Remedy Entertainment Oyj

OMXH:REMEDY

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Remedy Entertainment webinar. My name is Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho, and I manage the Investor Relations at Remedy. Today, we will go through Remedy's business review for Q3 2021. With me today are Tero Virtala, Remedy CEO; and Terhi Kauppi, Remedy CFO. We will have a Q&A session after the presentation. Tero, the floor is yours.

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Veli. So welcome on my behalf as well. In the third quarter, our business progress as planned. Numbers were in line with our expectations and the outlook for the year remains unchanged. So we expect revenue and operating profit to increase during '21. Our revenue in the third quarter was EUR 7.4 million, which is a decrease of 25% year-on-year. Operating profit was EUR 0.3 million, a decrease of 25% -- 35%, sorry. And compared to -- in comparison to 2020, the decline was mainly related to factors, Control royalties and Smilegate development fees. Influencing the Control, for a game that is 2 years old, Control royalties overall were still good overall, but in the comparison view with 2020, they were exceptionally high as that was the moment when Control ultimately was launched on Steam for the first time. Then in relation to our partner, Smilegate, we have been publishing during this quarter the Crossfire story modes and preparing for the upcoming Crossfire launches. After years of full scale development work, this is highly important and positive phase both for us and Smilegate. However, in these final phases, there has been little development work remaining and as this has been subcontracting, it has also then meant few or less development fees. And to put this into right perspective from Remedy's point of view, we outlined our updated strategy in late 2020. We then raised EUR 40 million in February to support the implementation of that strategy. Now subcontracting projects like Crossfire can play a role for us also in the future, and partnership with Smilegate continues in any case [indiscernible] coming this quarter, a lot of talented developers have been freeing up and there are a lot of opportunities for these talented teams, both with revenue IPs and external IPs. This year overall is becoming, in any case, a good year for us. We have profitable business, very strong cash position. So we have redirected the free personnel to support selective other projects, which have a very strong long-term fit with our strategic business. Yes, in this quarter, it has meant less development fees, but we have seen in that, say, right focus towards our longer-term objectives. Then additionally, in September, we announced Alan Wake Remastered ready to be launched in October on PC on the Epic Games Store expos, and as an important step for the first time in Alan Wake's history, PlayStation consoles. Big milestone was also the 2 Epic Games that proceeded into full production. And operationally, a critical development is that we started the next phase in strengthening our presence in Sweden, which I will talk a bit more later in this presentation. And as I just referred, an important context to any of the developments that we have been doing are the long-term growth plans and objectives that we have. The actions we do and have also done in this third quarter are taking us toward these objectives. So our objective, as we outlined in our updated strategy already 1 year ago, is that by the end of '25, we have created several successful games and at least 1 major hit game, a game that reaches the global top-selling charts and keeps on succeeding. As a company, we have unique creative skills and can create worlds, characters, stories that build powerful fans. We will own, by the end of '25, at least 3 expanding game times, all with long-term hit potential. By that time, we have strengthened our commercial capabilities so that we are free to select the right commercial successful model for each of those games. For some, it may be self-financing self-publishing; for some others, it's working closely with our publishing partners. And then, of course, in our business at Remedy, great people continue to be a key focus. We aim to be the most attractive gaming industry employer in Europe. And all these objectives while having a profitable and growing business, we keep on managing our risks well. And now, of course, in this approach towards the objectives, the most concrete part are seen in our games portfolio: what games we are making with what type of business models and partnerships, how these projects are progressing and how they succeed when they one day launch. Currently, we have 7 announced games and projects we have been working on. We've had good progress with all of them. Control is [ less than ] 2 years and keeps on selling, Control also built us a key franchise and the development is now focused on 2 new Control-related games, Condor and [indiscernible] game. On Crossfire asset, we are preparing with Smilegate for the upcoming launches. Then we have the 2 projects with Epic and Vanguard, our free-to-play co-op game. So let's have a look at some of these games and projects in a bit more detail. First, Crossfire. So as has been said number of times, but for those of you not yet familiar, we have collaborated with Smilegate now for over 5 years developing story modes to their hugely successful Crossfire. Our story modes are related to 2 Crossfire games, Crossfire HD and CrossfireX. Crossfire HD is a continuation of the Crossfire game in China. CrossfireX is going to be a new game launching on Xbox. Both of these games will include [ plenty ] story modes. And both of these games, therefore, offer a long-term royalty opportunity for us. And we are now expecting these launches to happen soon. So for many reasons, yes, we are excited and an interesting new phase is definitely starting for Crossfire. The exact timing of the launches is decided by Smilegate