East Side Games Group Inc. ($EAGR)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to East Side Games Group Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference call over to Jason Bailey. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everybody, to the East Side Games Group Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. I'm Jason Bailey, Board Chair and CEO of East Side Games Group, and today, we will share highlights from the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2025. I'd like to remind you that certain statements made on this call are forward-looking within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This call includes references to non-GAAP measures. Please refer to our fourth quarter press release and MD&A for cautionary statements relating to the forward-looking information and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to GAAP results. References to all figures are in Canadian dollars on an IFRS basis, unless otherwise noted. Additional materials can be found in the Investors section of our website at www.eastsidegamesgroup.com under the Financial Information section. I want to start by addressing our strategy and performance over the past year and the shift in focus for 2026 and beyond. Our focus in 2025 was on aggressive growth, which led to the launch of several titles in a new genre in the second half year. These titles demonstrated some of the best metrics, player engagement and conversion rates in our history, proving they were the most polished gains ever built by East Side Games Group. However, this strategy was unsustainable due to difficult market environment. We faced high saturation and increasingly expensive user acquisition costs, consumers entrenched in existing games and aggressive platform fees that compress margins. Consequently, our traditional marketing spend no longer justified the returns, so we had to pivot back to near-term profitability and strategy in order to rebuild our war chest. Crucially, one of the several bright spots as in the successful execution of the internal milestones of our fully funded platform exclusive titles. This low-risk model leverages East Side Games Group's strength with IP partners to secure more stable guaranteed revenues, profits and cash flows. For 2026 and beyond, we are fundamentally shifting our strategy. Our focus will transition from top line growth to pure profitability and cash flow generation. We will continue to concentrate on fully funded deals for exclusive license titles on major platforms. And in order to quickly rebuild cash reserves, we are also moving away from a 365-day return on ad spend model to a more disciplined 60-day target and to ensure the users we do acquire are of the highest quality from both retention, monetization and a lifetime value standpoint. The team will now provide further insights and details. First up is our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Chan.

Thanks, Jason. Today, we reported our results for the company's fourth quarter and year-to-date periods ending December 31, 2025. As a reminder, all amounts provided are in Canadian dollars. We ended 2025 with $77.6 million in top line revenue, a 7% decrease from 2024 year-on-year and an adjusted EBITDA of $800,000, a 92% decrease from 2024. We've already taken decisive actions, including a necessary reduction in force to rightsize our team and the cancellation of high-risk projects. Additionally, we are moving more of the live operations of our core games in-house. These efficiency measures are expected to contribute approximately CAD 4 million to free cash flow annualized on a go-forward basis. Furthermore, we are capitalizing on expected industry changes, particularly with platform fee structures. By implementing off-platform fee payments, we expect to add 10 to 15 percentage points back to our margins, a move that has already generated $320,000 back into our bottom line from Q4 to Q1 2026. Our core portfolio remains our greatest strength with high-quality users to continue to monetize above industry standards, maintaining a strong margin of approximately 14%. The user base remains at 196,000 daily active users with an average ARPDAU, average revenue per daily active user, of $1.09. From a capital structure perspective, the company ended Q4 2025 with a total debt of $5.3 million and a net debt of $4.9 million. Elevated funded debt levels, combined with lower trailing EBITDA driven by increased user acquisition, marketing investments and certain onetime costs resulted in noncompliance with financial covenant under the company's credit agreement. The company has been in active discussions with its lender and has been told to expect us to receive a tolerance or waiver in respect of such noncompliance. However, there can be no assurance that any such tolerance or waiver will be provided on terms acceptable to the company or at all. In the near term, the company expects a temporary increase in debt in Q1 2026 to fund certain onetime expenses including severance payouts and litigation costs. And the company is seeking additional accommodations from RBC as restructuring initiatives continue. These short-term impacts do not reflect a change in strategic direction. The company's current plan is focused on maximizing profitability with a view to return to positive EBITDA and materially reducing debt over the remainder of 2026 and the next 12 months. However, these expectations are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Ultimately, this strategic shift isn't just a pivot. It's a firm and necessary reset for the business. Similar to our pivot back to profitability back in 2023, we have conviction that our profitability strategy, which includes the rightsizing, the project cancellations and the in-house moves will ensure a long-term stable and profitable growth for ESG. We appreciate your patience and support as we execute the path ahead. I will now pass it on to Ms. Shek, our Chief Operating Officer.

