Activision Blizzard Q4 2022 Earnings Results
Activision Blizzard announced their Q4 2022 results this afternoon. We now know why there was no article similar to previous expansions about the expansion becoming the fastest selling PC game of all time.

World of Warcraft
  • Early Dragonflight sales have not reached the level of the prior expansion, but community feedback on the title has been positive
  • World of Warcraft delivered significant year-over-year growth in reach, engagement and net bookings in the fourth quarter following the September release of Wrath of the Lich King Classic and the November launch of Dragonflight
  • Post-launch subscriber retention in the West is higher than recent expansions
  • Warcraft: Arclight Rumble continues to progress well through regional testing

Overwatch 2
  • The October launch of Overwatch 2 with a free-to-play model delivered the highest quarterly figures for player numbers and hours played in Overwatch history
  • Player investment is also off to a strong start, with fourth quarter in-game net bookings at the highest level to date for Overwatch

Diablo
  • Diablo Immortal on mobile and PC also contributed to Blizzard’s fourth quarter year-over-year growth. Engagement and player investment trends for the title were stable at the end of the fourth quarter and into the new year
  • Diablo IV, the next installment in the genre-defining series, is planned for release on PC and console on June 6, 2023

Microsoft
  • Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are continuing to engage with regulators and are working toward closing the transaction in Microsoft’s fiscal year ending June 30 2023

Blizzard
  • Blizzard reported its highest quarterly net bookings to date, driven by strong growth for Warcraft and the reinvigoration of Overwatch and Diablo
  • The first quarter will see significant development and marketing investment in live operations and future releases, including the June launch of Diablo IV
  • Blizzard segment revenue and operating income grew approximately 90% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, as our teams executed against a substantial pipeline to deliver well-received content across key intellectual properties.
  • Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo grew strongly year-over-year and each delivered over $100M in net bookings
  • Blizzard had 45 million Monthly Active Users, up from 31 million last quarter
  • Game development teams grew over 25% year-over-year in 2022
  • Activision Blizzard increased representation for those who identify as women or non-binary to 26% globally, as of the end of November, versus 24% a year earlier
  • Representation for underrepresented ethnic groups increased to 38% from 36% in the US over the same period
  • Blizzard remains focused on finding alternative ways to serve the community in China
This article was originally published in forum thread: Activision Blizzard Q4 2022 Earnings Results started by chaud View original post
Comments 227 Comments
  1. HansOlo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    There were tons of reasons why people quit, some didn't like it, some moved on, some did so because they thought Blizzard was letting titty grabbers run rampant, some did because they removed sexy pictures and emotes, some did because thier fav streamer started playing Final Fantasy, etc....




    If Shadowlands starts with 100 subscribers and 30 leave after a month (70 active subs)and Dragonflight starts with 50 subscribers and 2 leave after a month(48 active subs) they have retained more players than the previous expansion percentage wise. That doesn't mean Dragonflight definitely has less subs as it could also mean something like Shadowlands 100-30+70 Dragonflight 80-9=71. Since we don't have actual numbers he could be correct that Blizzard is bleeding more subscribers but it could also mean subscribers have mostly leveled out and fewer people try and leave.
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.

    No where do you say there are many reasons infact the way you word it makes it sound like everyone quit because they moved on with their lives.

    And why would it be more fair to assume? Do you have any proof? Why are there constantly threads about quitting for x or y but very rarely a thread stating they are just moving on? Why would it have such low audience ratings if it was just from people moving on?

    Also you don't have to tell Blizzard why you quit so why would you assume they know why everyone quit?
    1. Rentention is better in DF.
    2. 17 year old game broke the fastest selling game. The pandemic was the clear influencer.

    Any people who joined WoW during pandemic, equals to bandwagon people who went Final Fantasy(because Asmongold convinced them). These are not reliable players - and Blizzard(or Square Enix) always forecasts this group of people.

    Comparing DF sales to SL is beyond any logic. But Blizzard is forced to add this in thier QR, as you always compare the most recent(to see if the buisness is growing).

    Simple enough?
  1. qwerty123456's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    Not really. It means the quality of the product is increasing because less players on average are leaving than the previous expansion. After all, using your examples, the previous metric had 70% retention rate, while the current metric has a 75% retention rate.

