Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Remedy's full year and Q4 earnings webinar. My name is Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho, and I manage the investor relations at Remedy. In today's webcast, we will go through Remedy's full year and Q4 2020 highlights and financial results. With me are Tero Virtala, Remedy's CEO, and Terhi Kauppi, Remedy CFO. We will have a Q&A session after the presentation. Tero, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Welcome everyone also on my behalf. Looking at our last quarter of 2022, our revenue decreased by 31%, being EUR 13.6 million. EBITDA decreased to EUR 2.8 million, mainly due to a significantly lower level of revenue than in the past comparison period in 2021. It's good to say also that the 2021 quarter four was a very exceptional one. Operating profit for the last quarter of 2022 was EUR 2.1 million. Cash flow from operations -EUR 3.8 million. As an individual big event that we also announced in November, we signed a co-development and co-publishing agreement with 505 games for the sequel of Control 2. Looking at the whole year of 2022, overall, the year went according to our own expectations.
This year started a strong investment phase for Remedy, which can also be seen in 2022 financial figures. Our revenue overall was approximately on the same level as in the previous year, decreasing by 2.5% to EUR 43.6 million. EBITDA was EUR 1.9 million. Operating profit -EUR 0.6 million. Cash flow overall from operations was + EUR 11.1 million. Outside of the just-mentioned Control 2 announcement, earlier in the year in April, we announced that we will remake Max Payne and Max Payne 2 with Rockstar Games. In May, a big step for us as a company, Remedy started trading, or we transferred from First North Growth Market to official main list of Nasdaq Helsinki.
As we will bit later discuss, once more, we lowered our revenue and operating result outlook in August for the year of 2022. Based on all that, our board of directors now proposes a dividend of EUR 0.1 per share. If I look at from a bit higher level for the year 2022 and how it, in a way paints the landscape for this year and then for our future, out of the five games that we now have in development, we are ourselves co-financing four games with our partners, and these four games are based on Remedy-owned brands. One of the five games, Max Payne, is owned by Rockstar Games, and it's fully funded by them. Now, with more own investment in our own games, we say that we have started a stronger investment phase for us.
This will also continue in 2023. When our projects advance in their next stages during this year, our own investments will then also gradually increase. We now have deals in place with our publishing partner for all of these five games. Supported by the financing from these partners and with our own cash position being so strong, this enables our own investments. Importantly, our capabilities as a company also to make these games happen according to our current roadmap are stronger than ever. All in all, based on what we have done in 2022, we are well prepared for this investment phase. Now when I look at the year 2022 on an operational level, what has happened? What have we reached?
We have been systematically building a company for years that can continue creating excellent gaming IPs and games that will stand out in the market and succeed and utilize our unique strength step by step, still becoming longer engaging and therefore providing longer-term business opportunities. In order for us to benefit then from all of that, we have also aimed at having a stronger position in the value chain. 2022 was a highly important year in building that model for us. We had number of key operational developments and successes that significantly strengthen us. We now have all the key elements in our hands that we need to successfully execute our roadmap of five games.
What, for example, happened in 2022 is that, first of all, we now have these five games in development, with the November deal with 505 games, we closed a publishing partner agreement and co-financing agreement for that fifth game as well. We now have the agreements in place for all of our games in our portfolio. That portfolio is a balanced one. On one hand, we now have in development longer engaging single-player games that are closer to our historical strengths. We also have the service-based multiplayer games taking, I would say, smartly, which take, I would say smartly into account our traditional strengths in narration and world-building. Now when we are not going into PVP games, but co-op games, we can also utilize these traditional strengths in a new context in multiplayer games.
We also have now a strong cash position, increased own investments to our games, and that provides us all of these five games good royalty upsides going into the future. These agreements have now set us a path to becoming a co-publisher in cooperation with Tencent and 505 games for three of our games in development. Our core game development teams, the support teams, the external development capabilities, they have been significantly strengthened throughout the year and the ways of working have improved. Based on that, we have seen good progress with our game projects and the underlying Northlight Game Engine and tool set has had several major advancements that will serve us this year and in the years to come. People-wise, we had a successful year both in attracting, retaining, and developing our people.
