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Hello all the Inderes viewers. Remedy published its Q3 results today, and here with me is Remedy CEO Jean-Charles Gaudechon. Welcome to this interview, Jean-Charles. Thank you, thank you. You have had an exciting time at Remedy with the Control Resonant launch. The game passed 1 million copies sold in October and in three weeks. So in general, how satisfied are you with the launch?
Very, very. I think it's incredible. You need to remember the time it takes to make these games, how difficult it is to land such a high-quality, ambitious game. And I think we should, no matter the numbers, also remember that this is just an incredible achievement. And seeing the reception from critics, and even more from players, has been quite incredible.
And in general, I think our goal for us was really to make it a day one effort, and looking at the pre-sales plus the seven days. It's a strong achievement.
If you look at the sales between platforms and regions. How was that? And were there any surprises to you?
I would say, well, in terms of platform, it's a pretty healthy mix. As mentioned in the earnings, with a roughly 50-50 console-PC split, I think that's good. With mostly, obviously, PlayStation 5 and Steam dominating.
We were expecting that. Our campaign was, of course, made towards that effort, and then quite surprised by how much the game was, or how successful it was, in the United States, with almost half of the players from the US. It's not an easy market at all. It's a hard market. Many people would like to have such results in the US.
So that's one. As you know, we were pushing for Chinese-speaking territories. There wasn't a goal or target. So happy to see that coming in second, and more we can do in that area, and the UK. As third one, roughly, in terms of sales. So we wanted a global campaign, I think we had, and we made a global campaign. Again, as mentioned also in the Q&A of the earnings, Europe I think could have given us a bit more, something we're going to have to work on.
So there's still potential to improve. Correct. Yeah. And I have to pick up, you mentioned the wishlist numbers, now probably 2.4 million. So that sounds pretty good. Yes.
Being at 2.4 million outstanding wishlists is quite incredible, but it also shows you a few things, right? It shows you that a lot of people, there was maybe too many games, not enough money, not enough time. We know that this is what happens in a very crowded window. So it shows potential on top of the sales so far, which is indeed very exciting because that's people that are waiting to see our next move, that we can still convert, go after in many different ways. So yeah, no, no. Very promising. Yeah.
A little bit. Talk about the Q3 numbers. Can you say how the Control Resonant launch impacted now the Q3 figures?
Yeah. I think, revenue-wise, we tripled revenue compared to last year, similar period, which is excellent. And it was a profitable quarter. Obviously, something to take into account is the marketing spend now that, as a self-publisher, we have to not just get the revenue after, but we bear the responsibility of more cost also with the marketing campaign.
So obviously that also shows, with seven days of sales plus the pre-sales and the marketing spend, a quarter that some may have seen higher or lower, depending. But that's obviously what we're trying to explain there. But again, we've been very smart, I think, about how we spent, and responsible in the way we spend that marketing budget, which helped us to be in that AAA division, so to speak, and launching a really good game. So that's how the quarter was impacted.
Yeah. Talking about the marketing, and this was now the first big game for your own publishing operations, how did it go from that perspective?
So again, when I came, a lot of people were like, well, it's a brand new self-publishing team, right? No, it's a team that actually learned a ton from previous experiences, right? From working for decades with, and more actually two decades with, external partners, third-party publishing. So they learned a ton. So it's not a newbie team, right? It's a team that was already ready for battle.
But yes, it was also the first product of this scale. So there was tension, but excitement and pressure. And the team has done extremely well through that, really executing on the campaign, both digital and out of home, extremely well. Mm. Yeah.
Well, now we know that Control Resonant is launched and it's selling well. So what are the next steps with the game? And where are all of the people working on the project going forward?
Well, first, we still have a Q4 battle to fight. We have a lot of actions in order to keep pushing on Q4 and make this FY a great and successful one. So that's step one.
And then, building on that foundation, obviously now we have, it's not just one game, it's actually a franchise now. It's something that we can build on. So very excited about the future for that franchise, but also for the studio. As you know, we have multiple projects in flight, so quite a bit to come on different fronts. Yeah.
All of us have to try to ask something about the upcoming project, Max Payne, and the new project in production readiness. Do you have anything to share about those?
I can share that. It's going as planned. We're very excited, and Rockstar is very excited about how the project is evolving. I think, as you know, as a publisher, Rockstar will manage that communication. But I can say that there's exciting news coming down the road as soon as we can, but we'll make sure that everyone knows as soon as Rockstar and Remedy have anything to say. Yeah. All right. Well.
Then if you a little bit look at the future. You kept your outlook intact. So that was not a surprise. But if you try to look at 2027, we know that Remedy has financial targets there. So double the revenue compared to 2024 and around 30% EBITDA margin. So how are you progressing towards that? Right. So.
I mean, what I can really judge to these are the long-term targets that were set by the board in November 2024, I believe. So obviously today they still hold. But the board will give another outlook, I think, in February 2027. And that's the time where these long-term targets will be reassessed, or just the guidance for next year. So it's tough to say. I can't comment on that today. What I can say indeed is the current outlook is one that holds firm. Yeah.
And probably at some point there's going to be some kind of strategy update because the strategy period is coming to an end.
Correct. And I've got so much to do at Remedy.
Yeah, yeah. You have lots of lots to do and.
Exciting.
New games coming. So yeah, that's all from me at that point. So thank you, Jean-Charles, for this interview.
Thank you.
Released in late September, Remedy’s latest game, Control Resonant, has received widespread acclaim from both gaming critics and players. Remedy’s CEO Jean-Charles Gaudechon comments on the game’s launch and its early performance.
Topics:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:12) Launch of Control Resonant
(01:10) Control Resonant sales by platform and region
(02:36) Control Resonant wishlists
(03:19) Impact of Control Resonant on Q3 figures
(04:28) Marketing of Control Resonant
(05:20) Next steps following the launch of Control Resonant
(06:11) Upcoming game projects
(06:48) Outlook for 2027