Have you heard about the gaming boom? 🎮 Shares in video game companies are rising rapidly in 2025. This is due to highly anticipated releases such as Grand Theft Auto 6 and the Nintendo Switch 2.

Investors are excited because the market for video games could grow to an incredible 282.3 billion US dollars this year. Statista reports an annual growth rate of 8.76 percent for the next three years. Demand is particularly strong in China and the USA, where almost half of the revenue is generated.

The new generation of gamers is ensuring that video games are becoming increasingly popular. Social networks and mobile devices are also contributing to the reach.

So if you are interested in stocks like Nintendo $7974 (-5,87%) or Take-Two $TTWO (-2,72%) now could be a good time to get in. Gaming ETFs are even outperforming the S&P 500!

What do you think about the future of the gaming market? 📈

Hello to the community!

Before the holidays last year, I dared to take the step of liquidating my building society savings and reducing my call money account. The basic idea was a 70/30 savings plan in $IWDA (-3,86%) and $XMME (-0,49%) to make everything a bit more diversified!

I also bought a few individual stocks. My favorites are $1810 (+5,18%) (has gone very well for me personally so far) and $TTWO (-2,72%) (because of the good prospects for GTA - intended as a gamble, so don't get hung up on it)

How would you mainly rate the 70/30 strategy? Stupid move? Go ahead with it? What about the $VWRL (-4,28%) ?

I'm already looking forward to your reviews!

$TTWO (-2,72%)

Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) has been a major player in the video game world for years, thanks to legendary franchises such as GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and NBA 2K. With GTA 6 scheduled for release in 2025, the question is, does the title still have growth potential or has the best already been priced in?

📊 Some key points about Take-Two:

✔️ GTA 6 may be the most profitable game in history, but will it be enough to sustain the title over the long term?

✔️ Strong focus on microtransactions (GTA Online, NBA 2K, Mafia). Sustainable strategy or risk of saturation?

✔️ The gaming industry is increasingly competitive: Sony, Microsoft, Tencent and cloud gaming are changing the rules of the game.

✔️ After GTA 6, what will Take-Two's next move be? New IPs or dependence on the usual franchises?

The stock has risen quite a bit in recent months, but many investors wonder if it's still worth betting on.

💬 What do you think? Does TTWO still have room for growth or is it better to look elsewhere?

#Investments #Bourse #Gaming #TakeTwo #GTA6 #Stock #FinancialMarkets #PersonalFinance #TTWO #Videogames

$EA (+0,6%) has lost 22% in one month

The maker of EA Sports FC has lowered its forecast for the year, mainly due to a mid-single-digit decline in annual live service bookings.

But also because of Dragon Age The Veilguard "Failguard", which only reached 1.5 million players.

Graphic: Gagadget.com

Do you remember Mass Effect? I'm sure you do, right? I bet most of you have at least heard of it. A really good single-player RPG series. Also interesting for shareholders, Mass Effect is a powerful franchise, millions of fans and multiple awards. Similar to GTA for Rockstar $TTWO (-2,72%)

The ingenious studio behind it is called BioWare. StarWars Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, that's all you need, at least back then.

Everything was better back then, and in the gaming industry that's true in some areas.

EA is working on a new Mass Effect, and I have a fear that it will also be a flop when I look at the whole thing, behind the scenes.

The question is, which bandwagon is Mass Effect on, if it's the same direction as Failguard then you could re-buy. Yes, I have EA on my watchlist.

Gaming stocks drive shareholders away, but that's not the point today.

There are certainly satisfied buyers of the game, but most gamers have been scared away by the studio, criticism has been completely ignored and even partially blocked.

Why the game sold so poorly is not the point.

Game director Corinne Busche has left the studio, allegedly due to a job offer she couldn't refuse.

I don't think so, because she is largely responsible for the downfall of Dragon Age.

I think EA made her the suggestion that she leave the studio or they'd just fire her.