Looking at our project portfolio, we now have these five games in development. At the center of the slide is Alan Wake. Understandably, this is an important focus for us right now. Alan Wake 2 is in full production and launches this year. The game will soon have all the content in place. It will be fully playable from start to finish. After that, we will move into polishing the experience. There is still a lot of work left. We can already see the experience and quality this game can offer for the gamers. Alan Wake Remastered did not yet generate royalties. Marketing has been kept at low level. We expect the sales to increase with the release of Alan Wake 2, when new players of Alan Wake want to experience also the original story.
Max Payne 1 & 2 Remake was started in 2022. Project has made good progress in the concept stage. In relation to Control and especially Control 2, the game has progressed on all fronts with impressive steps. As we move to 2023, project advanced based on our internal Stage-Gate process from concept stage to proof of concept. Both Control 2 and Max Payne have advanced in a way that they are ready to take more people when year 2023 advances. This is very good. As Alan Wake 2 comes closer to launch, most of the people freeing up will then move to Control 2 and Max Payne. Condor, the spin-off of Control, is a service-based co-op multiplayer game.
The development has advanced on many fronts, and at the same time, we have been learning and also strengthening our internal team and how we develop efficiently this type of new game. We have also been looking at the market quite closely with our partner 505 games, and there is clear demand and a lot of potential for co-op games, but the game has to still stand out from the competition and be a really good one. We are patiently working towards that with Condor. With Vanguard, in the fall 2022, we chose to keep the game in the proof of concept phase longer and also announced that to the markets that we postpone the significant expansion of the development team in Vanguard until year 2023. Now, during the fall 2022, the Vanguard team has been strengthened, ways of working have developed, and team has made good progress.
This is a big free-to-play game we are building. We continue to work on core gameplay, wider meta game, and in providing the game the Remedy style, deeper narrative and world-building in the context of free-to-play multiplayer game. In this portfolio, Condor and Vanguard overall are service-based multiplayer games. In that sense, new type of games for Remedy. With the development that we have had, we know we can make great games out of them, but we also want to bring a new Remedy take on multiplayer games. This is to differentiate our games bit more from competition and provide something new for gamers. All this requires a lot of learning and iteration and also patience. Good thing is that step by step, we have been advancing also with these type of new games and can see that in the game builds. Looking at the people.
At the heart of Remedy are, of course, world-class talents, our people. Developing five games and underlying Northlight technology and toolset requires world-class talent, good collaboration between our teams, and efficient ways of working. We have that. In relation to people at the end of 2022, we had 366 in-house talents. Our second studio in Stockholm, Sweden is in operation and supports us to tap to the vast gaming talent pool in that region. While our talents in-house focus on the most crucial parts of the games, we complement this with external development partners. They bring us their special expertise and also allow us to scale up the productions. All that is needed to develop our games, start launching them successfully and reaching the growth objectives we have.
Competition overall for talent in gaming industry is fierce, and I'm happy to say that we have continued to succeed very well on that front. Our recruitment has for years worked well. In 2022, that was supported by COVID pandemic starting to ease up and world again opening. In 2022, we almost doubled the number of new employees compared to year 2021. The other side, employee retention, is equally important, and we were strong in this as well. Being able to retain people is naturally not a result of just one year of actions, but an outcome of many good developments over a longer period of time, which makes me even happier. It tells that we have built something sustainable which takes years, and it's also a longer term competitive advantage to us.
To give some context to employee retention, as an example, already in 2021, employee turnover in wider gaming, media and entertainment industry was over 20% in many Western markets. We don't have the numbers yet for the year 2022, but it has been higher, that we know. However, at Remedy, our turnover is far, far lower year by year, around 10% like it was approximately in year 2022. This tells that despite of lot of alternatives for great people in our industry, our world-class talent likes to be with us. We are an attractive employer. We provide them interesting projects, roles, development paths. For us as a company, this gives a chance to build long-term, truly high-performing teams with top talents who know step by step over time, their work, their colleagues better, leading into an even better performing teams.
