While I don’t exactly have time to dig into these in detail, I stopped for a moment to check out the latest Activision/Blizzard and Starbreeze Q3 reports. It’s almost scary how much more sense they make with a basic understanding of accounting.
I mean, just looking at the consolidated balance sheet for AB, I get it. I know what those things and at least vaguely understand what they mean. Hopefully, that means I’ll have something more meaningful to say when they year-end report rolls around in a few months.
That knowledge sure doesn’t make Starbreeze look any better. I noticed an announcement buried in there that their partner for Payday: Crime Wars, a mobile title, has shut down most of the mobile publishing wing. This is probably one of the reasons why Payday 2 development began again recently. While the resumed Payday 2 income is certainly going to help, but probably not enough to offset the 80ish million SEK (roughly 8.4M USD) their VR parks are costing them. I realize most of the cost is an impairment, but still, they’re posing an overall operating loss of 20M SEK (~2.1M USD). They have 113.2M SEK (~11.7M USD) of cash(ish), so we don’t exactly have to worry about them sinking tomorrow. At this rate they have roughly a year to year and a half of operation. I’m sure the new paid DLC for Payday 2 will help extend that further.
Either way, y’all know the drill. None of this should be considered financial or investment advice. Likewise, I don’t own any stake in either of these companies. Partially because I have yet to find a way to buy shares internationally.
Y’all take care.
