Activision Blizzard Q2 2020 Earnings Call
The Activision Blizzard earnings call is this afternoon. We've highlighted some of the written results below.


  • Activision had 125 million MAUs in the second quarter, up from 102 million in Q1 and still down from 128 million in Q4 2019.
  • Blizzard had 32 million MAUs in the second quarter. This is the same as Q1 and Q4 2019.
  • World of Warcraft reach and engagement once again increased sequentially, as shelter-at-home conditions further boosted the franchise’s strong trajectory.
  • The Shadowlands expansion saw an enthusiastic response from players in its public testing, with pre-sales accelerating even further ahead of its release in the fourth quarter.
  • World of Warcraft engagement is the highest in a decade at this point ahead of an expansion.
  • Building on the success of Battlegrounds and recent live operations, the Hearthstone pipeline includes expansions, new engagement features and a new game mode planned for the coming quarters.
  • Overwatch engagement grew year-over-year, including among returning players.
  • Diablo Immortal, developed for mobile in partnership with NetEase, is due to expand internal testing with a company playtest in the coming weeks.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Activision Blizzard Q2 2020 Earnings Call started by chaud View original post
Comments 139 Comments
  1. MoanaLisa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cavox View Post
    Imagine believing Activision-Blizzard at this point. How does one measure "engagement" anyway?
    Engagement is measured in many ways. The public metric is Monthly Active Users (MAU) which is a metric all across the gaming industry (subscriptions are not a useful metric to use to compare to other titles and genre types). Besides MAU there are undoubtedly other internal metrics which are not reported publicly.

    For the record since there is much BS or misunderstanding about what MAU really is: All it is is a count of the number of accounts that log into a game at least once for any amount of time in a calendar month. If you play every day for 10 hours, that's 1 MAU. If you log in once for 2 minutes that's 1 MAU.

    You are free to believe Blizzard or not. They have zero incentive to lie on their corporate reports and, indeed, making false statements is legally dubious. The qualifier about how high engagement is at this particular point in an expansion is the key thing. It's five or six months out from the next expansion and there's a worldwide pandemic going on keeping many people at home. It's a good time for certain types of media companies. That probably has more to do with it than anything.
  1. Orby's Avatar
    I wish Blizzard would release the sub numbers for WoW just one time. Not that it effects my own personal enjoyment but I am just very curious :P
  1. Freestyle80's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS View Post
    Where's the doomsaying? I'm just poking fun at their pathetic attempts to spin this in a way where WoW is never-endingly expanding in one aspect or another. Probably because their shareholders demand it. It doesn't change the fact that WoW has been a stagnant game for years now. There's the ebb and flow of expansions but beyond that it's been stagnant or slowly losing players. The only reason subs doubled last year was because of Classic.

    You can keep coping until the game finally dies for good some time in the distant future, but it won't change the facts lol.
    Still so salty LOL
  1. owbu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Frosteye View Post
    So basically blizzard is patting themselves on the back despite their numbers being inflated by covid? Okay
    "as shelter-at-home conditions further boosted the franchise’s strong trajectory"

    looks like they acknowledged corivds role in their success. And given that these things are basically commercials for the people that decide over the companies fate, I would say that thats some above average honesty.
    (which they might or might not be forced to put in there - no idea)
  1. Nikeyla's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS View Post
    Nobody fucking knows. Blizzard intentionally chooses these vague descriptors for the game's current state as it looks generically positive.
    Blizzard and vague arent the same words?
    They exactly know, why they use such and unclear wordings for literally everything. Nobody would buy that sh*t if they said the real truth, but once you make ppl to preorder, then try it, realize the game is sh*t again, you dont care anymore, because you got the money already and reviews can go fck themselves, right?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    I wish Blizzard would release the sub numbers for WoW just one time. Not that it effects my own personal enjoyment but I am just very curious :P
    Thats not gonna happen. They focus more resources on looking cool with vague promises and strategies how to get the highest profits for the lowest effort, than on the games itself. This would show, how they are full of sh*t. It would be interested to see, but lets be honest, even if they actually did release something like this, it would be fake, vague or inflated by something super special...
  1. ClassicPeon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikeyla View Post
    Blizzard and vague arent the same words?
    They exactly know, why they use such and unclear wordings for literally everything. Nobody would buy that sh*t if they said the real truth, but once you make ppl to preorder, then try it, realize the game is sh*t again, you dont care anymore, because you got the money already and reviews can go fck themselves, right?

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    Thats not gonna happen. They focus more resources on looking cool with vague promises and strategies how to get the highest profits for the lowest effort, than on the games itself. This would show, how they are full of sh*t. It would be interested to see, but lets be honest, even if they actually did release something like this, it would be fake, vague or inflated by something super special...
    These words arent made for consumers, they are made for shareholders. Why do you people never take the time to read into that?

    If what blizzard said was so vague and borderline untrue it would jump at the shareholders from the numbers they are getting.

    There are so many people on this site who are just looking for things to shit on blizzard with without actually stopping and thinking for 2 seconds about what they are saying.
  1. Nikeyla's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    These words arent made for consumers, they are made for shareholders. Why do you people never take the time to read into that?

    If what blizzard said was so vague and borderline untrue it would jump at the shareholders from the numbers they are getting.