With this accumulated expertise, they can then develop their own fields of work and better and better help us to succeed both short-term and long-term. In order to support that, we naturally continue to provide opportunities for our people for professional development, career progress, leadership training, ways of working, and with many other aspects of their work as well. We, as a result now have five core game development teams, our technology team and set of important support teams in place. These teams are again stronger and also collaborate more efficiently than ever before. Summarizing the year 2022 on an operational level, it was an important year in our longer term development. We now have all the key elements in place to develop our roadmap of five games and succeed with them in the future. Reaching this point has been a long process.
When we look at the past, in 2017, we started the transformation that one day we would be able to develop excellent, longer engaging games on top of our unique strengths, have ability to make this type of games and multiple games in parallel, and with this model also step by step, have a stronger position in the value chain and gain more of the benefits when our games then one day launch to the market and succeed. Overall, during the years, this move to multi-project model has been going well, but it's definitely not been easy. It is difficult move for any experienced gaming studio and that is why so few have done it successfully even though long-term benefits with this model are obvious.
We at Remedy have also felt some growth pains when building our model over the years, as was partially evidenced in summer 2022, with the additional time needed for the Vanguard project. All the time we have taken our learnings, made changes, improved and advanced. All this, it has taken time. Now in 2022, we reached our ambitious target to have a strong organization and ability to develop five big games in parallel. We now have a well-balanced, high potential portfolio of five games. It consists of step by step longer engaging single player games that, as I said earlier, they are closer to our historical strengths. We also have two service-based multiplayer games. We have approached these new games patiently and smartly going to co-op multiplayer, which is a more natural step to us than, for example, player versus player competitive multiplayer games.
With this direction, we can utilize also more of the narrative world building expertise and bring something really new to this genre. We now have in place trusted world-class partners for all the five games, partners that are the right ones to help us succeed exactly with these games. We have now gained a stronger position in the value chain. Out of the five game projects we have, four are based on Remedy's own brand. Remedy is a co-publisher in three of these. Max Payne is a Rockstar IP, but an excellent addition to our portfolio. We also now have a strong cash position, have high potential games in development, and really an ability to make them happen.
According to our strategy, together with our partners, we have now started to invest also more of our own money to these games in order to gain bigger benefits once we start launching the games into the market. Looking at the future, this investment phase continues also in 2023. Our strategy overall and these investments are done to enable major growth opportunities in the future and an even stronger position to benefit from this growth. We will now, based on this, have an ability to develop new games and at the same time live operate existing games in the coming years. We can have ongoing game updates and also new game launches every year. These games are longer engaging, and that will mean that there is more opportunities for long-lasting recurring revenue.
With our higher position in the value chain, we are also having a higher royalty upside, higher potential to gain our part of that revenue. With the co-publishing model, we have more direct involvement in how our games are marketed and sold, and also a stronger ability to build communities, connect with these communities, and serve these communities, which are so important, especially for service-based games. All in all, it's been a big and important year for us. A lot of development, a lot of potential going further. This was my part on the operational part. I'll now hand over to Terhi to talk more on the financials.
Thank you very much, Tero. Good afternoon to everyone also on my behalf. Let's look at a little bit more closely our financials. Yes, first of all, about our quarter four revenues. Our revenues decreased by 31%. This decrease was mainly due to exceptionally strong comparison period. That was due to the one-off revenues related to Vanguard and Alan Wake 2 booked then. On the other hand, the positive contributor was Control 2 development fees due to the contract we signed with 505 in quarter four. Overall, our development fees were at 92% of the total revenue, which means then the royalties was only 8%. This was a little similar split than in comparison period. In quarter four, our royalties decreased by EUR 400,000, and that's 27%.