and Smilegate's publishing partners. Then when we look at Control. As I just said, Control launched bit over 2 years ago. It became a success in the eyes of critics and players. We have expanded the game with content updates and we have expanded into several new platforms. Control has sold well, and as a high-quality game, still keeps on selling, but naturally on a gradually declining trajectory. And Control also established us a new franchise, new world with a lot of future expansion opportunities. With that as a basis, in June '21, we announced a co-publishing and development agreement with our long-term Control partner, 505 Games. It's strategically very significant to us. We keep on building and expanding the franchise. We go towards longer-lasting and longer-engaging games. And we also move higher in the value chain, building competencies for co-publishing the game with a trusted partner. In Q3, as projects, Condor and the bigger Control projects have been progressing according to the plans that we have had. Then, in relation to 2 games we have been making with Epic, in September, we announced that the smaller of these 2 Epic games projects, Alan Wake Remastered, was completed and ready to be launched in October. Now, of course, launching a game for us is an important step always. But behind the curtain, operationally, we have been meeting the project but used external development more than we have ever used in our project. So building these external development capabilities has been one big sticky event during this project and it's a key part in building further our multi-project and production capabilities. Now how did we succeed? Operationally, the game was made in time, in budget, and most importantly, in good quality. The game has been received positively by critics and players. And of course, a very important thing is that the sales of the game have started well. In relation to the bigger project with Epic, the project has moved in full production mode in August. Then in Vanguard, our long-lasting service-based cooperative multiplayer game that utilizes our world building and narrative strengths, development with the project is progressing well and we have been gradually ramping the team further. We currently have 35 Remedians working on the game and also selected additional external developers and partners helping us. Business-wise, we are currently actively negotiating and evaluating different partnership models and different partnership options.What we have been doing also all the time is continue to grow our world-class talent pool. To make high-quality category-defining games, we, of course, need world-class talent. We currently, at Remedy, have 240 -- 294 of these world-class talents handpicked from all around the world. We have always kept the recruitment bar high. We put a lot of effort into finding the best people for us and for our type of games with whom we can build high-performing development teams. During the COVID times overall, for all the companies, recruitment has slowed down a bit. But I would say that we have still succeeded to attract a good amount of new talent while, of course, we have been investing into our existing people and helping them to succeed and the teams in which they work to succeed. As a company, as has been said, we have ambitious long-term growth plans and there is no question that we will need more talents also in the future. To expand these talent acquisition opportunities, early in '21, we started piloting and evaluating new ways to attract and recruit talent that would be based outside of Finland. Sweden and Stockholm areas were very special focus in the pilot. We have already, for a long time, had several Swedish employees working at Remedy. Stockholm overall -- Sweden overall has over 6,000 gaming industry professionals, big part of that in Stockholm area and most of all focused on PC and console games. And like our home base in Espoo, Finland in the capital area of Finland, Stockholm is likewise one of the European game talent hubs. Early results during this year in Stockholm have been good. We now have 10 people working from the Stockholm area consisting of 5 talents, senior developers. Now in this third quarTer of '21, we have been making plans for the next phase in Stockholm, which will involve a formal presence and continued recruitment in '22. We see that this is one additional means that will further boost our ability to attract world-class talent for the prime roles that we need. And of course, we have also continued to develop our skills and partnerships with external development. Adding to that, that we develop all the time our production capabilities, Northlight Technology, our people and teams [indiscernible] operating. We are growing not just our talent pool, but our wider development capabilities. So as we move to '22 and beyond, we are continuing to expand in a way that best supports our growth objectives. And this is done to make us all the time stronger as a category-defining creative super developer, a super developer that has rare skills in creating world-class gaming brands who can out of these brands create distinct benchmark-setting games. We have the teams and organizations to develop multiple high-quality games at the same time not just one game, like many of the other game developers can do. Remedy has also always been a highly appreciative partner with some of our future games. We continue collaborating with world-class publishing partners, but we systematically also keep on building the abilities to self-finance and self-publish some of our future games. We are a creative organization. And at the heart of Remedy are highly creative and empowered people and teams. We have always been and keep on being an attractive home to these world-class professionals. And while we do this year-on-year, we are a profitable growth company that keeps on managing its risks well. So now let's talk more on the financials and I'll hand over to our CFO, Terhi Kauppi.

[Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Tero, and good morning to everyone also on my behalf. So our revenue decreased year-on-year by 25% to EUR 7.4 million. This is due to decline both in royalties and in development fees. Royalties declined to EUR 2.1 million since Control continues to bring in royalties, it is still a 2-year old game. And in comparison period, we had Control Ultimate Edition Steam launch, which resulted in especially high comparison period royalties. Development fees of EUR 5.3 million were somewhat lower than in comparison period. There was this decrease due to Smilegate operations, but also a positive effect from project Condor development fees. Overall, this result did us net a bit lower level of development fees. Our royalties in this historical time line have been mostly from one game only. And there has been fluctuation on the quarters. As you can see, royalties depend on game sales and our affected by seasonality, marketing and discount campaigns but also fees have significant role on this. Royalties present good quotation for revenue growth and are of high margin, especially for Control, because its development costs were not capitalized nor depreciated. All the costs were booked as expenses before game launch. Development fees, on the other hand, are more stable in nature, they related to work performed for the projects. Development fees are the basis of our revenue and expected to grow also over time since our portfolio of projects is further expanding. For quarter 3, the EBIT was EUR 0.3 million and that's 3.9% of revenue. It is important to remember that there has been EBIT fluctuation on a quarterly basis due to revenue fluctuation between quarters and there will be also in the future, although the multi-project model should even out the fluctuation to some extent. The nature of our business is such that there is and will be large buckets of revenue items and the timing of those buckets cause periodical fluctuation because our cost base is steady and slowly growing. Operating cost level has also increased year-on-year due to much lesser COVID effect on costs than in comparison period. We are focusing on long-term growth and profitability, not optimizing quarterly performance. This is possible because of our strong cash position. On year-to-date numbers, we are about at the same speed as in 2020. Revenue will be 7.3% behind comparison period. And also in our year-to-date numbers, there's a decline both in royalties and development fees. We have high expectations for quarter 4 revenues, although they are subject to negotiations progressing as expected. For first 9 months of this year, the EBIT was EUR 3.4 million and that's 13.8% of revenue. It is a lower level than in 2021, but still on a good level. Running a multi-project model to generate really top-quality games requires the world-class talent, and we have invested to that to drive sustainable growth. Our cost base is increasing on steady controlled manner as we have continued to expand our projects and start new initiatives. This increase in resourcing is visible both in personnel expenses and in external development. Personnel expenses were EUR 5.7 million in quarter 3, that's EUR 0.8 million more than in comparison period. And external development was EUR 2.6 million, that's EUR 1 million more than 1 year ago. Especially important for us to be able to utilize external development capabilities like we did with remastering in order to ensure scalability of our operating model. Capitalization of development costs are investments into our all-IP development projects. Operating cash flow in quarter 3 was strong, EUR 4.6 million, as cost base is steady both from profitability and cash point of view. The differences in operating cash flow are mostly impacted by the timing of the incoming payments from royalties and from development fees. Year-to-date, operating cash flow was EUR 7.6 million versus EUR 8.8 million in comparison period. So on a good level as well. Cash position totaled of [ EUR 4 million ] in the end of quarter 3. It was impacted by financial investments of a total of EUR 7 million to finance instruments with low risk. These were executed with the aim to neutralize effect of negative interest rates forecast in bank accounts.So we have been growing our revenue steadily. 2020 was a record year for us, and now year-to-date, 2021, revenue pillar is above at the same site as 1 year ago. And we expect the quarter 4 revenues bringing in the revenue pillar for the full year over the last year's level. We are continuing working on our projects and having active negotiations around that, and we expect these to contribute to the full quarter 4. It is essential for a video game developer to ensure our portfolio level of smart partnering structures to balance risk and reward. Partnering terms do affect our growth and profitability in a significant manner for years to come. So they cannot be -- and due to our strongest cash position, there is no need to suboptimize cost performance. So that was the financials. And now back to Tero.

