Business
Why are Virgin Galactic shares crashing after world-first space flight?
Just over 24 hours since billionaire Richard Branson made history and took off into space and Virgin Galactic stock has plummeted from the sky
Shares in Virgin Galactic rose over 200 per cent in the two months ahead of Sunday’s world first flight.
The luck for the space tourism company continued with a stock climb of about 9 per cent in Monday’s pre-market trading.
However, shares took a steep fall around 17 per cent during the regular session on Monday.
The stock’s move feels odd given the success the company had on Sunday.
The landmark flight to the edge of space opened up a new frontier for commercial space travel in a race between billionaires that has investors eye’s peeled.
Part of the reason for the fall may have to do with Virgin Galactic’s plans to sell more stock.
Market Expert Christopher Uhl joined ticker news and says there are simply no more buyers willing to pay higher prices for Virgin Galactic stock, now that the huge event of heading to the skies has passed.
“I was once a kid with a dream”: Richard Branson blasts into space
Well he finally did it. 17 years after Richard Branson first launched Virgin Galactic, the thrill-seeking billionaire has taken to the skies and reached space.
In his boldest adventure yet, the 70 year old Richard Branson took off for the first stage of the flight.
On the ground, about 500 people watched on, including Richard Branson’s wife, children and grandchildren.
On board were his five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space tourism company.
The space plane detached from the mother ship at an altitude of about 13km and fired its engine, reaching the edge of space about 88km up.
After a few minutes of weightlessness for the crew, the space plane is began its decent, set to end with a glide to a runway landing.
Richard Branson couldn’t contain his excitement, as he spoke on the journey back to earth.
He thanked his crew and remembered all those who had worked on the mammoth project.
After a decade of promises, the moment finally came for Richard Branson to unveil his spaceship for the people.
He said on board:: “To all you kids down there, I was once a kid with a dream. Now I’m up here, in a space ship!”
Customer spaceflight experience
As Branson took to space onboard Virgin Galactic, his official role for the journey will be “evaluating customer spaceflight experience”.
And that’s an important role – after all anyone who wants to rise Virgin Galactic will need to part with a quarter of a million dollars first, and that price is expected to rise.
Along with the two pilots, there is room for six passengers with a flight time of about an hour and a half.
The spaceship will just go over the 82 kilometres, which is where the US recognises someone as having been into space.
Then, passengers will get to experience about six minutes of weightlessness and seeing the curvature of the Earth and the darkness of space.
They will then descend, landing on a runway much like the old space shuttle or a normal passenger plane.
The new space race
Richard Branson’s adventure will pre-empt next week’s first flight for Blue Origin, as Jeff Bezos launches his space dreams.
Jeff and Blue Origin are promising a completely different experience for their customers.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which has no pilots and room for six passengers, reaches more than 100 kilometres high, which is the internationally recognised boundary of space
Passengers on Blue Origin will get about three minutes to float around and feel like they are in space.
Might be half the time, but the price is 50,000 dollars cheaper than flying on Virgin Galactic.
But either way, the expensive thrill ride marks the beginning of earth’s commercial passenger trips into space.
Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to start flying customers before next year.
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Gaming has run a parallel race with tech businesses for years now with many industries embracing the competitive advantages.
It’s no secret that eSports is an area that many gamers imagined thriving since the early days of couch multiplayer – Businesses are now witnessing the momentum first-hand with companies such as ONE eSports acting as a vanguard to this new era.
CEO of ONE eSports, Carlos Alimurung was able to shine some light on the industry looking to explain the benefits for players, sponsors, and streamers.
Mobile gaming, whilst often considered “beneath” many traditional gamers have seen exponential growth with the power of smartphones and mobile devices increasing significantly, and eSports teams have noticed the potential of the games on offer and the convenience with which the platforms contain.
Celebrating the narrative of content creators and players within the industry is another area boasted by ONE eSports as they encourage and promote the players, seeing them as no different to athletes seen on a field, court, or even the Olympics. Though as Carlos explains “eSports doesn’t need the Olympics” – A wonderful expression of confidence for a passionate group of gamers desiring to be taken seriously.
Balancing a traditionally male-dominated industry can be a challenging task for a lot of big businesses which look to make a difference.
Articles outlining the struggles of female employees within game development are rife and deeply troubling, with major developers coming under fire for their response to the traumatic experiences inflicted upon women in the gaming industry.
INCLUSION IS PART OF THEIR INDUSTRY MISSION
They seek to enable and uplift players, streamers, and content creators of all genders to succeed – a breath of fresh air in an otherwise tainted space.
The numbers of female players look to increase with nearly 47% of gamers already being female there is plenty of room to see growth within eSports. (It doesn’t matter what gender you are when you’re on the business end of a no-scope trick shot in the arena!)
With brands like Netflix looking to get involved in the gaming industry, it is no longer a question of how but when other major companies will look to plug in and play.
Brands will also need to get smart about how their marketing will be presented to a younger more active audience (without hitting players over the head with it) Games like the basketball simulator: NBA 2K21 integrated unskippible advertising during loading screens which saw fans upset with being force-fed content onto their screens.
And whilst some could argue this made the game more authentic as advertising of course coats the sporting space, there are definitely more clever ways to do this… the spectacle of an esports arena for instance and the opportunities available have untapped potential, again the key is to be clever with the integration of marketing to Gen Z.
EXPANDING REACH
eSport will continue to expand its traditional reach from North America and Southeast Asia through onto Australian shores the question again, is not how but when this will occur as many Aussie gamers go without representation and limited faculty on home soil.
With the pandemic and vaccine rollout yet to play out in full there is a great opportunity to expand the digital market and competitive gaming space worldwide.
For the full chat with Carlos and more gaming goodness check out the rest of Ticker Gaming
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