Social game The Smurfs' Village "served as the driving force in increasing Capcom's financial results" during a quarter that saw profits halved.
Capcom's profits for the quarter ended September 30 were down 49 percent year-on-year, while its income was down 28.1 percent, the Japanese firm announced today. This decline is even steeper than in the previous quarter, which saw year-on-year declines of 23 percent for profit and 37.2 percent for income. This decline was due to economic factors such as the strengthening yen, the Eurozone crisis, concerns over power shortages and "structural change" in the games industry, and a relative lack of new releases from the firm compared to the same period in 2010.
According to Capcom, both Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Ver. performed "solidly," while Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Sengoku Basara: Chronicle Heroes "basically" achieved projected sales. Meanwhile, the latest addition to the Monster Hunter Freedom massively multiplayer online game, Forward 1, "fully leveraged characteristics to enjoy success."
Sales for the Consumer Online Games division were down 41.1 percent year-on-year to ¥18.1 billion ($238 million), while profits fell 50.3 percent to ¥2.25 billion ($29.6 million). Despite the declines, both revenue and profits exceeded Capcom's internal projections.
Mobile and social games provided a bright spot for the publisher, however, with revenue climbing 89 percent to ¥2.58 billion ($33.9 million), and operating income increasing 201 percent to ¥903 million ($11.9 million). The Smurfs' Village, which Capcom launched jointly with Facebook, "served as the driving force in increasing Capcom's financial results," the firm said. It also "contributed greatly to improving Capcom's earning capacity," helping its total download figures for social games to pass the 20 million mark.
Capcom's arcade business also did well, with profits up 67.1 percent year-on-year to ¥1.2 billion. This was thanks to renovations, promotional activity, and a general revitalization of the arcade business "owing to the waning of excessive self-restraint evident immediately after the earthquake," the firm said.
Alex Sassoon Coby has been involved in tech and video games journalism for the better part of a decade. He likes his games hard, his meat raw, and his women on wheels.
So far I have seen no reason to be even remotely pleased at the Smurfs return..so far we have a mediocre farmville-esque social game, a ds game that could easily grace the worst games of all time list,a dancegame that is a disgrace to dance games and normal games in general,a movie I already hardly remember...this is what happens when you try to over-publicize what was meant as a Saturday mornings cartoon show..no more..no less.
@Ni6htsorrow It's a possibility since most of their games are already on the Apple App Store.
next thing you know, they'll have a street fighter facebook game then a resident evil facebook game.
they made a MMO,that was thier mistake, now becouse of facebook they will get the wrong idea and become nothing more then another zygna wanna be
yeah cuz all of the kids on the ipad version were buying up berrys and stuffs without their parents knowing till they fixed it lol.
I hope you lose more CA$HCOM. I mean, UMVC3 not even 6 months after the game was released; it made everyone feel as if we had just bought a 60 USD beta.
If I could influence their production, I'd come out with another Mega Man title. Something good. Something unexpectedly amazing.
still cant believe people play those god awfull facebook games seriously, and even spend money on them. but then again i most likely will buy ultimate mvc3 after buying the original earlier this year. so does that make me any better?
Come along with the Smurfs! Sing along with the Smurfs! So much to see--oh wait wrong cartoon. ;)
@finaleve Why would i be talking about dmc4? I am talking about the new dmc. Oh Street fighter 2 that was on old gens that didnt have dlc or internet? The only fair version of Sf4 is Arcade because if you bought super,you can download it for 15$ which is how Super should have been. More than 15 but shouldn't have made us buy another disc but it is what it is. They canceled MML3 and Megaman Universe so I ask do you even know what you are talking about? Good Job at you thinking logically.
God damn you casuals, you and your crappy facebook games are ruining the gaming industry.
@Glade_Gnarr @ Gooper_Blooper I don't want to live in this world anymore. ******************************************************* This is the world we live in. And these are the games we're given. lol!! Capcom could make a killing if they just give fans what they want and stop milking franchises that already have a decent following. Give us SF -vs- Tekken and Megaman Universe and we'll be happy until another RE games is complete.
I hate it when cheap games get all the attention... who's gonna fund AAA titles??? Gosh where is the world headed?
I hate it when companies make a lot of money from Facebook games. It just encourage more publishers to invest in this crap instead of real games!
It has been a while since I bought a Capcom game. RE5 was a miss for me, and, I only need one Street Fighter every 5-years or so.