We didn't receive any royalties from Alan Wake Remastered yet, as mentioned, nor did we from Crossfire. Looking a little bit further back, as a reminder, again, there has been and there will be quarterly variation in revenues and thus also in profitability. The level of royalties has been decreasing in each quarter in 2022 from comparison period. Overall, in the total amount of royalties in 2022 was only EUR 4.5 million compared to the level of EUR 8.7 million in 2021. Quarter four profitability. Of course, the revenue decrease impacted that. Our EBIT was EUR 2.1 million, and that's 15.6% of the revenue. Whereas in comparison period, we had very high EBIT level, EUR 8.2 million more due to the one-off revenue bookings to compensate past costs.
The decrease in profitability was also impacted by the nature of the projects that we are working on currently. Since we are, like also Tero mentioned, financing a larger share ourselves during the project development phase to ensure future revenue shares, that's a planned action from us. When looking at the total year 2022, our revenue change was -2.5%. On a yearly level, our royalties were 10% of the total revenue. In comparison period in year 2021, they were 19%. Overall, our development fees grew by 9%, whereas the royalties decreased by 49%. We are not disclosing the revenue split by projects, but we can say that there has been a big change in the revenue mix for the projects.
The key positive contributors on a yearly level to the growth of the development fees were the development fees from Max Payne One and Two Remake, Control 2, and Alan Wake 2. At the same time, the development fees from Alan Wake Remastered, Codename Vanguard, and CrossFire, as well as game royalties from Control, decreased from the comparison period. Yes, Alan Wake Remastered did not yet generate royalties, neither did CrossFire, and at the moment, we do not have expectations for CrossFire royalties in our forecasts. The profitability on a yearly level. Our EBIT decreased to EUR 600,000 minus. That's then - 1.3% of the revenue.
Transitioning to a phase where we invest more in the game projects during the development phase to ensure longer-term business upside potential also means that we gradually hire more employees and utilize external development more than in past years. The share we receive from publishing partners in the form of development fees is then lower compared to the total level of investments. About the cost structure changes briefly, taking into account the way IFRS requires the expenses to be netted, we can say that yes, we are using more external development than outsourcing, and therefore, the materials and services expenses were 118.9% higher than a year ago, that's then a significant increase.
We continue to recruit more personnel and, in this format, our personnel expenses were 13.2% higher than 2021. After the pandemic restrictions now have eased, the level of other operating costs has normalized in a way. There we have almost 60% increase in other operating expenses than in the comparison period. For the transparency's sake, we also present here the unnetted amounts of expenses. The capitalizations are not netted here, but they are presented separately. In these numbers, we can see that the external development fees increased by EUR 1.3 million to EUR 4.2 million, and that's 48%. The main drivers here were Alan Wake 2 and Condor projects.
Personnel expenses, as unnetted, only had a slight 3.5% increase, despite the increase of 14% in personnel due to the lower level of bonus accruals in 2022. Our capitalizations were on a 14% higher level in quarter four, at the level of EUR 2 million. We have a strong cash position. Our operating cash flow was -EUR 4.1 million. Sorry, 3.8. There's always a quarterly variation based on timing of incoming and outgoing payments. On yearly level, our operating cash flow was EUR 11.1 million versus EUR 6.1 million in previous year, so a significant increase.
Our total cash level was EUR 55.9 million, and that's the decrease of EUR 2.3 million during the full year of 2022. We have been able to maintain a good cash position, and it allows us to invest into good quality games as planned. When we raised the funds from the market in early 2021, the intention was this, secure cash position and enable us in investing in our own games. As said, current profitability level is impacted by increased investments to product development and by composition of revenue, i.e. more risk in development and lower level of royalties. Overall, we see possibilities for our top-line growth and improved profitability in the long run. That in mind, we make operatively wise decisions, although in short term, this impacts our numbers.
With the strong cash position, we build up the basis for our long-term success. We have a balanced portfolio of projects, not only in terms of the kind of games we make, but also in terms of which kind of agreements we have with our publish partners. We have a subcontracting type agreement with Rockstar Games for Max Payne Remake, offsetting the discontinued operations project. Then we are working with 505 games and Epic in a model where Remedy owns the IP, publishing partner funds the development fully or partly, and we share game sales profits. We are taking steps towards self-publishing in a risk-controlled manner by starting with co-publishing, like with Project Condor, Vanguard, and mostly recently, Control 2 with IPs owned by Remedy.