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Terhi. So on our outlook, outlook for the full year '21 remains unchanged. We expect our revenue and operating profit to increase during this year, as has been said, and so operating -- revenue and operating profit growth is expected now to materialize during the second half year. And before we move into Q&A, as a summary, I can say that I'm very pleased with our progress overall as a studio. We now have 7 games and projects that we are working on. The successful work on these many games has required lot of company-wide developments during the past years. We have systematically been strengthening our project leadership teams, attracting new talent, supporting and developing our people, improving the base of work in number of teams, building uses of core functions for our games teams, developing our external development capabilities, advancing our technology and tools and doing many other developments. And business organizations like Remedy, that work will never be [indiscernible]. But having these many projects already advancing well shows that a lot of good development has happened. And just to highlight the importance of this. In our industry, building a well-functioning creatively strong AAA game studio even for 1 game is hard and takes a lot of time for any company to build. Building a multi-project capable studio like we are is even harder. We have been now on this multi-project and competence building [ code ] for 5 years and are now seeing more and more signs on what we can do. What we have built are really hard-to-copy competencies that will give an even more and valuable competitive advantages and support increasing our long-term objectives. On the basis of these competencies, we are now entering the next phase in Remedy's development. Control has already been out there for 2 years. We just launched the second live game, Alan Wake Remastered. Crossfire launches are now coming. In the next years, we will be launching games into the market step by step, which means that we will have more royalties-generating games in our portfolio. And at the same time, we have a portfolio of development projects and the visibility into this games pipeline is good. So all in all, future does look promising.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Thank you, Tero. Thank you, Terhi. [Operator Instructions] We are now ready for questions. In fact, we already have a couple of questions in the chat. First question is what is your visibility into Q4 2021 earnings? Your 2021 guidance seems to require a very strong last quarter.

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, as I concluded, the visibility in our games pipeline is good. But now without going into detail in where we see the revenue growth exactly coming, we are, in a way, we have developed into a phase where there are multiple generic revenue streams. First of all, we now have 2 games in the market, Crossfire launches coming. Those provide, of course, the royalty opportunities from the consumer revenues. Then what we have seen important in the live games is that the business-to-business opportunities, license fee opportunities have also increased quite significantly compared with the past years. Then we have more games in development. We have announced games that we have as they have progressed. It means that, for example, games that have proceeded further into their life cycle. We have more people working. So overall, it typically means that there are more development payments. I mean -- and as has been said, we also have games in which we don't yet have partners in which we are now negotiating and choosing potential partners. So the opportunities come from various different directions.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Good. Thank you, Tero. Is your outlook 2021 dependent on the launch of Crossfire projects?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, we can say, as I've just referred, that there are a number of individual -- a number of different segments where our revenues can build up and we are not dependent on any one single partner or project.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Good. Then is the Q3 2021 level of external development cost a good proxy for coming quarters?

[Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer]

Well, like we have said, so we really want to ensure the scalability of our operating model and that relies on our ability to utilize external development. So overall, if we are expanding the usage, I would say, going forward overall in general terms, we want to increase that. So it would mean that over the years, at least, that cost bucket should increase.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Thank you. Then a question on Control. Have new Control deals is in the pipeline? And if so, then what is the timetable?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, with 505, with our partner, we haven't announced anything new. So overall, if something like this would be in the verge, the announcement would be related to the marketing plan that we have. The announcement would happen in a way that we could maximize the visibility in the eyes of the gamers and gaming media, gaming influencers. So in that sense, overall, I couldn't say anything confirmative on these topics. But what we have said is that, yes, we are supporting Control, but almost all of the developers have now moved to working on the new games in the Control franchise.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Thank you. What do you mean by Q4 negotiations progressing as expected? Which franchise does this relate?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