    - - - Updated - - -


    This isn't about any given number of subscribers or which expansion has more subscribers. The poster I responded to said that "WoW is still bleeding subs" when we have Blizzard outright saying the expansion's retention rate is higher than the previous expansion's.
    Yes and Wow could still be bleeding subs and still have a higher retention rate. If shadowlands kept losing 2 % of subs every month and Dragonflight is losing 1% it still has a higher retention rate but is still bleeding subs. And like I said before that doesn't mean it is or isn't just that Blizzard saying that doesn't really mean anything.


    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Being filled with hatred is a great way to move on from a game, though.

    When there's a sudden surge in people leaving, it's probably because of the game, not because those people all had synchronized life reevaluations.
    So true lol.
  1. Relapses's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.

    No where do you say there are many reasons infact the way you word it makes it sound like everyone quit because they moved on with their lives. If you had said the majority or something like that then you could say I didn't read properly but you didn't.

    And why would it be more fair to assume? Do you have any proof? Why are there constantly threads about quitting for x or y but very rarely a thread stating they are just moving on? Why would it have such low audience ratings if it was just from people moving on?

    Also you don't have to tell Blizzard why you quit so why would you assume they know why everyone quit?
    Blizzard is unsurprisingly incredibly tight-lipped about these kinds of things. It's almost like their retention data has absolutely no relevance to players or something. Luckily, an ex-Blizzard employee who was extremely privy to this information has spoken openly about the retention data exactly one time. Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) said this:

    Developers do care if you stop playing their game and they want to know why. However, for games like WoW and LoL, the answers are almost always “I have less time to play now (job/school/family” and “My friends don’t play anymore.” (I’m basing that on having seen a lot of data - it’s not super open to debate.)

    Dropping a game because of a specific design change (despite what you might read on forums / Reddit) is actually pretty rare. I know it happens, but if you’re stack ranking the reasons why people quit, those specific responses end up being so far down the list that it is hard for a development team to take actionable feedback.

    Now, there's a possibility that this has changed in the years since he's left (going on a decade now) but I doubt it. He was there for much of WoW's most popular years and it's reasonable to assume he's sifted through a lot of that information. If anything, in WoW's heyday the game had worse churn than it does these days but there were so many new players that they were barely able to assess the innumerable reasons people were leaving.
  1. Otaka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight. I know this is surprising, but sometimes people quit playing games for reasons that aren't because they hate them.
    Nah, we quit because the game sucks more than ever.

    But still lurking here in hopes of the game becoming good again, classic was only a temporary breath of fresh air.

    Dragonflight might be considered good by many, but you aint fixing all those issues in one expansion + gotta wait for once to see if the expansion is actually good a few months after the honeymoon period.
    Also the more we wait the more content we have waiting for us... atleast in the story department, maybe not casual raiding since LFR tends to be quite dead after catch up gear makes earlier ones obsolete, not to mention another expansion.
  1. qwerty123456's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by HansOlo View Post
    1. Rentention is better in DF.
    2. 17 year old game broke the fastest selling game. The pandemic was the clear influencer.

    Any people who joined WoW during pandemic, equals to bandwagon people who went Final Fantasy(because Asmongold convinced them). These are not reliable players - and Blizzard(or Square Enix) always forecasts this group of people.

    Comparing DF sales to SL is beyond any logic. But Blizzard is forced to add this in thier QR, as you always compare the most recent(to see if the buisness is growing).

    Simple enough?
    You do realize if we use your logic then the Dragonflight Retention being higher relies on the Shadowlands numbers right? If the pandemic made people join then leave then the retention rate is massively lower for Shadowlands than it normally is for an expansion making the Dragonflight had better utterly meaningless.

    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    Blizzard is unsurprisingly incredibly tight-lipped about these kinds of things. It's almost like their retention data has absolutely no relevance to players or something. Luckily, an ex-Blizzard employee who was extremely privy to this information has spoken openly about the retention data exactly one time. Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) said this:

    Developers do care if you stop playing their game and they want to know why. However, for games like WoW and LoL, the answers are almost always “I have less time to play now (job/school/family” and “My friends don’t play anymore.” (I’m basing that on having seen a lot of data - it’s not super open to debate.)

    Dropping a game because of a specific design change (despite what you might read on forums / Reddit) is actually pretty rare. I know it happens, but if you’re stack ranking the reasons why people quit, those specific responses end up being so far down the list that it is hard for a development team to take actionable feedback.