We do not yet have any projects where Remedy would act as sole publisher, but this is a future opportunity. Here we want to describe the sort of portfolio from the future potential point of view. Here we have our projects split by the type they generate revenue for us. Also taking into account the timeline, how we are investing into different kind of game projects as the time advances. In subcontracting, we receive the development fees with margin and also have the possibility to gain sales royalties. In partnership with publisher for our own IP, we share development fee burden and the royalty opportunity. The contracts type vary, but overall, the project profit depends on the game sales. Self-publishing potential in purely in game sales return and that potential in this model is of course clearly higher.
In regards to timing and depending on publisher agreement, there might be recouping of development fees before the royalties paid to Remedy. Yes, still, about the dividend. Our dividend proposal now is EUR 0.10 per share, which is made to the annual general meeting. Now back to Tero, you can continue.
Thank you, Terhi. Yeah, based on all this, as has been now said, we are in an investment phase focusing on developing the five games we have, investing more also ourselves into them, and later this year, launching first of these five games, Alan Wake 2. Taking all this into account, we expect that in year 2023, our revenue to decline from previous year and a negative operating result. Just to remind where we are aiming at, our long-term objectives remain unchanged. We are aiming to create out of our roadmap several successful games and at least one major hit game, a game that reaches the global top-selling charts and can keep on succeeding. We have the unique creative skills and can create worlds, characters, stories that build powerful brands. We will own at least three expanding game brands, all with long-term hit potential.
We will have commercial capabilities so that we can ourselves select the right commercial model for each model, be it one-day self-financing, self-publishing, or be it working with publishing partners like we now have found as the best way forward. Great people continue to be a key focus for us. We aim to be the most attractive gaming industry employer in Europe and continue to invest a lot to our people. As has been said, we aim to reach each of these objectives while having a growing business, aiming for profitability, and all the time managing our investments and risks well. I think that's it from our part. Veli, the Q&A.
Yes. Thank you, Tero. Thank you, Terhi. Now as Tero said, to the Q&A. If you want to ask your questions, please type your questions to the Q&A or the webinar chat. We are ready for questions. As a matter of fact, I can see that there's already a couple of questions in the Q&A. Let's take those first. There's a question, will Remedy use core mechanics or perhaps concept art from Control 1 in Condor? Meaning will it be more efficient for Remedy to develop the game? Can it use more code, reuse more code, and things like this?
Yes, there are definitely synergies. The main intent definitely always with all the games is that we aim for excellent games. The main premise was that the world of Control, a kind of like highly intriguing, expanding world, how in a way the Oldest House provides expanding opportunities for games, and our strategic intent to go towards longer-lasting games, that built a strong foundation and basis for a co-op experience we saw and with the early phase concepting that we had, some of the prototyping that we did back in the day, it proved that there is a high potential in this.
That was always the main driver that we can make a great game. Now in a way, making it in the world of Control, of course, then expands the brand, provides something new for fans, and provides also a possibility to bring in new fans for the wider world of Control. That was a good, in a way, aim that we had. Production wise, we have seen that there are clear synergies and in a way efficiency gains in production that we can reach actually before even going into the asset or content or art side. The number 1 in a way, first synergy is just in the world and in a way in the world building and some of the basic principles, how we make these worlds so immersive and at the same time mysterious and believable in a way.
Often that part, that early vision part world building may take quite long for new games. Now Control already has it. It's been kind of like a very fast stepping stone for the team to start focusing on the gameplay and experience and taking some of the existing designs as taken. Definitely the Oldest House provides a strong basis that's in a way a building, a world, a shifting environment. A lot of the art ready made that we can utilize. But then, of course, it's a new type of experience, a co-op experience in a setting that was originally made for single player purposes. Always certain type of adjustment, certain changes are going to be needed.
In a way, just based on that, I guess you already heard that yes, there are a lot of synergies, especially on the world design in a way, environment building the content creation that has been done.
