Posted by substance J on May 31, 2020 at 13:10:21 EST in reply to I have no idea if it was really at its peak, my impression was it was bleeding money for the company, and what I've been told by devs is they hated working on it (which is why more stuff started getting outsourced to companies like yumekobo). Eventually I'll get the straight answer to this, but I think it was a money-losing venture from the start basically - with car companies they have venues other than sales with which to recoup, and maybe that's what SNK needed to look into. Package the thing with some happy meals and give it away at coachella or something (I'm using my 1999 brain here). (n/t) from exodus.
So what's the ultimate goal of analyzing this? That's an actual question, but my implied tone of skepticism could be summarized this way: if I'm going to imagine a scenario where the NGPC becomes successful, what criteria are appropriate to define that? Whether the NGPC was profitable or not, how can we understand the economic environment at SNK? There is anecdotal information from people who were there, and I assume SNK was publicly traded, so Japan's version of the SEC probably required a certain amount of financial disclosure. But that information doesn't help us comprehend the opportunity cost of developing and supporting the NGPC. It could have been profitable and still tanked, or a money loser that kept people employed.
n/t
Follow Ups:
To elaborate, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about: The company I work for is 25 people and does about $2m/yr revenue. A recent review of a long-standing contract showed that we'd been losing money for almost the life of the agreement. When the contract came up for renewal, our owners made the decision to re-submit it without amendment. They reasoned that if a new contract was rejected, reduction in workforce would be the result. The people assigned to that job were too valuable to fire, but the net effect would be the same - 3 other people would be laid off to eliminate the shortfall in billable hours. These types of losses are completely obscured by the huge profit margins on other work that we do. What I'm saying is that even if SNK's detailed balance sheets are available to us, they don't even begin to give us insight into the actual or potential outcome of the NGPC. (n/t) (substance J) (13:44:56 05/31/20 EST)
As far as I can recall, I've never seen anything suggesting SNK was publicly traded. (n/t) (Paleface) (17:23:59 05/31/20 EST)
hmm, I guess the goal would be to get a better sense of whether Aruze "killed" the NGPC before its time or whether it extended its life briefly by doing the blister pack thing. Or indeed whether there was some viable path to keeping it going. I see your point with the "necessary loss" there, but SNK didn't have enough other divisions going at the time to absorb any damage I reckon. 2000-2010 was pretty dark for them - it was interesting getting a sense of that while talking to the samurai shodown folks. That game was so popular that they actually constructed a new (10+ story) building with the money. (well, they say "maybe samurai shodown paid for the first three floors" - but it was SNK's money that build the building). If you go around that neighborhood it's full of places they used to own, or built, or something else. Now they're in one smaller building nearby, and you kind of feel the consolidation of the company quite literally. (n/t) (exodus) (13:40:41 06/01/20 EST)