There are also rumors that BioWare (studio in Edmonton) is closing, which has been happening a lot lately when studios don't deliver. I wouldn't be surprised, but like I said, rumor mill.

The fact is, if a new Mass Effect comes out and it has the same spirit as Dragon Age Failguard, it won't sell.

Has anyone played Mass Effect or Dragon Age? I would be interested.

Sources:

Play3.de:

https://www.play3.de/2025/01/23/ea-senkt-umsatzprognose-dragon-age-the-veilguard-und-ea-sports-fc-25-unter-den-erwartungen/

MyMMO:

https://mein-mmo.de/dragon-age-veilguard-chefin-verlaesst-bioware-corinne-busch/

$6758 (+0%) Sony is a diversified company in consumer electronics, music and movie business, image sensors, another financial services division, etc.

But today it's all about consumer electronics, the Gaming & Network Services division accounts for 32% of sales. It's also about the Playstation games console.

The Playstation 5 sales figures total 66 million units (as of December 2024). 116 million users are registered in the Playstation Network and around 47 million users use the paid subscription (13% of revenue).

Today, however, we are talking about Playstation Studios. Gaming studios that only belong to Sony.

This means that the games are almost always only released on Playstation.

In the gaming industry, the name Playstation Studios stands for quality, at least in the PS4 era, but Sony is currently struggling with massive problems.

Money is being burned here, but really burned.

For information: AAA games cost an average of 300 million US dollars. According to a leak, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 cost 315 million.

According to the BBC, GTA 6 could cost up to two billion US dollars to develop.

In addition to the money, a lot of time is also invested, of course.

Guerilla Games, a talented studio from Amsterdam, needed the following for the game Horizon Forbidden West 2022: 300 developers, 5 years and 212 million US dollars.

By mid-April 2023, around 8.4 million units had been sold worldwide, so Sony can be satisfied, it's solid for a single platform.

Sony has disclosed the development costs of two major games as part of the court case regarding the Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft takeover, they don't actually disclose such production cost information.

Jim Ryan (pictured) succeeded Kodera as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (Playstation) in April 2019.

In 2022, he declared that Sony wanted to launch 12 live-service titles by 2025.

What are live service games?

(Written by Ryktes on Reddit)

A live-service game is a game that has been developed with the sole purpose of keeping people playing for as long as possible, in the hope that those players will pay for microtransactions. The most common way that live services encourage engagement is by making the player feel like they're losing something if they don't return to the game regularly.

• Are there Take-Two Interactive $TTWO (-2,72%) shareholders?

In 2016, Rockstar achieved a turnover of half a billion US dollars with GTA Online.

• Electronic Arts $EA (+0,6%)

EA generates 73% of its estimated revenue (7.5 billion US dollars) from in-game purchases and subscriptions.

PS: Share price has just fallen by 9%, the company expects net revenue from live services to fall.

• Microsoft $MSFT (-2,62%)

The subsidiary King Games (Candy Crush Saga) has a turnover of 20 billion US dollars.

• Sony $6758 (+0%)

Bungie acquired for 3.6 billion US dollars, over 160 million US dollars in microtransaction revenue between 2017 and 2019.

Live service games can be a goldmine, but they don't have to be.

Sony, the second-largest gaming company after Tencent $TCEHY (-2,09%) was actually missing just that. Single-player games were their thing, with games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima or Marvel's Spiderman, XBOX was finally left behind because Microsoft overslept an entire generation.

But single-player games only bring in money with purchases, after that it stops.

But now Jim wanted to get a slice of the pie and produce a real cash cow. A huge cash cow meadow was to be created out of nothing.

Let's see what happened to these plans. Jim has since resigned, leaving his successor with a billion-dollar grave.

Two games were released during this time.

• Helldivers 2 sold over 12 million copies on Playstation 5 and PC by 05.05.2024. A real hit.
• Concord 25,000 units sold after two weeks! 25k The studio was even acquired during production. According to the sources quoted by Sacred Symbols, the production of Concord cost as much as 400 million US dollars. The studio is defending itself against these sources, but insiders are now piling on and confirming this. Sony closed the studio after two weeks... Firewalk Studio worked on the game for a total of 8 years, Sony was involved from the very beginning.

