Rebooting for F2P, G5 takes a $2.4 million write-down as it cancels 'unlockable' titles

Swedish/Russian publisher G5 Entertainment (STO: G5EN) has announced a write-down on its non-free-to-play mobile games business.

With its FY13 financials due on 24 February, the publisher has written off $2.4 million in terms of the revenue it expected from released games as well as the cost of cancelling other as-yet-unreleased titles.

It's pointed out this is a balance sheet procedure and has no impact in terms of the company's liquidity, although it noted it might have to write-down additional costs in future.

Moving to micro-transactions

The move has been triggered by the longterm decline in the company's model of releasing free casual games that had to be unlocked by a single in-app purchase.

G5 says that these 'unlockable' games are underperforming; hence the write-down.

Instead it's looking to focus all its resources on free-to-play games, which already account for around 60 percent of its sales.

[source: G5 (Swedish), Nordic Investor (English)]