Interplay posts profit [sic]
For their next trick, Titus will part the Red Sea and turn its waters into wine
Struggling American publisher Interplay has seen a radical reversal of fortunes, with the company today announcing that it actually made a profit during the first three months of this year. That's the first time it's been in the black since the summer of 2000. Revenues of $15.4m marked a 9% drop compared to the same period the previous year, but drastic cost cutting helped turn last year's $8.4m loss into a $1.7m profit. The bad news is that this is something of a false dawn, as the money mostly came from selling the family silver. Interplay didn't release a single new game during the first three months of the year, with most of their cash instead coming from the sale of potentially lucrative publishing and licensing rights. An astonishing 62% of their revenues came from royalties and licensing, including $5.6m from "the sale of publishing rights to another game distributor" and another $2.5m "related to the sales of certain licensing rights". We're guessing that this covers the deal announced in late January which handed highly anticipated role-playing game Neverwinter Nights over to Infogrames. Trying to put a brave face on the news, Herve Caen announced that "we are delighted to have returned the company to profitability so soon following our strategic management changes", adding that he is "optimistic that previews at the all-important E3 and the release of .. Hunter : The Reckoning on Xbox later this month will accelerate that momentum". Certainly the company's next set of results should be impressive, not because of Hunter, but thanks to the $47m sale of Shiny and the Matrix license to Infogrames that took place in April. Related Feature - Infogrames to publish Neverwinter Nights