    Now, there's a possibility that this has changed in the years since he's left (going on a decade now) but I doubt it. He was there for much of WoW's most popular years and it's reasonable to assume he's sifted through a lot of that information. If anything, in WoW's heyday the game had worse churn than it does these days but there were so many new players that they were barely able to assess the innumerable reasons people were leaving.
    Retention has relevance to players. If you gotta constantly gear up new tanks for your guild or can't find enough high level players to pug something after the first month then you are likely going to set up your playtime based around that. If most people quit arena after 4 weeks into a season then you might want to get your wins in those first 4 weeks so you aren't only competing against good players later on. If only bad players wait till the last minute to get their games in then maybe you wanna only play area in the last couple weeks to make it easier on yourself. ETc....

    So when the game was popular and had higher ratings the people who left did so cause they moved on and not because the game sucked? Color me amazed . And again you don't have to tell Blizzard why you quit so how can he know exactly why people quit?
  1. Selah's Avatar
    Glad to hear retention is better than recent expansions, though, really not a surprise given recent expansions. Would be really curious to see if Legion is considered a "recent expansion."

    Sounds like DF is on the right path to starting to mend the reputation of the game which is good. Still need to see a good patch cycle this expansion before I'm really willing to come back to the game, and seems like I'm not the only one. But, if this continues, I'll be excited to return and will have plenty to do.
  1. Relapses's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    You do realize if we use your logic then the Dragonflight Retention being higher relies on the Shadowlands numbers right? If the pandemic made people join then leave then the retention rate is massively lower for Shadowlands than it normally is for an expansion making the Dragonflight had better utterly meaningless.



    Retention has relevance to players. If you gotta constantly gear up new tanks for your guild or can't find enough high level players to pug something after the first month then you are likely going to set up your playtime based around that. If most people quit arena after 4 weeks into a season then you might want to get your wins in those first 4 weeks so you aren't only competing against good players later on. If only bad players wait till the last minute to get their games in then maybe you wanna only play area in the last couple weeks to make it easier on yourself. ETc....

    So when the game was popular and had higher ratings the people who left did so cause they moved on and not because the game sucked? Color me amazed . And again you don't have to tell Blizzard why you quit so how can he know exactly why people quit?
    You don't have to say anything but many do. I worked in the retention department for a major cable television provider and one of the most important aspects of my job (outside of convincing people not to cancel) was making sure that I accurately reported the reasons people were cancelling. I imagine that since WoW uses a subscription model that they collate a lot of the same information when it's provided. It may not be every single player but when you have a sample size in the hundreds of thousands, you can pretty easily use that to predict the behaviors of millions.

    Once again, however, I'm not saying that people don't quit for game design related issues. I'm sure they do. But to say that Dragonflight's sales numbers were underwhelming because "Shadowlands sucked," you're having to make an incredibly huge leap in logic that I cannot help but point out the obvious flaws with. I prefer to deal with the information we do know and so far the only time anybody who has ever seen Blizzard's retention data has told us that the state of the game wasn't all that important. This kind of white noise feels important when you're commiserating on a forum with other disillusioned players but it's less so when the developers are looking for actionable feedback to, y'know, make the game better.
  1. leviathonlx's Avatar
    It's be to expected DF will have lower sales then SL as SL had the benefit of the pandemic boosting game sales in general.
  1. exochaft's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Selah View Post
    Glad to hear retention is better than recent expansions, though, really not a surprise given recent expansions. Would be really curious to see if Legion is considered a "recent expansion."

    Sounds like DF is on the right path to starting to mend the reputation of the game which is good. Still need to see a good patch cycle this expansion before I'm really willing to come back to the game, and seems like I'm not the only one. But, if this continues, I'll be excited to return and will have plenty to do.
    I feel ya on that, short term successes won't bring players back if the long term trajectory is still bad.

    However, when I read the retention aspect... without numbers, it could literally mean anything. Is the rentention figure a number of accounts or a percentage of accounts? We talking tangible rentention numbers or "teeeeechnically retention is better, but nothing substantive"?

    Honestly, I could easily see the rention statistic being a function of how low the WoW population is, as when you're working with smaller numbers the same exact value change will have a different percentage change. For example, it's the difference between 1 player retained out of 10 total, versus 2 players out of 10,000 total: the latter technically had a larger number of players retained compared to the former, but the latter would've had a waaaaay smaller player retention percentage compared to the former. Considering the trend for the past several expansions, as well as Blizz saying there were less sales of DF, it would be consistent with a smaller player base returned for DF and the rate of player loss is experience diminishing returns because there are less people playing. Obviously we can't know for certain, but we've reached a point where we can infer quite a lot from how Blizz chooses to disclose their numbers.