What we have been saying, for example, is that with Vanguard, we are having active considerations on what type of partnership models are there, what should be our focus. And we have said that there are also negotiations with often some options related to those. So that's where we refer.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Good. Thank you. Another question on Vanguard. Has Vanguard passed proof-of-concept studies?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, Vanguard is progressing well. Now Vanguard is still in the proof-of-concept phase, but it's a bit different approach than what we are having with our normal AAA games. With normal AAA games are a bit more -- even though those games are step-by-step longer-lasting and longer-engaging games, they are still more product-focused and service-focused. So our development process is very clear on these innovative AAA games we are developing. Vanguard is a free-to-play service-based game where the mentality is that once we are launching the game, nothing will stop. At this point, we continue developing the game hopefully for years and years to come. So with Vanguard, we are applying some of the best practices from our own [ steady-state ] process, but also taking into account that it's a free-to-play service-based game where it's a very interactive development design start being integrated. Development is focused for its most important at that phase of the development. So in that sense, what we are saying is that Vanguard is quite long in this, in a way, proof-of-concept phase. We have been able to pool already some of the key parts of the game, but now there are many layers that the free-to-play service-based game needs. So some areas of the game are progressing further into our development -- into new development phases while some new areas are then next being, in a way, pooled. And when we are able to lock down these key parts into the game then at some point, in the future, the game will be out there to be tested by the players and the development still contributes.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Then one more question from the chat -- two more. On the historical external development costs, mostly related to Alan Wake Remastered.

[Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer]

Well, all of our projects use external development, more or less. So it varies from project to project and from projects phase to phase. But that is something that we are having, and in addition to that, we have also other external works, for example, with IT or for our game engine. So it's difficult to say. And in comparison to other project size like building up a completely new AAA game and versus then the Alan Wake Remastered, I would say that as a sizable project, this Alan Wake Remastered was smaller.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Good. Then there's one more question related to Alan Wake Remastered. What was the development budget for Alan Wake Remastered? And do we need to pay royalties to Microsoft before receiving revenue s from that?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, we haven't said in a way concrete numbers on the development budget. But what can be said is that it's significantly, of course, smaller. And the big AAA game would have, what we have said already before, that on average, a big AAA game may require 3 to 4 years of development time. Remedy, on average, for example, with Control, the big head count -- internal head count was 100 people. Now when we talk about, for example, Alan Wake Remastered, first of all, the development time was significantly faster and then also the development team was clearly smaller. So that gives, in a way, a guideline on the, in a way, ballpark budget that we would be talking about. Then do we need to pay Microsoft any royalties? No, we don't need to pay any more to Microsoft anything. We have a publishing deal with Epic Games Publishing, so Epic has been funding the development. Epic has been investing into marketing and can recoup the investments they have made. And after that, we are splitting the net revenues 50-50.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Then we actually have 1 question from caller with the number ending 7-3-8-0.

[Veikkopekka Silvasti, Analyst]

Hello. Can you hear me well?

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Yes. Loud and clear.

[Veikkopekka Silvasti, Analyst]

Perfect. It's Veikko Silvasti from Danske Bank. So now we've discussed great questions regarding Q4 and 2021 guidance, but maybe a few questions on the bigger picture. So other studios have mentioned that they had some problems or slowdown in the game development processes due to the pandemic. So could you briefly discuss around this topic? And has the pandemic slowed down the game development process at Remedy?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, there are 2 sides to that point. I think, overall, we were successful in early 2020 in moving into the remote mode. I think in a way that -- it wasn't a fortunate situation for any company, but for us, I think our projects were also on the stage of the life cycle where making this type of move didn't cause any critical issues. Now what we have been learning is that projects in the very early phases that have small teams, the cooperation has been good also in the remote mode. Also projects that are later in the production phase where all the designs are here have been succeeding quite well because it's about execution and implementation and people pretty well know what has to be done. The pace of the development that has been maybe a bit more challenging has been in between. But in a way, the overall vision of the game is clear. The key parts of the design are clear. We start to ramp up the team, but in a way the devil is often in the details, so some of the designs are not yet clear. And to clarify those, a cross-team collaboration is needed and definitely that collaboration is easier when people are, if not full time in the office, at least partly in the office. So in that sense, what we have been actually doing throughout the whole COVID time is that quite significant part of our personnel has been 2 to 3 days in the office in any case. In a way, the COVID time definitely has not supported. It hasn't made, in a way, the early phases even that are more efficient. But in a way, I would say that we have been able to avoid any dramatic negative effects. Now when I say that it's -- there are 2 sides in the coin is that now when we have been able to build the remote capabilities, in a way, hybrid model, what it means for us is it has become all the time clearer. What we have been able to do is to start the recruitment also outside of Finland and onboarding people and that has actually been supporting us in getting pretty senior talents that, at least during this COVID time, would not have been possible to get into Finland.