The problem for Capcom is that its become increasingly harder to create good games and more expensive. So as time went on the games got worse as they were just trying to barely get by. This is why social gaming works. This is why we're pushing game simplicity back to how it was on the NES...only they're nickel-and-diming us with microtransactions. I don't know what to think of this. For sure I don't want my favourite franchises to disappear. But in the end everyone has their own methods. Valve wouldn't go the social route because Steam makes them so much money anyway. CD Projekt Red has Good Old Games and overall they seem keen on creating big name games and giving away tons of free content. All companies will go their own ways.
I didn't know that game's creator was Capcom. Anyway, why don't put efforts in making better RE, Megaman, Devil May Cry. And please this time make fighting games with no more than 2 releases !! (C'mon I HATE the idea of there will be the UMvC3, heyy i bought the Special Edition of MvC3 only for know that 4 months later there will be a new edition with more chars !!! This is really unfair.) Finally, please Capcom bring new Concepts. (Don't make CoD with zombies !!!!REORC)
@unreal_master Are you serious? Do you have any idea WTF you are talking about? Let's go through this list of yours and see some of the stupidest stuff you've said. -DMC4 you mean? The game that went multiplatform so the game could make more money? Yes, because releasing a game on 1 platform makes more money. Good job. You can think logically. -I'm not really following you on the whole Monster Hunter part. Be glad any of the games exist in the US. -How long have you been a fan of Capcom? Have you seen how many Street Fighter 2 games there are? Now did you read the post at all or skipped it? There were a lot of mentions of reasonings behind the decline (Such as lack of releases), but also some positives. The only thing I can give you is the cancellation of MML3. They never did release the demo to test the market. THAT IS IT.
So sad capcom....so so so sad to what you amounted out to. Maybe if you didn't give away dmc,cancel the megaman games, brought monster hunter portable 3 to america, put monster hunter 3g not on the 3ds along with 4, stopped making super ultra arcade editions, made a newer version of mvc3, and some more i cant think of. Only if you didnt do that list maybe you would hafe been okay and no relying on smurfs facebook game for profit.
A Facebook game based on the Smurfs and built around microtransactions made more money than the entire Ace Attorney series ever will. I hate people.
I don't see how Capcom is "abandoning" their fanbase, even though social gaming is totally stupid to all of us real gamers, its the direction the industry has been going in as that's where the money is. Consoles and pc cost more to develop for and its not like Capcom hasn't released some games, as well as have some in the wing. Stop with the damn SF releases and spinoffs. Where's a new Mega Man or Dino Crisis? They're oversaturating the fighting game market.
you know your doing something wrong when a smurfs facebook app is keeping your company afloat...
tbh i hope capcom BOMBs, they screwed over their fan base and are a bunch of money grabbing pricks
See what happens when you abandon us, Capcom? You screw up the games we love so much from you guys (MEGA MAN), and we don't buy them anymore.
That means if Asura's Wrath bombs (and lets admit this is their first original IP since Lost Planet and Dark Void), they might start to be in serious trouble. They're banking on that game's success (and the DMC that may or may not but most likely WILL fail).
So...instead of making a FUN and enjoyable app game like, say, Angry Birds or Farm/Cityville, or even Tap-Zoo, they make the Smurfs- and market it to kids SPECIFICALLY to get them to dig into mommy and daddy's credit cards.....so then legitimate business practices just jumped right out the window on this one.... Huh. Interesting.
Wasn't this the one game some kid racked up thousands of dollars on his dad's credit card?
Poor Cappy..... yah stopped scratchin my back and then slipped away..... I will definitely get Devil May Cry (1) remastered, since we go way back ;)
Smurf game? lol!! I wouldn't waste my money on this. GameInformer had a list of the 20 best phone/IoS games to purchase in their latest issue. I will purchase some of those games before I even look at this stupid Smurf game. The best Smurf game I've ever played was the one of the Colecovision. I have yet to see a Smurf game that's been better.
I'm amazed that their nickel and dime tactics are actually working. I wonder what they charge for Smurf costumes.
I have the Smurf game on my iphone. You have to pay real money to build certain things. It's a bit dull, but I can see how little kids would eat it up.
people dont ruin companies companies ruin them selves lesson learned capcom now move on and make games we want to play
Well that's what you get when you try to kill Devil May Cry and MegMan and leaving the PC behind. Back in the day when i was thinking about Capcom i was thinking of something great now when i think of them the first thing that comes in my mind is a bucket full of sh*t. I don't know when are they gonna realize that they're going downhill but it really looks that they're in for it and nothing's gonna stop them from hitting the ground hard. And i hope it hurts a lot.
Mark explores the beautiful city of Lazilus in this video review for The Last Story.
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