As of 01/23/2025, Sony has canceled 7 of 12 live service games.

Sony's management has wasted half the generation pursuing live-service games, only to cut almost all of them.

Bluepoint Games as an example, a developer of the Demon Souls remake.

This studio specialized in single-player and did damn well with it, gamers and press were always satisfied.

Now this studio has been given the task of developing a game with live service game elements. Bluepoint Games has no idea how this works, but thinks Okay Okay Okay if that's what the boss wants, we'll do it.

Video games are not always video games. Single-player and L-S-G are as different as apples and oranges.

Imagine Elon Musk now wants to produce cars with fuel, 12 models at once. Something like that can work, but it doesn't have to.

I didn't think it was a bad idea to produce live service games on the side.

But there were just too many.

I don't know how much the loss is, but if I had to bet, 2.1 billion US dollars.

With a net profit of 6.7 billion US dollars (2024), Sony can handle that.

However, important games will now be missing, Sony is lucky that Microsoft is no longer interested in selling consoles.

In conclusion, I have to say that it was the right move to pull the plug early on. Otherwise Sony would be burning more money.

Sources:

Gamespot:

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/sonys-live-service-game-status-report-canceled-released-shut-down/2900-6143/#1

ScreenRant:

https://screenrant.com/sony-cancels-live-service-games-god-of-war/

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2024/11/08/ps5-absatzzahl-aktive-psn-nutzer-spieleverkaeufe-sony-veroeffentlicht-umfangreiche-statistiken/

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2023/10/02/playstation-live-service-fokus-war-fuer-die-studios-eine-unangenehme-umstellung/

Jason Schreier, US American journalist

Bloomberg News, news agency

In 2024, a lot has happened for me financially. I started investing around the middle of 2021. As I come from a family in which investing in the stock market was rather frowned upon (my parents invested in car manufacturers in 2000, which then slipped in 2001 just like everything else and they realized the losses), I only dared to start with small amounts bit by bit on an ETF basis in 2021. Financial flow classic 70% MSCI World ETF and 30% MSCI EM. The good thing about this was above all building up the automatism of investing money steadily and not waiting until the end of the month.

However, in 2024 I started to look more closely at the topic of finance, sometimes watching Berkshire conferences with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and realized that I was interested in individual stocks and would like to own Apple (shares) myself, for example. In February 24' I then looked at my EM position and saw that the position had been more or less at 0 since '21. So I sold just under €1000 and put it into Apple. And no, I didn't calculate the intrinsic value of the share first and didn't know at the time that Apple would be launching devices with AI at the end of 2024. I myself work in the field of software engineering/data science and if someone has the choice, you actually always take the Macbook over Windows computers. But that's another topic for debate :)

The Apple shares then performed really well even after the purchase and I was fascinated by the fact that I generated more unrealized profits with a single share or 6 Apple shares within 2 months than with the EM in 4 years. (I'll come back to EM later)

From March onwards, I suspended my savings plan in the ETFs and simply put the money in my Scalable clearing account instead. I didn't know what exactly I wanted to buy now, so pretty much from mid-24' I started to dive more into investing and how to analyze stocks. I had already studied discounted cash flow analysis in my bachelor's degree, back then in the subject of finance with a 3.0 :D. So I built an Excel spreadsheet and started using DCF models to calculate the intrinsic value of shares.

But what exactly should my strategy be when buying shares?

I mean, I already liked getting a dividend from Apple, so did I want to pursue some kind of dividend growth strategy? Should I go for "fast growers" as Peter Lynch would say? But should I then also add so-called "stalwarts" (dividend stocks) and "asset plays" (stocks with very expensive inventories, for example, or investments and cash whose book value is well below their actual value) to my portfolio, as he advises?

"Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years" - W. Buffett

Long-term focus

My investment horizon is over 10 years, so it is important to me to have some kind of predictability of income from the companies I want to buy. It was also important for me to be patient when buying from the outset and to allow some time to pass in order to check whether an investment thesis holds up over quarters.

Quality

I focus exclusively on companies with a leading position in their respective industry, either number 1 or number 2 in the respective sector with a large market share. The important thing here is that growth should be primarily organic. This means that the company should either simply build good, irreplaceable products that customers love and therefore remain loyal to, or simply be so influential that they can simply raise their prices without really losing customers ("pricing power" like Apple)

Concentration

Especially for someone coming from the financial flow school where the more diversified the investment, the better, it was hard to get used to this element. The investor Dev Kantesaria, who has successfully managed Valley Forge Capital for years and whose philosophy is also based on mine, once described this very aptly in an interview: "Why should I invest in my 25th best investment idea?". Accordingly, my goal is only to invest in a maximum of 15 individual stocks - I can't even manage to regularly check more in my free time and check whether the investment thesis still holds up.

Discipline

With the Emerging Markets ETF, I have held a position in my portfolio for several years purely out of conviction that this investment in emerging markets will work out in the long term. I also want to hold my stocks with the same conviction that they will perform well over the long term. In addition, I usually invest in companies when their intrinsic value suggests a margin of safety of at least 15-20%. For example, there was a slump in Alphabet shares in the summer with the unrest that Alphabet might be split up. The share was worth around €150 at the time. All of Alphabet's individual businesses have a combined intrinsic value of €250-300. Also related to this strategy element is that I don't really touch individual sectors that are associated with large research and development costs, for example, unless I really know my way around them. So I avoid biotech companies because I hardly know anything about them, but I invest in tech companies because I work in IT myself.

So I look for companies that are quasi monopolies in their respective industries, with strong market shares and a large moat due to irreplaceable or hard-to-penetrate products and a solid margin with a focus on steady free cash flow growth.

So why do I actually have the Emerging Markets ETF?

I asked myself this question and then promptly took another look at just ETF to see which stocks are actually in it. The top 10 holdings accounted for almost 25%. Why is that important? Some people always complain that the Magnificent 7 have such a high share in the S&P500, also slightly more than 25%, but this is usually due to the fact that companies are often weighted by market capitalization. If you then take a closer look at the top 10, 5 of them are Chinese companies. In general, China accounts for just under 25% of the ETF share. Chinese equities are not bad per se, there are some very good companies. However, the constant intervention of the government is a problem, laws can be changed overnight and a company becomes obsolete, or Mr. Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, simply disappears for a few months after having expressed mild criticism of government officials in a speech. These characteristics go against my strategy as formulated above, which is why the EM ETF was thrown out completely in July.

I then slowly tried to build up my individual positions towards the end of July, primarily $CRM (-5,58%) , $ASML (-7,33%) , $MSFT (-2,62%) , $BKNG (-6,59%) , $GOOG (-3,48%) , $V (-2,64%) and $AMZN (-6,32%) . On August 5 there was a small correction, I think it was due to the "Japanese carry trade". That week I made another big purchase, very happy not to have invested all my freed-up EM capital at once. As a result, I was able to invest heavily in Amazon and Alphabet and make them my largest single positions.

Overall, I am very happy with the decision. I am aware that the last stock market year was a very good one overall and that you shouldn't be deceived by appearances. Things will probably not always go so well. My third-largest single position, in which I was in the red at just under €1500 in the meantime $ASML (-7,33%) is good proof of this. Nevertheless, this company is a virtual monopoly in the chip manufacturing sector and will most likely remain so for the next 10 years. Therefore, I can only shrug my shoulders and look at the reports from the Magnificent 7, which are constantly expanding their data centers and in some cases were unable to meet demand in the last quarters of 2024! But there are already some good articles on this here on getquin. A new addition at the end of '24 is $UBER (-5,47%) I will also be steadily expanding my position there, and the watchlist also includes $MELI (-1,08%) , $MCO (-6,96%) , $SPGI (-6,41%) , $CAKE (-10,92%) and $AMD (-7,86%) for 2025.