[Veikkopekka Silvasti, Analyst]

Interesting. Great. Then well, maybe then related on this topic, this kind of senior talent abroad. So how has the -- you said that started well in Sweden. So obviously, the competition is tough for the best talent and talent is very scarce. So where are these talents coming from? Are they moving from another Swedish company to work for Remedy? Or how -- where do you get the new personnel in Sweden, for example?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, so far it has been that we have been able to attract very senior talent. And in a way, senior talent, as you said, there is a lot of competition for talent. If you are an experienced game developer, there are plenty of companies willing to take you. So in a way, those people are normally not free, but they are at the moment employed by some other companies. What we see as our strength is that we are making, in a way, really high-quality games, unique games. So one of the key drivers, definitely, is that experienced game developers they are looking at the company and seeing that what type of games is the company making. Are they that type of games that motivate them or are they kind of like fast, experienced such that, that company can create outstanding games? Does it innovate? Does it seem now that the colleagues that you would have in that company are also world-class developers? Then the recruitment process has to work well that we are able to fill it transparently so, what is Remedy, how we work, what these potential new candidates discuss with their future colleagues and understand what the team dynamics would be. And then, of course, all the practicalities: what are the benefits we offer and kind of like what is the financial side that we are able to provide, what type of operational development opportunities we can offer. And I think overall, when you look at this big picture, Remedy is a really lucrative employer, an interesting one for the senior talent. Now what's also, I think, playing into our advantage, at least in this early phase, for example, in Sweden. Sweden is a big game development hub overall with 6,000 people working in the games industry, while Finland is having about 3,000, being still a significant half in the European scale. Now Finland maybe has absolutely experienced developers, but coming from the mobile experience. Sweden, on the other hand, has for a long time had a bigger focus on PC and console games, so that already makes the potential pool a bit larger for us. And now what we are looking, we are not looking to hire immediately 100 or 200 people. We are looking to have some tens of people. And in order to get that amount of people from this large pool, I think the opportunities are good.

[Veikkopekka Silvasti, Analyst]

Great. That sounds very interesting. And obviously, it's critical for you to get the access to this talent pool as we have such ambitious multi-project plans for the future. Maybe then regarding a bit around this topic also. So one thing that's been very heavily -- very topical subject, at least, very recently here in gaming is that it's the culture of game development studios. So how does Remedy -- did you measure your culture? Or how do you work around this culture thing so that some problems wouldn't raise as they have raised in some other studios?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, yes. I think you are, in a way, raising up a highly important topic. I think overall, of course, in the Western world, the game industry as well as we have seen in a way, it has become clearer that there are many parts in our industry and there have been companies where these things haven't been in order. I think -- we haven't been doing this for years solely to avoid these things, we have been doing a number of things for our people and personnel-wise for years because we believe it's the right way to support our people, and it's based on values that we believe are the right ones for Remedy. What it has meant then already for years is that, first of all, for all of our people, we -- in a way, we have always had quite clear strategy. We have the values that we are expecting our people to know. And what we have had is also a very well-working supervisor organization where every single person has a permanent home in a disciplined place supervisory organization. But people are mainly working for game projects. So they actually have also been this, in a way, 1 year or 2 year hole in their game project. But that alone creates a situation where people always have good channels in which they need to and they can speak out. And then what we had on top of that is our HR function, which we have been developing all the time. HR, which is having continuous discussions both with project leadership and with the supervisory organization. What HR has already, for a few years, introduced in the company is also an employment engagement tool called [ Tivo ]. What it provides for us is that we are following a, in a way, cycle of [ cycle model ], which is breaking down the employee engagement into 10 different drivers with overall define how well an employee is engaged to its employer and that is then based on approximately 50 questions that we are asking about twice a year kind of like split into different, in a way, categories. And this questionnaire that goes to our employees is anonymous. So people can anonymously answer these and they can also free form, in a way, report if they are seeing any issues, if they have any questions. And with HR and the management is on a monthly basis going through this anonymous feedback potential issues, potential questions that we are having. So -- and then we are following, in a way, this employee engagement and the feedback we are having and we are able to pinpoint -- we are not able to identify who has been the person bringing out a potential topic, but we are able to identify which team and discipline is related. So overall, these has been -- these measures have been really important things for us when we have been saying that we want to be the best employer in the games industry in Europe. And the main driver has been we believe it's right way to do. We believe it's a really big support in helping us to support our people to develop and succeed. But at the same time, when this type of issues have been raised out, we have seen that probably it's also been a question that we didn't even understand that has helped us to tackle potential issues before it even becomes issues.

