground as the primary culprits. Both games apparently performed "below expectations."
Still it's not all bad news for Focus. For the third-quarter period ending December 31, 2021, it pulled in €37.1 million in revenue, down only 2 percent from the same period ending in 2021 (it earned €37.7 in revenue in that time period). During this period, the company did lose the publishing rights to Farming Simulator, the massively popular series in the simulator genre.
Focus is looking at a stronger game lineup for 2022, particularly with the release of A Plague Tale: Requiem, the sequel to Asobo's A Plague Tale: Innocence.
Underperforming games are going to underperform, but it's interesting to look at Focus' financials in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted many financial reports in the last two years. Many companies (like Focus) saw bumps in game-related revenue and spending in 2020, but not all of them led to consistent gains in 2021.
It's interesting that for the moment, Focus Entertainment seems to fall into the latter category. Interest in its titles remains strong, but not so strong as to climb over player disinterest in two of its newer games.
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