Jagex's 2008 Finances (includes graphs)

[me]

I've gone through Jagex's accounts and made various graphs and such from them. I have just added 2008 (financial year April 1st 2007 to March 31st 2008) to the financial overview alongside its business review and future developments - these figures only came out today. I am using the actual figures so there has not been any corrections for inflation.

 

 

 

 

Various financial indicators. Turnover has gone up 15% from 2007 to 2008.

 

 

 

 

While advertising and subscription revenue are both shown to be going up, the data indicates that there is a trend towards subscriptions becoming a larger proportion of their primary revenue. Advertising revenue went up from £1.95m to £2.2m whereas game time sales (subscriptions) went from £26.1m to £30m from 2007 to 2008.

 

 

 

 

For a long time Andrew had a majority stakeholding in the company, but after Insight invested in Jagex he merely has the largest share. However, Paul and Andrew working together still have over 50%.

 

 

 

 

At first Constant was the only director, but in 2005 Andrew and Paul joined the board along with the two people from Insight who invested in Jagex. At the time of writing no filings were on record to show that Iddison has been replaced with Gerhard on the Board of Directors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do they mean by 'second game' - MechScape? FunOrb?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chained_life]

Interesting, thanks :thumbup:

[XKERDZX]

Wow, I can't see how accurate any of this is at the moment but very nice post.

[BlackKingX]

The thing I don't understand about businessmen is they always sell off so much of their company to different share holders. If I started a company I'd want to keep 70% of the shares for myself.

 

 

 

I know 51% should be enough to ensure keeping the majority of the shares(51% because you might get cocky and only have 49% because no one else has anywhere near that much, but then someone comes along and buys up everyone elses shares and then you don't even control your own company any more!). But still, there should be more pride.. -.-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: First relevant post ftw!

[Master_Smither]

You either live and breath Jagex or are a part of Jagex :

 

 

 

Either way nice post most interesting thing was that advertising decreased since 2001 but then again subcriptions were less in 2001 so maybe it makes some sense.

[Den]

Your threads always interest me.

 

 

 

The fact that you are able to find all these inside things amazes me. :P

 

 

 

Was a nice read.

 

Great work once again. :

[meili]

Nice info.

 

 

 

The thing I don't understand about businessmen is they always sell off so much of their company to different share holders.

 

 

 

Maybe people would rather free up their money for other uses rather than keeping it all in one company. Also, I would imagine there is less risk if you don't keep all you assets in one company.

[me]

Either way nice post most interesting thing was that advertising decreased since 2001 but then again subcriptions were less in 2001 so maybe it makes some sense.

 

Advertising has gone from £171,027 in 2004 to £2,208,355 in 2008. However, it has gone down as a percentage of primary revenue from 9.40% in 2004 to 6.84% in 2008 because Jagex are earning more from "game time sales". As always these are actual figures and do not take into account inflation.

[Bauke]

Interesting... So, more turnover, meaning the game still grows. The profit didn't grow, however, probably mostly due increased salary costs. Does that mean Jagex staff has grown a lot compared to last year?

 

 

 

I wonder what this means for the future. A bigger Jagex staff would implicate more quantity and quality in content. If they do it right, ofcourse.

[me]

Interesting... So, more turnover, meaning the game still grows. The profit didn't grow, however, probably mostly due increased salary costs. Does that mean Jagex staff has grown a lot compared to last year?

 

 

 

I wonder what this means for the future. A bigger Jagex staff would implicate more quantity and quality in content. If they do it right, ofcourse.

 

If you read the Business Review you would see that they have increased in size. Here it is in chart form:

 

 

 

 

I believe the increase in staff reflects the increased staffing requirements of FunOrb, RuneScape (including German and RuneScape HD) and MechScape. I think they also increased the amount of highly paid upper-tier jobs they had.

 

 

 

Profit margin (percentage of turnover which ended up as profit not cost): 36.93% (2004), 51.94% (2005), 60.95% (2006), 53.45% (2007), 44.89% (2008). Remember Jagex had been investing heavily in FunOrb, MechScape and RuneScape HD.

