JoWooD - Heavy Losses

Same procedure as every year: A new Gothic is coming out and JoWooD is on the ropes.
Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:

[adhoc]: JoWooD announces shareholders' meeting due to expected losses
Vienna, Austria, 22 September 2010; The managing board of publicly-listed JoWooD Entertainment AG yesterday notified the supervisory board that the losses set forth in the Q2 financial statements will probably equal or exceed half the share capital of JoWooD Entertainment AG.

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• Losses amounting to half the share capital likely in Q2 financial statements
• Managing board to call extraordinary shareholders' meeting
• Drawing up of Q2 financials taking longer than expected

The managing board of publicly-listed JoWooD Entertainment AG yesterday notified the supervisory board that the losses set forth in the Q2 financial statements will probably equal or exceed half the share capital of JoWooD Entertainment AG. The main reasons are credits granted in connection with price reductions, returned goods and requirements for value adjustments related to games launched in the market last year.

Accordingly, the managing board will call an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, in the course of which it will present the financial situation of the company as well as strategies and concrete measures for the successful continuation of the business.

The completion of the interim financial statements for the second quarter of 2010, most recently announced for the end of September, will be postponed because material accounting and valuation issues could not be resolved in the course of drawing up the Q2 financials.

The extraordinary shareholders' meeting will proably be held during the first half of November 2010. Until then, the creation of the financial statements should be at a stage sufficient to enable the shareholders' meeting to take appropriate measures on the basis of the Q2 financial statements.

The launch of the game ArcaniA planned for 12 Oktober 2010 is not affected by the above. The game will score with numerous new features and JoWooD expects the new release to contribute significantly to the revenues in the second half of 2010.

More information.

Of course the stock market was not amused to hear this.
And finally, JoWooD is forced to leave the ATX Prime Market due to too low market capitalization. They intend to find a new home in the Mid Market.

I'm not sure that from the sounds of it Arcania will be enough to bail them out. Thoughts?

Hm, I don't believe so. But at least it'll lessen the losses a little bit.



(Yay ! 3 times a word beginning with l+vowel ! A lyrics dream ! )

Again, another shame. JoWooD are, from my experience, fairly consistent with what they release. Nothing to ever blow you away, but if you get things like Spellforce then you'll certainly get your money's worth.

I hope all these job cuts and studio collapses end soon.

Originally Posted by Brother None
I'm not sure that from the sounds of it Arcania will be enough to bail them out. Thoughts?

Arcania will probably have to sell ca. 500-600k for full price to pay off the BVT Funds. Then JoWooD got 20% of the earnings till then and increasingly more for the ongoing sales - but the BVT Funds will always get a significant piece of the cake. The lowest is 32%, AFAIR, and it will take some time to get that low.

Add to this that JoWooD needs money to (a) pay BVT for the Arcania budget, (b) additional money to start the next big project and (c) also mony to stay afloat. Plus there's payment target of ca. 6 months for the big customers.

It doesn't look good.

Don't forget, I believe, they have Spellforce 2 Platinum or something coming out very soon.

"The launch of the game ArcaniA planned for 12 Oktober 2010 is not affected by the above."

Other than they probably had to rush the release and we all know what that means…

I hope for a way this publisher fails, but some how wish success to Spellbound as this was none of their fault.

However this pathetic IP stealing publisher will blame Spellbound, even if they did a good job and the publisher fails.

So maybe…….Critical Success but Financial Failure.

Damn, this could actually work.

Originally Posted by Acleacius
However this pathetic IP stealing publisher will blame Spellbound, even if they did a good job and the publisher fails.

That sounds very harsh and slanderous. What, exactly, have JoWooD "stolen"?

Originally Posted by Acleacius
I hope for a way this publisher fails, but some how wish success to Spellbound as this was none of their fault.

After playing the demo for Gothic 4, I'm not sure if either of them deserve to stay in business.

Who can really figure out what goes on "behind the scenes" anyway.

All I know is that most of what JoWood has put out has been bug riddled and released way too early.

The Guild? Gothic 3? Forsaken Gods? Even the first Gothics were pretty bug riddled, but the strong design overcame that.

I never had a really positive experience with them, but I can't say who's to blame. Developers sign a contract and they bind themselves to release windows or whatever. But, still, you can't escape that some publishers seem to give developers enough freedom to release solid products, or maybe every developer that has chosen JoWood has been incompetent?

PB did pretty good with Risen, so I'm leaning towards JoWood being the main culprit here. But, Gothic 3 was definitely over ambitious and I do believe PB took the blame willingly, but I think they might have been too harsh on themselves. Again, we can't know.

Arcania seems reasonably solid, in technical terms - but it also seems like a huge slap in the face to loyal Gothic fans. It's like a kiddie version of it, and JoWood can't have been without say in that at all.

Personally, I don't really stay loyal to franchises and I go by what I like. Arcania seems like a fun diversion, but it'll depend on final game balance.

But there's no way I can say with a straight face that it lives up to its legacy.

Jowood is a decent developer , i own many of their games from Aquanox to several of The Guilt series .
I really hope that they will make it out of this

Originally Posted by Tragos
Jowood is a decent developer , i own many of their games from Aquanox to several of The Guilt series .
I really hope that they will make it out of this

They're not developers, they're a publisher.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
They're not developers, they're a publisher.

Decent publishers then, thank you for correcting me

I don't want JoWood to fall or anything, just please, don't mess up any other licenses.

I do hope they'll get "Haunted" out before they get bancrupt.

I played this Adventure game last year on the Games Com, and was surprised that it didn't appear on the markets.
Now I know why : HMH Interactive went into insolvency, and Joood suddenly had it on the Games Com this year, playable.

http://www.hmh.de/produkte/ansicht/p/Haunted/
And don't be surprised : The mouse cursor there is actually "Das VIeh" from the adventure "The Book Of Unwritten Tales" (German game, English title. No German-language title available. *sigh*)
Edit: It is by Deck13, didn't know that.

Originally Posted by JDR13
After playing the demo for Gothic 4, I'm not sure if either of them deserve to stay in business.

So what's so bad about the Arcania demo?

You do realize that Arcania is contract work, don't you? JoWooD has full control.

Originally Posted by Gorath
So what's so bad about the Arcania demo?

You do realize that Arcania is contract work, don't you? JoWooD has full control.

I'm not going to repeat what I've already posted in the demo thread. Let's just say I don't consider it a Gothic game.

So JoWooD made all design decisions then?

Originally Posted by JDR13
So JoWooD made all design decisions then?

Who knows. At least they pay the bills and they've always made clear that the developer is creating the game according to JoWooDs' wishes.

So as long as the game is technically okay and in itself relatively consistent I would say Spellbound has delivered.