    Again, I hope WoW comes back with flyng colors at some point, and DF isn't necessarily a bad start so far. However, I suspect many players are tired of what Blizz has put out when it comes to WoW the past couple of expansions, and it'll take a lot of long-term success to bring players back. Also doesn't help that Blizz is still making a lot of statements and decisions that don't necessarily point towards mending their ways.
  1. Nzx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    It's possible to both be disappointed that a video game you liked didn't sell as well as you may have wanted and dislike the very stupid system we've designed to measure success by.
    Not really. Shadowlands set sales records, on top of previous sales records set by other expansions in the past. The only way that it could sell "as well as you wanted" would be to break those records, and the only way for that to be possible is to support a capitalistic view on the product - being that you should only be satisfied (for some reason) by sales results that meet your expectations. Given you are a consumer of the product, it doesn't actually matter how much it sells to other people.

    FWIW, your posts here are almost always some of the most rational I read, so please don't take this as me attacking you personally. I just think in this instance the two viewpoints (i.e. sales records matter and capitalism is bad) don't reconcile.
  1. Utrrabbit's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    I get the impression that you are confused.

    I mean, they just had to admit in an earnings call that their flagship product underperformed, but sure.
    It did not under perform it is still there highest earning IP. Not every expansion is going to be higher than the last. Cata was lower than Wrath; were you on here making threads saying it was underperforming.

    Launch numbers are not a sign of if the xpac will do good.
  1. Selah's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by exochaft View Post
    However, I suspect many players are tired of what Blizz has put out when it comes to WoW the past couple of expansions, and it'll take a lot of long-term success to bring players back. Also doesn't help that Blizz is still making a lot of statements and decisions that don't necessarily point towards mending their ways.
    I mean, this really is what it boils down to. And one thing that has become glaringly obvious to me over the last couple of years as I've made my foray into other games is that outside of raiding, M+, and PvP (sorta), WoW really is lacking in a lot of other areas and is just an inferior product in these areas. I hope they continue to expand the game to support other aspects of the game.
  1. qwerty123456's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    You don't have to say anything but many do. I worked in the retention department for a major cable television provider and one of the most important aspects of my job (outside of convincing people not to cancel) was making sure that I accurately reported the reasons people were cancelling. I imagine that since WoW uses a subscription model that they collate a lot of the same information when it's provided. It may not be every single player but when you have a sample size in the hundreds of thousands, you can pretty easily use that to predict the behaviors of millions.

    Once again, however, I'm not saying that people don't quit for game design related issues. I'm sure they do. But to say that Dragonflight's sales numbers were underwhelming because "Shadowlands sucked," you're having to make an incredibly huge leap in logic that I cannot help but point out the obvious flaws with. I prefer to deal with the information we do know and so far the only time anybody who has ever seen Blizzard's retention data has told us that the state of the game wasn't all that important. This kind of white noise feels important when you're commiserating on a forum with other disillusioned players but it's less so when the developers are looking for actionable feedback to, y'know, make the game better.
    So you have low scores, tons of people making threads explaining why they quitting, Blizzard stating people didn't comeback and check out the expansion like they usually do and your saying that it's an incredible leap in logic to say there are tons of reasons why people quit ( one being that people didn't like the game) meanwhile you are using a decade old quote from a guy who didn't even work directly with the data/data gathering from a time when was was popular and had relatively good ratings as proof and that everyone just probably had a baby and/or got a new job? Ok lol.

    If you worked in a retention department then you must have realized that people often lie about reasons they are quitting to get out of conversations faster. After the first time having one of you guys spend half an hour trying to convince me to stay I have constantly lied about my reason for leaving so they would shut up faster.
  1. MiiiMiii's Avatar
    Every time the game has done poorly these forums and influencers have been screaming "change this, remove that".

    Now we have a game noone really has anything to complain about.

    Yet.

    It does poorly.

    Now what?

    Were the people that complained wrong? If not, how come it's not successful?

    Seems to me like influencers just sort of got a wake up call, and now don't know what to complain about on how to make the game good. Keep a low profile I guess. Specifically people like Asmongold, Preach, Belluar and T&E. Because maybe their ideas were not good ideas to begin with.
  1. Relapses's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by qwerty123456 View Post
    So you have low scores, tons of people making threads explaining why they quitting, Blizzard stating people didn't comeback and check out the expansion like they usually do and your saying that it's an incredible leap in logic to say there are tons of reasons why people quit ( one being that people didn't like the game) meanwhile you are using a decade old quote from a guy who didn't even work directly with the data/data gathering from a time when was was popular and had relatively good ratings as proof and that everyone just probably had a baby and/or got a new job? Ok lol.