Thank you. The follow-up question related to Condor. Can we say something about the cooperative element in the game? For instance, how many players can play and any color on that?
No, no, I wouldn't go at all into the deeper details. Those are reserved when we one day are ready to start announcing a bit more and enticing the fans into the world of Condor as well.
Good. There's a question related to the report. Could you open up a little bit on your growth pains in 2022 that were mentioned in the CEO review? Has there been big changes with your game leadership roles and o utsourcing partners?
I wouldn't say that they are big ones because, in many ways, we have been really patient in building our multi-project model. We started it in the early 2017, one could say already in the end phases of 2016. We have taken almost six years to reach this point. We also understood that it's been difficult for any Triple-A gaming studio. I think all along we have been making the right choices, trying to build more and more autonomous in a way, leadership teams, management using management roles as in a way guiding the strategic directions, trying to support the teams, being able to balance the in a way cross-project needs and conflicts that always at times in a way arise, be they in technology prioritization or in staffing needs. We have been building the centralized units, how they could work.
All along we have been advancing on many fronts. Now, I think that the final big learnings and changes we have had in 2022 and it's in many ways related to the fact that this is now the moment when we had the aimed five projects in production. We now finally have the core leadership teams that can advance their projects well, and the teams that are able to take their projects quite well forward. That was the state already in early part of 2022.
At the same time, this was also the first year when in this wide multi-project model, we had one big production in a way, Alan Wake 2, in full production mode and out of these five projects, we need to keep in mind that three are in a way more traditional or two of them, Alan Wake 2, Max Payne, in a way very much more story-focused game. Control was taking us to a new direction, but we have a team that now making a sequel of that. In many ways, these three games are closer to our historical strengths or the strengths that we have built during the past years.
Two of the games are very new ones in a way, service-based multiplayer games that also require us to learn more and develop new skills. When we take all that into account, I think in a way, especially in Vanguard, we saw in the summer time that even though a lot of good progress had happened in a way, it was proceeding too slowly. Some of the key elements were not in a way found out, and it was mainly a learning point for us, in developing this type of new games that the leadership team needed to be a slightly different one than we have in some of our other projects, and have we also discovered some of the key innovate developers that the project still required? In the fall time, we were able to fulfill that.
With the five projects with innovate quite autonomous leadership teams, it has been a learning point for us also that what's the right way for us as a company management to innovate, oversee, and at times guide the projects, and then together with the project teams early on identify the really big topics that need to be sorted out rather earlier than later. Also, what are the ways how we balance the portfolio with these different requirements for technology, for the staffing needs for scheduling, and especially doing that early enough so that the projects can take these into account in their planning. These have been developments, we have had innovate really good developments in the ways that our projects work.
There are some innovative benchmarks that we have been using, some models that work in one projects we have taken to other projects. We have also seen the importance of doing some adjustments when we have a different type of game than actually the benchmarking works in a certain way. What's the level of freedom that we have now given the teams to adjust the model exactly for their teams and their project needs, and then the cross-team collaborations that we are having with the production support functions and the game teams? I would say number of developments. What I'm happy about is that we have been able to go into this detailed level in the areas that we have developed, and now end of last year we could already see.
We had had progress in these projects all the time, but now the progress is clearly accelerating, and that's good.
Are we able to utilize freed up cap-capacity after the launch of Alan Wake 2 in Vanguard and Condor, or are these projects needs somewhat different?
As I mentioned earlier, most of the freeing up personnel will go to Control 2 and Max Payne remakes. Definitely many of these talents in different disciplines, they can be utilized also in Condor and Vanguard, but the needs in those projects for the people that are freeing up are not that heavy. Overall in Condor, in a way, the development team, especially when we are utilizing the world of Control, the needs are slightly lower. Vanguard is being developed with Unreal, therefore also the personal needs and talent needs are a bit different. Vanguard, in any case, already has a, I would say, medium-sized team that is able to take a lot of the development further.
Yes, some innovate freeing up talent most likely will go to Condor, some will go to Vanguard, but most of them still to Control 2 and Max Payne.
Good. There's a question for more for Terhi probably. What is the purpose of the EUR 7 million investments into equity funds?
