Officials from British developer and publisher SCi have released details of the company’s preliminary financial results for the year ended September 30th. During this time, the company reported pre-tax profits of £4.5 million ($8.7m), up 29 percent on 2003 and exceeding expectations by 12.5 percent. Turnover was up 8.8 percent on the previous year at £31 million ($60.2m).
The company, which only publishes games in Europe, licensing titles to companies such as Vivendi Universal for North American release, also reported that development expenditure for the year increased by almost 20 percent, at £9.8 million ($19.0m). The company has attributed it success to the strong performance of titles such as
Richard Burns Rally,
Galleon and
Conflict: Vietnam. The latter has sold over 1.2 million units world-wide, with the previous two
Conflict: Desert Storm titles continuing to sell well.
SCi points towards a strong future line-up, with licenses including
Constantine,
Rogue Trooper,
Reservoir Dogs and
Highlander, and original titles such as
Battlestations: Midway and
Overdose, plus new entries in the
Carmageddon and
Conflict series.
"For the third year in a row SCi has delivered record turnover and record profits," commented CEO Jane Cavanagh. "This once again confirms the success of our strategy of investing in high quality licenses, brands and developers. These results were achieved after increasing significantly our investment in new products. We have an exciting and expanding product pipeline which provides the basis for continued profitable growth."