[Shady Character]

i wonder what they mean by, " relase at least one of the projects currently in rapid development." - from directors report for the year ended 31 march 2008

[me]

i wonder what they mean by, " relase at least one of the projects currently in rapid development." - from directors report for the year ended 31 march 2008

 

Well, they knew they were going to launch RuneScape HD soon (ended up being July 2008). However they weren't sure whether MechScape would be released by the end of March 2009 or not.

[@Dan3HitU]

i wonder what they mean by, " relase at least one of the projects currently in rapid development." - from directors report for the year ended 31 march 2008

 

Well, they knew they were going to launch RuneScape HD soon (ended up being July 2008). However they weren't sure whether MechScape would be released by the end of March 2009 or not.

 

They've already said they were aiming for March 2009 with Mech, my guess was 24th :)

[me]

They've already said they were aiming for March 2009 with Mech, my guess was 24th :)

 

Yes, I've said elsewhere that 24th of March is one of the more likely days for release, but they did more recently say "Spring 2009" and until it is out we won't know for sure. I'm not saying it will be a Duke Nukem Forever, but Jagex aren't under pressure from a publisher to get it out and they haven't been advertising a release date so if they feel that their original date of March was over-optimistic then I'm sure they'd rather release later than release an unfinished product. If I remember correctly FunOrb was launched a week or two after its set-in-stone internal company deadline.

[Calzer101]

Wow nice

[holycannoli]

The thing I don't understand about businessmen is they always sell off so much of their company to different share holders. If I started a company I'd want to keep 70% of the shares for myself.

 

 

 

I know 51% should be enough to ensure keeping the majority of the shares(51% because you might get cocky and only have 49% because no one else has anywhere near that much, but then someone comes along and buys up everyone elses shares and then you don't even control your own company any more!). But still, there should be more pride.. -.-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: First relevant post ftw!

 

 

 

To be honest I'd be holding onto my stock as well until the company was worth something large - then I'd dump off 49% for a huge profit while still maintaining control of the company and still having a significant amount of the profits. :)

[Carl]

It was very interesting looking through this, as is everything you post me.

 

 

 

How you find this out, I don't know.

 

 

 

I'd almost completely forgotten about MechScape, too. :lol:

[Omali]

Poor Ian, .65% of the company? He must not work there anymore.

[me]

Poor Ian, .65% of the company? He must not work there anymore.

 

That's still nearly £60k in dividends for 2008.

 

 

 

Ian: £59,150

 

Paul: £1,183,000

 

Insight: £3,185,000

 

Andrew: £3,489,850

[cat666]

Best part of this post is it proves without a shadow of a doubt that advertising does not contribute much to the profits and therefore the running of the game. Great ammunition for f2p v p2p debates.

[I_am_Geed]

Its amazing that you can obtain all of this info, but its really amazing!

[Friendyboy]

I must say, I am very impressed with the research that is shown on this thread!

 

 

 

However, those talking about maintaining 51% shares to control the company...in 99% of Ltd companies, 70% of shares is required.

 

 

 

P.S. You are either one awesome sneak thief, or you paid the £1 to gain access to this data. (You can view public company data on-line)

[adimadaru]

Thanks alot for the info, interesting read. What surprises me is the low income trough advertising, I thought that the little 10 second ads before logging in on f2p costs alot, with the huge number of people seeing them every day.

[me]

However, those talking about maintaining 51% shares to control the company...in 99% of Ltd companies, 70% of shares is required.

 

Can you provide a source for this? My understanding is that if you have >50% of voting power you have control, and that if all shares have equal voting rights a >50% stake would constitute an ultimate stake (meaning the Gowers brothers combined would represent the ultimate controlling party). I think the only exception is when some shares have greater voting rights than others, which is not the case with Jagex.

 

 

 

To quote their 2006 filing, "The articles of Association were changed on 16 August 2005. The participating convertible preferred shares ranks pari passu with ordinary shares for all purposes. This includes entitlement to receive dividends, voting rights and return of capital".

[langer]

50% + 1 share gives you automatic control of the company but it can be assumed that you have control of a company with less than 50% also. This is a grey zone though. Let's say you have 40% of all shares and your wife has 11%. It can be assumed that you indeed have control in the decision making process of the strategic aspect of the company.