Thanks, Mr. Chan. From an operations standpoint, Q4 marked a deliberate shift from growth to disciplined execution. We've taken meaningful action to reduce costs across both our internal teams and our partner ecosystem. Internally, we streamlined the organization and aligned teams more tightly to our highest performing titles. Externally, we've reset partner economics to better reflect today's market realities, focusing on structures that are sustainable, performance-based and aligned with profitability. As a result, we're seeing a structurally leaner business with a much cleaner line of sight from revenue to positive EBITDA. We have also taken a more active approach to our partner portfolio management. This includes optimizing how certain titles are operated, including bringing select titles in-house. Through these efforts, we're able to capture approximately $1 million in incremental net revenue on an annualized basis, while also improving execution speed and player outcomes. More broadly, this reflects a shift towards owning more of the value chain where it makes sense and being highly selective where we partner. Third, we've implemented much tighter capital allocation discipline, particularly in user acquisition. Moving from a 365-day to a 60-day return framework has fundamentally changed how we deploy capital. While this reduces top line growth in the near term, it significantly improves cash conversion and reduces risk, both of which are critical as we focus on debt reduction and balance sheet strength. Taken together, these changes are not onetime actions. They represent a new operating model for the business, leaner teams, more aligned partnerships, greater ownership of high-value assets and disciplined ROI-driven investment. We're already seeing the impact of our margin profile in 2026, and we expect continuing improvement as these changes fully annualize. Looking ahead, our focus remains on consistent execution, profitability and cash generation, while see-while selectively investing in opportunities that meet our highest bar for returns. Thanks, and I'll pass it over to Mr. Wagner, our Chief Product Officer.

Thank you, Ms. Shek. As we shift our strategic focus to profitability and cash generation, I'll be highlighting our success in growing our direct-to-consumer revenue, the beneficial aspects of the recent and coming changes to regulation and platform fees and our ability to leverage our long tail revenue from our live service portfolio. We kicked off our initiative to increase our direct-to-consumer or D2C revenue in Q3 of 2025. As a reminder, currently, the major mobile game platform take a fee of 30% from all purchases made in app using their billing services. Changes that occurred in Q3 of 2025 as a result of legal rulings allow developers to offer additional off-platform payment choices for billing services to players, which have dramatically lowered fee structures for the developer. The result is a significant increase to gross profit. These changes are extremely impactful for developers that have been in audiences with preestablished spending behavior. We're happy to report that we were able to increase our percentage of in-app revenue from D2C in the U.S. from 0.2% in Q3 at the start of the initiative to 5% in Q4 and are projected to hit the high teens in Q1 of 2026. In addition, Google recently announced a reduction in its platform service fees from the historical 30% rate to a more flexible tiered structure ranging from 10% to 25% depending on transaction type and billing model. These changes will take effect beginning June 30, 2026. The company expects the revised fee structure to contribute approximately $0.5 million in incremental annual profit. The industry expectation is that Apple will be forced to follow suit, which will also dramatically increase this profitability. Our live service titles continue to generate profit for the company. And over the course of Q4, we were able to optimize our revenue by releasing new features, running A/B tests and implementing dynamic pricing capabilities. For example, after a successful A/B test, we fully rolled out a new currency pass feature called Piggy Bank in Bud Farm Idle Tycoon. And by dynamically segmenting different players with different Piggy Banks, we were able to fully optimize performance, which led to a 22% increase in event ARPDAU quarter-over-quarter. This feature is now planned to roll out across all our idle games in the first half of 2026. Through the same methodology, we are constantly introducing new ad placements, game modes, season passes and event balances across our portfolio of over 15 live service games. Looking towards the future, we're exploring beyond mobile. We're actively building a title that can be played across mobile and connected TV, as well as exploring projects that can be deployed for sale on mobile, PC and console. With that, I'll pass it back to Mr. Bailey for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone. I want to be super clear here, 2025 was a tough year. We made some bold bets and faced high headwinds. At the end of the day, we have an incredible portfolio of games. We have rightsized the business and refocused on cash production. With that, we expect to do between $50 million and $56 million in revenue for 2026, with adjusted EBITDA of between $7.5 million and $10 million. We will do this while consistently paying down our debt as well as investing in new titles. With a renewed focus on work for hire projects published by larger partners, we are finding ways to guarantee profitability in a turbid market. I have deep confidence in our leadership team to guide us through this next 12 months and back to a position of strength with a deep war chest and a strong pipeline of games. As always, feel free to reach out to me directly, [email protected]. I appreciate the time and diligence of our supportive shareholders and the many constructive conversations that we've had. We look forward to a full report on Q1 in just a few weeks, and the additional color we will be able to provide them. Thank you from the entire East Side Games Group team. I'll now pass it to questions from analysts.

[Operator Instructions] It seems we don't have any questions. Please proceed.

Okay. Thanks, guys. Well, feel free to reach out to me, jason@eastsidegames, and happy to answer any questions from shareholders. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.