[Veikkopekka Silvasti, Analyst]

Great. Thank you so much for color on that. I guess just a final question for me, I'll stop then. Regarding 2020 revenue and the outlook for 2020, just so that I get it right, it's still that your -- this kind of subcontracts revenue is going to be a bit less during 2022 as there are no Smilegate -- large Smilegate projects ongoing? So just thinking about the revenue dynamics of 2020, so what are the main components there, are there royalties or the subcontractor fees? Or how should I look at it?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

We haven't outlined that in detail. What I said already in my presentation is that we are not saying no to potential use of subcontracting projects, but they need to have, again, a really good strategic fit to our long-term goals, big opportunity but also a project that could be fit to our type of games and give us synergies when we are building certain competencies that we see all Remedy gains are needing in the future. So in that sense, it's possible that we would have also in the future a subcontracting project. What that could be is if it's Smilegate, if it's someone else. Out here is at the moment forming to be a good one in any case, so that there are opportunities available, but one of the scarce resources in our industry are the talented developers and especially these big talented teams who together are able to build this games. And once we commit this type of team to a project, it's a 3- , 4-year commitment easily. So in that sense, in a way, we are now seeing what the opportunities are. And once we are certain that, in a way, what is the right one for us in the bigger context of reaching our goals, then we will go for that. But we will see that a bit later.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Then we have a couple of questions more. Do we redeploy Smilegate development resources into internal projects or look for an additional third-party project work?

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, as what was said, in a way, the external development work, subcontracting, that's one opportunity, there are a lot of external opportunities available. But then on the other hand, as you saw, we have, in a way, ongoing projects, also our own IP opportunities. And we didn't specify exactly what projects we have been redirecting our people. But they are to be both -- they are the projects that we see has a very strong strategic fit to our future business.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

And there are a couple of a little bit same thing questions on Alan Wake Remastered game. Have we started receiving royalties? And on the other hand, have they recouped the investment in Alan Wake Remastered already?

[Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer]

Well, the game started to sell in early October, so we are quite still in early phase overall in the sales life cycle. And what we've said that before we start to receive revenues, there is recoup of the development fees and the marketing before the revenue share starts. So that's all we can say at the moment.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Thank you, Terhi. One final question regarding Vanguard. Will Vanguard have seasonal new content? Maps, extended story or new characters? There's a lot...

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, well, we will have it in a way. Vanguard is in development. We have quite clear design, what that involves. And it's a free-to-play service-based game, so definitely in a way. We are not trying to reinvent the game in every place, but in a way, we are also learning from the models that other successful service-based games are making. So in a way, yes, of course, in a way, as a service-based game, there are going to be many elements that we think are good for the game and are serving the players in the right way. What those exactly are that, is in a way, future will sow and we will be then later in the life cycle of the project revealing a bit more on that.

[Veli-Pekka Puolakanaho]

Good. Apparently, there are no more questions. So thank you, everyone, for the call and the questions. This is all for now. Have a nice weekend, everyone. Thank you.

[Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you.

[Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you.