Square Enix Shares Soar as DQM Super Light Leaps to 5th in Sales
Posted 17:20 EST on 24JAN2014 by: indie navi news staff in news » dragon quest monsters super light, dragon quest viii, financials, square enix
January 24th: Square Enix Holdings’ share price reached its maximum allowable single-day gain of 400 yen to finish the day’s trading at 2,081 yen, an increase of 23.8 percent. The gains are attributed to Square Enix’s January 23rd release of Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light, which rocketed to 5th place on the App Store sales rankings games category within a single day.
Image source: Social Game Info
Dragon Quest Monsters, a spin-off of the ubiquitous Dragon Quest series, has become a popular series in its own right, spawning countless titles across numerous consoles and mobile devices. Super Light is the first Dragon Quest Monsters title developed from the ground up for smartphones and tablets. It is also the first free-to-play title in the series, monetized through in-game purchases.
Super Light has been a tremendous hit with smartphone and tablet owners, going from 12th place in the App Store rankings (in the games category) at 10:00 AM (Tokyo) to 9th place at 2:00 PM, finally arriving at 5th place as of 5:00 in the evening. News of Super Light‘s success drove up Square Enix Holdings’ stock price through the course of the 24th, bringing the company’s share price to its highest level in over four years.
Image source: Social Game Info
Super Light was developed by CyGames, a subsidiary of CyberAgent. Like Square Enix Holdings, CyberAgent’s share price rose steadily through the day in response to Super Light‘s success. During trading on the 24th, CyberAgent’s share price briefly reached its maximum allowable single-day gain of 5,350 yen before dipping slightly to end the day at 5,170, an aggregate increase of 11 percent. This is CyberAgent’s highest end-of-day share price in ten years.
Image source: Social Game Info
However, it’s worth noting the trajectory taken by another Square Enix title: Dragon Quest VIII. Like Super Light, Dragon Quest VIII brushed aside popular and established mobile titles as it rocketed to the top of the sales rankings. Despite its 2,800 yen price, Dragon Quest VIII jumped past Quiz RPG: The Mystic World of Wiz and LINE Corp.’s Pokopan to seize the second spot in terms of sales, unable to dethrone only GungHo’s indomitable Puzzle and Dragons. Dragon Quest VIII‘s sales went on the decline steadily before slipping outside of the top 50 by mid-January.
Image source: Social Game Info
Still, for Square Enix, having struggled to regain a steady foothold, this show of investor faith in its decision to release versions of its big-name titles for mobile devices must come as a powerful reassurance.
At the end of trading on the 24th, notable shifts in share price of 25 top games publishers were as follows:
| Company | Share price | Change in yen from the previous day’s share price | Change as percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square Enix HD | 2,081 | 400 | 23.80% |
| CyberAgent | 5,170 | 520 | 11.18% |
| A Team | 9,040 | 540 | 6.35% |
| GREE | 1,180 | 50 | 4.42% |
| colopl | 4,110 | 110 | 2.75% |
| Capcom | 1,930 | 46 | 2.44% |
| KLab | 917 | 19 | 2.12% |
| enish | 2,850 | 52 | 1.86% |
| Marvelous AQL | 753 | 6 | 0.80% |
| Konami | 2,367 | 6 | 0.25% |
| Sega Sammy HD | 2,539 | -13 | -0.51% |
| MobCast | 1,333 | -7 | -0.52% |
| Nexon | 916 | -6 | -0.65% |
| Nihon Falcom | 1,042 | -8 | -0.76% |
| DeNA | 2,205 | -28 | -1.25% |
| AXEL MARK | 903 | -12 | -1.31% |
| Koei Tecmo HD | 1,184 | -18 | -1.50% |
| Bandai Namco HD | 2,195 | -37 | -1.66% |
| Nippon Ichi Software | 854 | -16 | -1.84% |
| GungHo | 683 | -13 | -1.87% |
| Nintendo | 13,560 | -290 | -2.09% |
| Mixi | 6,880 | -160 | -2.27% |
| Voltage | 1,852 | -43 | -2.27% |
| Cave | 3,925 | -95 | -2.36% |
| Eighting | 1,873 | -55 | -2.85% |
News and images source: Social Game Info articles: 1, 2, 3