The Activision Blizzard earnings call was this afternoon. We've highlighted some of the written results below.
Activision Blizzard
- In the fourth quarter, Activision had 128 million MAUs, up from 111M in Q3 and 125M in Q2.
- Activision Blizzard had roughly 400 MAUs in 2020.
- Blizzard had 29 million MAUs in the fourth quarter, down from 30 million in Q3, and 32 million in Q1/Q2.
Blizzard
- World of Warcraft MAUs grew year-over-year for the sixth consecutive quarter.
- World of Warcraft saw strong engagement across both the Classic and modern game modes throughout 2020
- World of Warcraft full year franchise net bookings grew 40% year-over-year, reaching the highest level in nearly a decade.
- Fourth quarter net bookings for World of Warcraft grew sharply year-over-year, driven by strong sales of the Shadowlands expansion, subscriber growth, and high participation in value added services
- World of Warcraft player and engagement trends since the Shadowlands release are stronger than levels typically seen at this point after an expansion launch.
- The team intends to deliver more frequent premium World of Warcraft content to sustain and expand the Warcraft community.
- Multiple initiatives underway to experience WoW on a more consistent basis and on more platforms than ever before.
- The team has made multiple mobile free to play Warcraft experiences and they are now in advanced development, based on the franchise IP. This will create opportunities for existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways.
Diablo
- On mobile, the first stage of regional testing for Diablo Immortal in December and January was met with very positive feedback and strong engagement metrics.
- Multiple Warcraft teams working on new content initiatives across platforms.
- More players will get to experience Diablo Immortal in further rounds of testing ahead of the launch planned for later this year
Blizzard
- 2022 will be a great year for Blizzard. Expect another step change in financial performance as they execute their pipeline.
- Blizzard Q4 revenue was down a bit year over year, as growth for WoW was offset by a decline for other titles and the absence of BlizzCon.
- Blizzard 2020 revenue was up 11% year over year, operating income up 49%, 9pp increase in margin.
- Social games and WoW kept much stronger engagement even after lockdowns ended.
- WoW momentum is unusually high for a non-expansion year.
- A few things up their sleeve with remastered content that will be unveiled in due course.
- Blizzard plans to hire more developers going forward. They'll bring talent from one game to another internally.
- Blizzard wants to bring games to players across the world across different platforms and genres.
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