Yes, it was to neutralize the effect of negative interest rates, when we gathered EUR 41.5 million from the market, so financial investments to neutralize that. Of course, the interest situation has changed.
We could actually continue with you 'cause, there's a question. Did Control benefit from B2B deals in Q4 2022?
Yeah. Said we are not sort of disclosing those or even, like, telling the details about our revenue split as such, but we could say that the B2B deals have become a sort of a more or less a steady source of revenues in Control. Yes, but that's not, like, exceptional.
Another question related to game launches. Is the macro in macroeconomic environment something that we take into consideration when considering the launch date for a game?
No, no. That's, that's. Of course, with our publishing partners, we are following how the economy is developing, but it's in a way quite a low priority consideration. We know that the overall gaming market is strong in a way long-term video gaming market continues to grow. We know that the games we have in development, they are step-by-step long-lasting. Digital distribution is the dominant innovate distribution and sales channel for the games. Really good quality games, longer engaging games, they will sell for a long time. It's not anymore about reaching, in a way, the highest potential sales within the first month or first few months, so we are definitely having an eye for the long-term potential with every single game that we are launching.
The exact launch window is being defined on the potential competition in the same genre that we are having, and in a way, what do we see as the highest potential for the audience? Highest potential launch window for the audience we are after.
Continuing with the game launches, there's a question, with Condor and Vanguard still in proof of concept stage, is it realistic to assume a Triple-A game launch also in 2024?
I'm not talking about anything about Vanguard, or Condor. It's just that, we have said as a company that we are aiming to launch, make one new game launch per year. Definitely it's realistic.
To Alan Wake 2, there's a question, how happy are we with the project on a scale of one to 10?
I don't want to give any numerical, in a way. Evaluation that's also always so subjective. We are happy how it's going. I have no doubt that it's going to be a distinctive high-quality game that will please our fans and gamers overall. It's still in development phase. In a way, we have a big team working on that, lot of partners. Definitely the game is not yet ready. There is still work to be done. We are soon in a situation where we have all the content in place, that means that the whole game experience, whole game can be played from A to Z, in a way, from start to finish.
The important part of balancing everything, polishing everything, making it the exceptional, in a way, excellent experience it can be, starts, and that also contains a lot of work and in a way, still in a way, full focus on that, but we are very excited, that I can say.
Nice to see you building the hype. There's a question, do you believe that the fan base for Alan Wake 2 or Alan Wake is big enough considering the game's budget?
The fan base for these type of games is big, kind of like no question of that. It's. The gaming market overall, be it Alan Wake, be it Control, be it any game, any big game, Triple-A game, the different genres, segments of the gaming market, they are quite polarized. It's not winner takes all, but it is a fact that if you are able to create kind of like the top positions in the chart, you can have huge success. If you are in the medium, kind of like, part of the charts, they're not that good. The fact is that the thing that we can affect most is to ensure that when we launch in 2023, it's going to be an excellent high-quality game.
Are you planning to showcase something in Game Developers Conference or E3?
No. No public speculation on that. In a way, the marketing always has to be, in a way. The marketing plans go in a way that we are able to sometimes surprise, sometimes provide, in a way, what the fans expect. Most of all, it's a very systematic work also on that front, that when do we start marketing and in what way.
Good. There's a few other questions related to projects. Tero said that, or you said that, we have learned from the past while building up the multi-project model. What were the sort of key learnings from the CrossfireX projects?
That's a good question. Because the partnership with Smilegate and CrossfireX plays a big and important role in our past years' development, especially in the early phases of the multi-project model.
We, in a way, started this whole model when we had the first, in a way, CrossfireX operation in development, and we started developing Control, and I think first of all, it showed us early on the importance as in the portfolio to have also projects with the different, in a way, business risk profile and in a way, back in the days, when we were just in a way, trying our kind of like toes in the water, that what's the right way for the multi-project model when we had two or three projects, I think having one, in a way, project that we could forecast quite well into the future with our partner, with Smilegate, was highly important one.