To summarize:

Portfolio performance: 31% vs. S&P500 25%

Invested capital: approx. 22,000 euros

Portfolio value growth: approx. 42,000 euros

Goals for 2025:

• 30k invested (a large crypto cash-out will take place with approx. 20-30k, not included in the portfolio)
• Beat the S&P500
• Increase portfolio value to 150k
• Sell $TTWO (-2,72%) (GTA 6 bet, but by the time this appears it feels like you've already done 10x in other companies)
• expansion $SPGI (-6,41%) and addition of $MCO (-6,96%) (credit rating duopolies)

New GTA 6 trailer - more info soon? $TTWO (-2,72%)

Hey everyone, I'm not sure if this is the perfect place for this post, but I'm sharing it with you anyway! 😊

On one of the latest pictures on "X" you can see a moon again, and it looks like it corresponds to the moon phase of November 22, 2024.

November 22, 2024 could be the date on which we might get information about a new trailer.

I think it's very likely that we'll get new information there because that's exactly what happened with the last trailer in 2023.

What do you think? Could there be something to it or is it just a coincidence? Let me know in the comments!

Take-Two Q3 2024 $TTWO (-2,72%)

Financial performance:

• Revenue: GAAP net revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 was $1.353 billion, an increase of 4% year-over-year.
• Net Loss: GAAP net loss for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 was $366 million, an improvement from a loss of $543.6 million in the same quarter last year.
• EBITDA: Non-GAAP EBITDA for the full year 2025 is expected to be between $282 million and $336 million.

Balance Sheet Overview:

• Assets: Total assets were $13.075 billion as of September 30, 2024, with cash and cash equivalents of $876.1 million.
• Liabilities: Total liabilities amounted to $7.277 billion, including long-term debt of $3.056 billion.
• Shareholders' equity: Shareholders' equity was $5.799 billion.

Revenue sources and structure:

• Principal sources of revenue: The most significant sources of revenue include the games "NBA 2K24", "NBA 2K25" and "Grand Theft Auto Online".
• Operating expenses: Operating expenses amounted to $1.025 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2025.
• Margin: Gross profit was $727.9 million in Q2 FY2025.

Cash Flow Overview:

• Operating activities: Negative cash flow from operating activities was $(319.4) million for the six months ended September 30, 2024.

Segment information:

• Geographic distribution: U.S. sales accounted for 61% of total sales, while international sales accounted for 39%.
• Platform Performance: Mobile platforms contributed 55% of net sales.

Competitive Position:

• The company benefits from strong franchise brands such as "NBA 2K" and "Grand Theft Auto", demonstrating a stable market position.

Forecasts and management comments:

• Revenue forecast for FY2025: Net revenue is estimated at $5.570 to $5.670 billion.
• Net Bookings: Expected to be $5.550 to $5.650 billion.

Risks and opportunities:

• Risks: Declines in hyper-casual mobile gaming and "Grand Theft Auto Online" could pose challenges.
• Opportunities: Growth in recurring consumer spending, particularly in mobile and "NBA 2K".

Summary of results:

Positives:

Revenue growth: 4% year-over-year increase in GAAP revenue.

Reduced net loss: Significant year-on-year reduction in net loss.

Strong mobile performance: Mobile revenue accounted for a large portion of total revenue.

Positive EBITDA outlook: Expected non-GAAP EBITDA in positive territory.

Solid portfolio: Upcoming releases such as "Grand Theft Auto VI" and "Sid Meier's Civilization VII".

Negative aspects:

Negative cash flow: Negative cash flow from operating activities in the first half of 2024.

High operating expenses: Operating expenses exceeded expectations.

Decline in console revenue: Console revenue decreased compared to the previous year.

