There’s so much freakin misunderstanding about the dire state of affairs with the Bluehole Studio subsidiary (as of 4Q 2021), that it isn’t even funny. TERA Console (which Bluehole Studio oversees in all regions) is NOT safe from closure in the future once the team exhausts content that has been produced for the PC version. The company has not issued any official public statement reassuring TERA console players of anything (they remain silent for obvious reasons because they likely have not received any real guidance from company leadership).
Their last financial filing were the end of fiscal year 2021. Krafton became a publicly traded company in the summer of 2021 (so effectively only 2 quarters of public reporting; however, they did include their numbers pre-dating the IPO in order to provide year over year comparisons to appease the financial community. Their consolidated statement of income speaks for itself.
The overall trend of PC revenues has been declining, while mobile unsurprisingly has been increasing. Console revenues are also in decline and represent a very small percentage of the companies revenues. The PUBG franchise represents the majority of the revenues in each of those segments. If you remove PUBG completely from the picture, it’s not a pretty sight for Bluehole Studio (the PUBG Studio subsidiary is the one making all of the money in each platform segment).
With financial performance like this, it does not take a genius to read between the lines with Krafton and Bluehole Studios silence regarding TERA console. Translation: they have a small but captive audience on console so the intention is to leverage already produced content from the PC version to milk that player base until that already produced content is exhausted. As of April 2022, they are on patch 95 (which is deceiving since it is in no way close to the equivalent of the PC version). Yes, it is not on a one-for-one basis since there are deviations in the design and content. The point is they are drawing out what they can and could milk this out for up to 2 more years especially if they increase the level cap to 70. The problem is that most of it is pure trash. This is a GIGO (garbage in garbage out) situation with trying to leverage designs and systems from PC patches v80 and on (this is when the level cap was increased to 70; console has not gone down that rabbit hole yet).
While part of Krafton’s press release about the termination of TERA PC’s development highlighted their plans to continue working on Elyon, part of that is because they have a investment partnership with Kakao Games (they put money into that for the exclusive publishing rights in Korea and NA/EU). So of course they aren’t going to knife it yet. But that flaming piece of garbage failed quickly (not helped on the western side of things with Kakao Games Europe being highly incompetent as a publisher). In the mean time, the Bluehole Studio subsidiary has a couple of money consuming projects in the works. And they are also planning to jump in to the play-to-earn blockchain/NFT segment leveraging who knows which IP (they will likely asset flip TERA in this area just like they did with TERA on mobile).
Elyon is simply a placeholder until they can get one of these other projects out the door. I have my doubts any of them will pan out, and will end up becoming another one of Krafton’s CHALLENGES where through “trial and error” (aka put blindfold on and throw a dart at the dartboard), they will try to make themselves a “distinguished game production company and ceaseless challenge to produce the finest games”. Excuse me, but what corporate idiot wrote this crap? They aren’t even hitting the mark now.
Additionally, none of us have any idea what their contractual agreements are when it comes to the return on investment angle, or how long the publishing contract is for. But make no mistake, it’s as dead as TERA PC is (and will have none of the longevity that TERA PC at least had) and is just living on borrowed time at this point (especially since the Bluehole Studio subsidiary is sinking, and will require an infusion from corporate HQ as well as a potential secondary offering by Krafton to cover the studio). But sure, TERA console is fine (if you are wearing blinders).
So I have to go off on this tangent regarding this “TERA console is fine” thing and had to ask where that was coming from? The source is from a YouTube content creator (Sarumonin) that I found out, used to work closely with the TERA console team. I rarely call out folks (specifically content creators) by name on this blog like this, but I had to after I watched his prior video about the TERA PC Japan closure, and had to stop myself from posting a comment because his statements (that now look naive) failed to look at the broader picture beyond that being publisher related. Sure, that is a given in general if you are ignoring other pieces of information. Krafton was already releasing their financial records publicly where anyone could see problems outside of PUBG. And then one could just look at the glacial cadence of content updates on TERA PC to know this wasn’t going to hold the player base. But yeah, let’s stick our heads in the sand and ignore the tidbits of information that doesn’t take much reading between the lines, to understand what is going on.
Many others including myself, knew the shoe was going to drop with all the of the other clues (Taiwan closure, Japan closure, Gameforge’s TERA Thalers bonuses). Some of us were way more clued in with all of Krafton/Bluehole’s corporate shenanigans once PUBG took off. But because content creators with a decent sized following tend to have their words taken with more authority, I can see how a large group would take his pronouncement of speaking with a Bluehole Studio console personnel (who told him that TERA console and the team is fine), as authoritative, when it is clearly not.
I have to also be blunt; he doesn’t represent Bluehole in any official capacity except in whatever former role he had working with that team. He mentions that, yet people still go off elsewhere making it sound like an official press release. That is where the irresponsibility comes from. There’s still a lot of stuff I do not talk about even though most all of my corporate NDA’s have expired. But other smaller content creators have been using his quote as if it were an actual official press release statement from a Bluehole representative (as of this entry, the company has yet to formally put out any press release reassuring console players about TERA on console). That is outrageously misleading in my book especially when it comes to a now publicly traded corporation like Krafton. I wouldn’t quote an Apple Store employee on info gleaned from the often times accurate rumor mill due to supply chain leaks (because you can’t use that as being anything close to official; I know having worked for them on the enterprise side when they used to have a business enterprise division, that only top level executives are in the know while everyone else is on a “needs to know” basis when it comes to major product releases).
This is where Krafton personnel in general have a lot to learn because they operated in a clown like irresponsible fashion while still private. A Bluehole or Krafton spokesperson should be the one on the record (with full name and company position) making a statement. The fact that it has been crickets is what speaks volumes. I’m saying it now; TERA Console is NOT fine due to the Bluehole Studio subsidiaries financial predicament (where most of the operating expenses was employee compensation); I will be surprised if they milk it out for another two years (let’s just say the “enhanced graphics version for the latest generation consoles, had better hit it out of the ball park, and that it puts a noticeable blip into the console revenue column for Bluehole Studio because Elyon isn’t going to be of any real help with the numbers on the PC side going forward, and won’t be able to cover for the revenue drop off once TERA PC closes).
