blizzard Activision Blizzard Q4 2015 Earnings Report

[Zadina 923]

The report for Activision Blizzard's earnings for the fourth and last quarter of 2015 is out and it contains some interesting information about all of its gaming titles.

 

As far as the company in general is concerned, 2015 marked a record year for Blizzard, with greatly increased revenues compared to 2014. Moreover, Blizzard reached an all-time high for Monthly Active Users in 2015. They are expecting to focus more on esports in 2016, since Activision Blizzard acquired MLG and they are renewing their partnership with ESPN for this year.

 

Let's continue with each separate gaming title now. For the first time, there was no mention of the amount of World of Warcraft subscribers in this earnings call report. However, the game still remains the number 1 MMO-RPG in the world. More interesting is the fact that Legion's release will follow Warcraft's June release in cinemas.

 

Moving on to Hearthstone, the popular card game reached over 40 million registered players before the release of League of Explorers. League of Explorers itself sold 20% more units in the first six weeks of release than Blackrock Mountain did in the same time frame. It's no surprise that Hearthstone is Activision Blizzard's big gun.

 

Heroes of the Storm received multiple awards in 2015. Arena Mode was also mentioned, as one of the game's main features for 2016. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void also received multiple awards last year, while it sold more than 1 million copies in its first 24 hours of release. Nothing of interest was mentioned about Diablo III. We don't expect to see any new StarCraft or Diablo games any time soon, so the lack of focus on these two titles isn't surprising.

 

Lastly, the company - and the rest of the world - is eagerly looking forward to the release of Overwatch this spring. An interesting fact is that more than 8 million people signed up for Beta, so don't feel bad for not getting an invite!

 

The full report can be found here.