At the same time, I think, CrossfireX, when we started the collaboration, was a huge success in the Chinese market, and we started making a single-player experience for an audience that was not, back in the day, familiar with single-player games, to a game that was mainly successful in China and some of the other developing countries. I think in a way, when the market and audience was not familiar to us, it was lot of iteration and going back and forth in finding the right design for these operations. At the same time, when in a way Crossfire was primarily in a way a multiplayer, free-to-play multiplayer experience, developing something completely new to that in a way required a lot.
We had our learnings, and Smilegate was an excellent partner, but their focus on that type of military shooter free-to-play games in a way when we together with Smilegate saw that we will not continue in a way our collaboration, and we started looking for a new project, I think the big learning was that we should take as our next project, the project that's still few steps closer to our original and traditional strengths of, in a way, adventure, action, in a way where storytelling plays a role, but which still in a way step by step can take us into a long, long-lasting experience. With all these learnings, they played a big role when we had a lot of options that with whom could we make a potential subcontracting project 'cause we wanted to have a one.
It played a big role how we then ended up having a Max Payne and definitely in a way, Max Payne being very close to what we know and what our team wants to make.
Will Remedy be taking more games into development during 2023 to 2024 in addition to the five projects that we already have?
Well, we have just said that currently full focus is on the five games. We don't at the moment need anything more. Already these five games provide so much future opportunities for us. We now have the first game launching this year. In a way, all eyes are on that. We want to make sure that now this year our projects are proceeding well, and we have a successful launch of Alan Wake 2. Who knows what the, in a way, forthcoming years, in years to come, in a way, will bring to us. I would say that at the moment, in a way, full focus on these five games.
Is it possible for us to have several games in full production phase at the same time simultaneously?
Now we have five games. In a way, at this very moment, with five games, we cannot yet have two games in full production. Quite soon, when we continue in a way how we have now developed, our recruitments are continuing, quite soon we could have. At the moment, in a way, it's still the model that we are having and I think going long way into the future, it's also one of the big efficiency gains that we are able to advance our projects in slightly different phases. Then when people start freeing up, they can move to those projects that are already knocking the door of the next phase. Then when we move people into the projects, we are also more certain that our, in a way, capital, our investments are used smartly.
Thank you. Finally, there's one more question. Will you change your Stage-Gate process model to be better fit development, for, specifically for live service games? Do we need to change the structure in the development teams for these types of games? Do these live service, live-operated games, do they need a different type of skill set for people that we hire?
Our Stage-Gate model, when we look under the hood of the Stage-Gate model, it's already very much adapted for the needs of each individual project. On a high level, the Stage-Gate model, what we need to solve in the early mandate phase or in the concept phase or proof of concept phase that have we identified the key risks of the projects? Have we addressed them? What is the game vision? What is the target audience? What are the key pillars? Have we proven these key pillars in the game build? These type of high level, high level aims, they apply for each projects.
In order to make that concrete, they are always converted into more exact questions that are relevant for that project. In the kind of like development phase, when we are going towards the first launch for the hands of the players, I think the Stage-Gate model works very well to all of our projects. In a way, after the first launch, which in some in a way service-based games may actually be beta launches, then definitely in a way, the Stage-Gate process will differ for the live-operated games in comparison to in a way bigger products that are being developed where the first launch counts so much. Do you need to change the structure of the development teams when we go into the live ops phase?
Definitely in a way, there are going to be team structure changes in that phase. Are you recruiting people with different skill sets? We have been doing that already for a long time. Vanguard has now been in development for four years. In a way, we took those learnings when we started Condor. Still we have been progressing patiently with Condor. One of the reasons is that we have taken our time to build a balanced team that has certain in a way experienced old-time Remedians, but also many new skills that are required for this type of service-based games. It's not just about finding these people, but then giving these people enough time to really form a well-functioning team that can then pull off the ambitious projects that we have.
Good. Thank you. I think this is all. That was the last question. Thank you everyone for the call and the questions. We will be back with the next earnings webinar on 26 April . That's all for now. Have a great weekend, everyone.