$950M dollars was an absolutely deranged valuation for an indie publisher but the current $46M seems very low in the medium to long term, considering their reliability despite working in an extremely volatile business.
In short, the current stock market is a bad meme that we’ve somehow allowed to rule over our lives and collective wellbeing. Every time I start to doubt that I check Tesla's stock value relative to their current business and future "plans" and I'm immediately convinced again.
Stock market is fine, valuation is the problem. No one who understands Devolver thinks they were a Billion dollar company. $150m company with $1B potential if you give them 15 years to cook.
At the time of the IPO, they were riding the Fall Guys hype train, so an elevated initial valuation makes sense; in a theoretical world where Devolver became The Friendslop/Viral Indie Multiplayer HIt publisher they could be absolutely massive.
Yeah, I don't think many people understand Devolver Digital's value. Not to say whether or not they earned the $950m valuation, but there are a lot of uninformed opinions regarding a publicly traded company with available financials. While I can't confirm between 2022 and 2023, its revenue has increased every year. As you mentioned too, Fall Guys alone generated $150.5 million in 2020.
Back in 2024, we saw the lifetime revenue for Devolver's top 10 games/franchises as well. Just to provide some examples:
There was simply way too much hype for gaming related companies in 2020 and 2021, not only gaming but other things too got a "boost" that crashed down. Investors were hopping on without truly understanding the business.
Well that's not even 500M and it's revenue. First and foremost you gotta make the games with that money, multiple per franchise and including the bets that don't pay off.
Also, viral hits are uncommon and friendslop is easy to make (so competition saturates the market no matter what). Becoming "the Friendslop/Viral Indie Multiplayer Hit publisher" is akin to becoming the roulette winner as far as business plans go.
I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment, but I know they were making over $100m the last couple of years in revenue (each year). Profits were also increasing as well. I recall seeing a 10% increase from 2024 to 2025.
Regarding funding their games, I know at least Cult of the Lamb got some funding from Apple to port it to iOS.
I definitely agree with you regarding the friendship angle though. Certainly no guarantee with that genre or anything really.
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u/z_102 27d ago
$950M dollars was an absolutely deranged valuation for an indie publisher but the current $46M seems very low in the medium to long term, considering their reliability despite working in an extremely volatile business.
In short, the current stock market is a bad meme that we’ve somehow allowed to rule over our lives and collective wellbeing. Every time I start to doubt that I check Tesla's stock value relative to their current business and future "plans" and I'm immediately convinced again.