    If you worked in a retention department then you must have realized that people often lie about reasons they are quitting to get out of conversations faster. After the first time having one of you guys spend half an hour trying to convince me to stay I have constantly lied about my reason for leaving so they would shut up faster.
    Brother, GC was WoW's lead system designer. If you don't think that he had an intimate relationship with the game's retention data you're either completely unaware of the purpose of retention for a subscription model or are simply arguing in bad faith. I also take absolutely zero stock in online ratings because they are prone to brigading and circlejerking. (See: TLoU2's metacritic scores.) And, once again, I'm not saying that game design is completely irrelevant when discussing the reasons people quit WoW... just that its importance is often very overstated on forums. This kind of feedback is great if you just want an internet high five from somebody because you both thought Shadowlands sucked. It's less great if we want the developers to read this kind of feedback and convert it into making the game better. Personally, I feel this community is really, really good doing the former and probably one of the worst at the latter. Instead of helping the developers make the game better, we're just really good at agreeing that the game sucks (or sucked).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Nzx View Post
    I just think in this instance the two viewpoints (i.e. sales records matter and capitalism is bad) don't reconcile.
    Gotcha -- yeah, it's a bit contradictory. I get that. I'm mostly ever arguing the latter though there are times where I've used sales figures to support an argument so I'll concede there's at least a smidge of hypocrisy there.
  1. Sensa1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    There's a difference between admitting sales are down and insisting that imaginary numbers scraped from Blizzard's API by a balding, European ball shaving connoisseur proved anything meaningful. That's what most of the discussion in that 59-page thread was about.
    Your name is ironic...considering how hard you keep trying to make the same argument over and over...in that thread people pointed to every available indicator from every source and past history to arrive at a common sense conclusion that sales were down and people like yourself just refused to accept it...I can speculate as to why but its not necessary...and ironies of ironies in this thread with way less evidence than anyone in the other thread used to try and convince you the sales numbers were down used you decided that "I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight." That's the definition of hyprocrisy.
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MiiiMiii View Post
    Every time the game has done poorly these forums and influencers have been screaming "change this, remove that".

    Now we have a game noone really has anything to complain about.
    Some people, when snubbed, just leave instead of complaining. Blizzard needed to figure out the reasons for those people leaving. I don't think they ever have.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Sensa1 View Post
    you decided that "I think it's more fair to say that the people who quit in Shadowlands quit because they moved on with their lives and fewer people were enticed by Dragonflight." That's the definition of hyprocrisy.
    Relapses, I want to see the data you used to reach that conclusion. Because using less than perfect data is a grievous sin, right?
  1. Ringthane's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Going forward, perhaps not any.
    Show me the games that are doing better right now. Not as good =/= horribad.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    Some people, when snubbed, just leave instead of complaining.
    You've been here almost as long as I have, and that's what you come up with? Do you read the posts on these forums at all? The last time someone just left instead of complaining was in 2015.
  1. arkanon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ringthane View Post
    Show me the games that are doing better right now. Not as good =/= horribad.

    - - - Updated - - -



    You've been here almost as long as I have, and that's what you come up with? Do you read the posts on these forums at all? The last time someone just left instead of complaining was in 2015.
    Last time I checked this, the best examples were rocket league, LoL, Warframe, and FF. Although, FF was harder to qualify than the rest, the others were based on various sources, not just the devs themselves. Truth is most publishers will do everything they can to avoid discussing or publishing player counts the moment they go into decline, which means you can generally only see the rise of a game, not the fall.

    Exception exist obviously, especially when steam had the overwhelming majority of players for most games. Now with all the different launchers and stores etc, steam charts don't carry as much weight, or at least can be handwaived away with a simple "yeah but most people use XYZ instead of steam".

    Note: as I said, this was last time I checked, and iirc that was quite a while ago. For all I know those games are in steam decline.
  1. Osmeric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ringthane View Post
    You've been here almost as long as I have, and that's what you come up with? Do you read the posts on these forums at all? The last time someone just left instead of complaining was in 2015.
    LOL. The number of people who post on forums is a tiny fraction of the number who have quit the game. OBVIOUSLY most people who quit do not post here, complaints or otherwise.

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