blizzard Activision Blizzard Q1 2018 Earnings Call

[Stan 5,252]

Quarterly results of the Activision Blizzard Earnings Call are here and we learned that Battle for Azeroth pre-sales are ahead of plan and more content in Legion lead to overperformance versus the prior expansion at this point in time.

Audience Reach

• 374M MAUs (Monthly Active Users) (down from 385M MAUs since Q4 2017).
  • Activision 51M (down from 55M)
  • Blizzard 38M (down from 40M)
  • King 285M (down from 290M).

Games

World of Warcraft

• The game is on a strong trajectory, with an encouraging start to pre-sales for the upcoming expansion (preorders ahead of plan).
• World of Warcraft is releasing more content, more regularly than ever before, leading to overperformance versus the prior expansion at this point in time and higher engagement sequentially.
• The game had strong participation with in-game purchases.

Hearthstone

• The game continued to reach and engage its large global audience through multiple efforts, including a new promotional bundle, an expansion, and a player versus environment mode, Monster Hunts, which has had strong engagement so far.

Overwatch

• Overwatch continued to add new players, and engagement remains strong, with the most recent seasonal event, Retribution, having the highest participation rate to‐date.
• Recognized as BAFTA’s “Best Evolving Game”.

Esports

Overwatch League

• The inaugural regular season for the Overwatch League launched in January and continues to reach millions each week.
• Combined hours spent playing and watching Overwatch increased quarter‐over‐quarter.
• The Overwatch League and its partners introduced new engagement programs like token drops, cheermotes and the new Twitch league pass, which deliver enhanced viewing experiences while adding unique revenue opportunities.
• Planning to add a handful of teams in key strategic markets by end of year.

(Source)

[VegaPl 88]

Again, it seems that HOTS is rather insignificant in terms of the overall company profitability. Cuz I don't know how to interpret the lack of any mentions otherwise.

[Elfomal 55]

3 hours ago, VegaPl said:

Again, it seems that HOTS is rather insignificant in terms of the overall company profitability. Cuz I don't know how to interpret the lack of any mentions otherwise.

Oh hey, do you remember that unknow game, Diablo 3???????

[VegaPl 88]

4 hours ago, Elfomal said:

Oh hey, do you remember that unknow game, Diablo 3???????

Sorry Elfomal, did not mean to hurt your feelings. I do have to admit that I genuinely forgot about Diablo, shame on me *shame* *shame* *shame* *SHAME*

[Kaelos 74]

That's funny how on battle.net website main page game tiles are in order of how much money they earn

Edited May 6, 2018 by Kaelos

[Seksi 212]

There's a huge gap at this point between how much each franchise is pulling in, with Overwatch + Hearthstone being clear leaders and everything else dying off.

World of Warcraft is sure to have insane average revenue per active user since its a fully paid + monthly paid + plenty of paid services in a gaming world made of F2P titles so even if it has a relatively low amounts of users compared to what is popular in 2018 they bring in a disproportionate amount of money (https://www.superdataresearch.com/ , WoW at 6th in PC in line with Fortnite which is all the rage atm).

Everything else is just peanuts for them at this point, Starcraft, Diablo, HOTS...but it won't stop me from continuing to watch Flash's youtube channel + Afreeca StarLeague and community tournaments on Brood War :)

[Yridaa 490]

It is worth noting that Activision Blizzard earned more money through in-game sales despite all these MAU (Monthly Active Users) drops across the board. Source (Official): https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/activision-blizzard-announces-first-quarter-2018-financial

 

2 hours ago, Seksi said:

Everything else is just peanuts for them at this point, Starcraft, Diablo, HOTS...but it won't stop me from continuing to watch Flash's youtube channel + Afreeca StarLeague and community tournaments on Brood War :)

Not sure if you know about sc2casts.com, in case you want to watch the vods later (Both SC:BW's ASL, SC2's GSL and other premier tournaments are tracked there (Sadly, also the less "premier" tournaments)).

 

 

 

[Slam 40]

On 5/4/2018 at 10:53 AM, Kaelos said:

That's funny how on battle.net main page game tiles are in order of how much money they earn

LoL :D

in Order I have WoW, D3, SC2, Hearthstone, Heroes, Overwatch, SC1. so it mean Overwatch bring no cash?

 

Ha no, I see where you looked! Not sure that D3 gave less cash than SC1 or SC2 though. 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Slam

[Kaelos 74]

49 minutes ago, Slam said:

LoL :D

in Order I have WoW, D3, SC2, Hearthstone, Heroes, Overwatch, SC1. so it mean Overwatch bring no cash?

 

Ha no, I see where you looked! Not sure that D3 gave less cash than SC1 or SC2 though. 

Yeah I meant the website :p