Forecasted net loss: Expectation of a net loss for FY2025.

Declining hyper-casual segment: Declines in hyper-casual mobile portfolio.

🐺 CD Projekt: Of sorcerers and cyberpunks - the masters of digital worlds 🏙️

CD Projekt, a company based in Poland, specializes in the development and publication of video games. Founded in 1988, the company began as an IT service provider and has since developed into one of the most renowned names in the global gaming industry.

Historical development

$CDR (-2,6%) The company's origins lie in Optimus S.A., which began as an IT service provider. A decisive milestone in the company's history was the acquisition of game developer CD Projekt RED Sp. z o.o. in 2009, which marked the company's entry into game development and laid the foundation for its current success. In 2012, the company was finally renamed CD Projekt S.A., underlining the transition to a pure game developer.

Business model and core competencies

CD Projekt specializes in the development of story-driven role-playing games and has thus achieved an outstanding position in the industry. The company is particularly known for its ability to create deep, immersive game worlds that are popular with players worldwide. Its best-known productions include the award-winning "The Witcher" series, which has established itself internationally as one of the most successful role-playing games.

In addition to game development, CD Projekt also operates the digital distribution platform GOG.com, which provides an additional source of income and further diversifies the business model.

Future prospects and strategic initiatives

The future of CD Projekt rests on two central pillars: the further development of existing franchises and the creation of new intellectual property rights (IPs). The company is investing heavily in its technology and development processes to make future releases smoother and to further increase the quality of its games.

Another important strategic focus is the expansion of the business into other media. An outstanding example of this is the successful Netflix adaptation of "The Witcher", which has not only significantly increased brand awareness but also opened up new sources of revenue.

Market position and competition

CD Projekt is in direct competition with major game developers such as $TTWO (-2,72%) , $UBI (-2,71%)
$EA (+0,6%) . Nevertheless, the company manages to stand out from the competition thanks to its special focus on high-quality, story-based single-player experiences. This specialization has earned the company a loyal fan base and contributes significantly to its strong market position.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The global market for video games is growing continuously and offers CD Projekt enormous potential. With the increasing proliferation of gaming platforms and the growing demand for high-quality and immersive gaming experiences, CD Projekt has excellent opportunities to capitalize on this growing market.

Share performance

TR 14k % since IPO and -2.3% over the last three years.

Development

CD Projekt is currently one of the smaller game publishers in terms of sales. However, this does not mean that it has to stay that way - the potential for future growth is certainly there.

CD Projekt is also currently at the lower end of the growth scale, which is mainly due to the fact that the last major game release was some time ago. However, new titles are already in development. Compared to other game publishers, CD Projekt also has a significantly smaller number of IPs, which has given them less flexibility to date.

In terms of gross margin, CD Projekt is neither at the top nor at the bottom of the rankings. However, the margin, which has fallen recently, should rise again slightly following the release of the new projects. This puts the company in line with the industry average.

In contrast, CD Projekt clearly stands out in terms of its net profit margin. Even after a decline, the company is still twice as good as many of its competitors and thus clearly holds its own at the top.

In terms of earnings per share (EPS), CD Projekt is remarkably consistent in positive territory, while many other manufacturers often slip into negative territory in this respect.

CD Projekt's free cash flow (FCF) has also been positive for some time now, which illustrates the company's forward-looking planning and intelligent management. Despite the continuous investment in the development of new projects, the cash flow remains stable, which speaks for the financial health of the studio.

Another advantage for CD Projekt's shareholders is the almost non-existent stock-based compensation (SBC)

In contrast to many other companies that use buybacks to compensate for dilution effects and bring money to shareholders, CD Projekt can largely do without such measures

The ratio of net debt to EBITDA is also slightly negative at CD Projekt

However, CD Projekt is the most expensive gaming company in terms of EV/EBITDA ratio, reflecting investors' high expectations for future growth and the success of new projects.

Part 2: https://getqu.in/UAF5xR/