    There are so many people on this site who are just looking for things to shit on blizzard with without actually stopping and thinking for 2 seconds about what they are saying.
    You are surprised? Im sure this could be fixed if Blizz actually did something right for a change and not bait ppl into paying in advance just to deliver something totally different and garbo level quality. You cant blame ppl for being mad after all the disappointment in the past few years and nothing indicating it could get any better. Quiet the opposite I would say.
  1. Nzx's Avatar
    I love when these things come out because all the people whose lives consist of complaining about Blizzard on these forums and then playing Blizzard games sit around and circlejerk each other about how all of it is a "lie" and it's just Blizzard trying to convince WoW players that WoW is alive or something, despite it being a release to shareholders subject to audit by the SEC and all the extreme sanctions they can place on a publicly traded company that lies to their investors.

    This isn't an "Ion talking to your favourite whiny youtuber" release, this is an "Activision-Blizzard board of directors reporting to their owners" release. If you don't understand the difference, you're probably too young for your opinion to matter.
  1. ClassicPeon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikeyla View Post
    You are surprised? Im sure this could be fixed if Blizz actually did something right for a change and not bait ppl into paying in advance just to deliver something totally different and garbo level quality. You cant blame ppl for being mad after all the disappointment in the past few years and nothing indicating it could get any better. Quiet the opposite I would say.
    I dont care that you are angry.

    It just comes across as a cringy mad teen who are shouting random things at random people without actually thinking abotu what they are saying,.
  1. Nikeyla's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    I dont care that you are angry.

    It just comes across as a cringy mad teen who are shouting random things at random people without actually thinking abotu what they are saying,.
    Not angry, not teen, not without thinking. Pure experience. But since you dont care, stay safe,bye.
  1. ClassicPeon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikeyla View Post
    Not angry, not teen, not without thinking. Pure experience. But since you dont care, stay safe,bye.
    You cant blame ppl for being mad
    ^^

    Saying a persons behavior fit that of a teen isnt the same as asaying they are an actual teenager. I'm making a comparison here.

    I care deeply, i also just tend to look into things before i post things i dont know about
  1. Azerate's Avatar
    None of this suprises me at all.

    I'm actually playing the game, unlike many forum whiners here. It's incredibly active, more so than potentially ever. Even legacy farming spots for obscure achievements and reps have been crowded throughout the last months. Game is more alive than it has been for years. Shadowlands hype is real too, and it's bringing many old players back / attracting many new players.

    Despite all the toxic bullshit the usual bad actors are spewing on youtube and twitch, the game is doing great, and I love it!
  1. Nikeyla's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    ^^

    Saying a persons behavior fit that of a teen isnt the same as asaying they are an actual teenager. I'm making a comparison here.

    I care deeply, i also just tend to look into things before i post things i dont know about
    I exactly know what you said, but i find it kinda funny that you say I act like a teenager, yet obviously the only purpose you are here is to argue. I bow before your adult behaviour. Im out, lol.
  1. ClassicPeon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nikeyla View Post
    I exactly know what you said, but i find it kinda funny that you say I act like a teenager, yet obviously the only purpose you are here is to argue. I bow before your adult behaviour. Im out, lol.
    This is a discussion forum. Why else would you be here?
  1. Heartbreaker23's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Djaye View Post
    classic doing great and just released AQ patch. this is why engagement is at a decades high.
    I'm hearing the opposite.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Onikaroshi View Post
    Wow token has been pretty steady for awhile at like 120k, though today it bumped up to 131k.
    In EU it dropped quite a bit over the last year. It's normal towards the end of the expansion because less people play.
  1. ClassicPeon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Heartbreaker23 View Post
    I'm hearing the opposite.

    - - - Updated - - -



    In EU it dropped quite a bit over the last year. It's normal towards the end of the expansion because less people play.
    Its increasing because of the gallywix ban.

    But yeah classic is dying
  1. Watchers's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by antelope591 View Post
    It doesn't surprise me. 8.3 was the best patch in BFA and stacking corruption finally makes classes fun to play again. The major issue they'll have to deal with is that characters once again feel like sluggish and weak once we lose all this power in Shadowlands. Leveling in beta with the premade characters is an absolute chore and shit takes forever to kill. Its not as bad if you copy over your mythic geared char, but then you'd expect a mythic geared char to smash through leveling no matter what. They once again have to deal with players losing everything and working their way back up after being gimped by losing essences/azerite/corruption. This is gonna cause backlash and people quitting just like in BFA
    nice jokes!
  1. Heartbreaker23's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    Its increasing because of the gallywix ban.

    But yeah classic is dying
    Why would it increase because of players being banned?

    I wasn't talking about the short spike that was bound to drop again, I'm talking about the decline at the end of the expansion that always happens because people stop playing.
  1. Lurker1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azerate View Post
    None of this suprises me at all.

    I'm actually playing the game, unlike many forum whiners here. It's incredibly active, more so than potentially ever. Even legacy farming spots for obscure achievements and reps have been crowded throughout the last months. Game is more alive than it has been for years. Shadowlands hype is real too, and it's bringing many old players back / attracting many new players.

    Despite all the toxic bullshit the usual bad actors are spewing on youtube and twitch, the game is doing great, and I love it!
    Well said!
  1. Dracullus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    Its increasing because of the gallywix ban.

    But yeah classic is dying
    It's not increasing, it turned into rollercoaster. Instead of 165-175k (all EU prices), it's like 140-200k right now. I think we need few days for new price to settle in.

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