Activision Blizzard made 1.2 billion dollars from microtransactions in three months

[Maximus Testiculos]

https://gamerant.com/activision-bliz...rnings-insane/


Half of its entire revenue came from microtransactions. And you wonder why they wanna go mobile?

[Zergin8r]

Microtransations are a predatory practice. The people that came up with the idea know that people are willing to spend a few $ and most won't look at their total spending until its to late. Same reason LoL makes so much money, I have plenty of friends who buy skins once in a while because its only a $5-$10, but after a couple years they have spent $4-$500 on a "free" game. I also used to work taking calls for mobile subscribers... it was alarming how many people would call in to see if we could reduce their bill because they spent $1000's on in app purchases. The fact that you can now make purchases via apps and have them charged to your phone bill, if you don't want to put a credit card on your acc is also something I do not agree with because this seems to bypass the "are you actually sure you want to spend this much real money" part of purchases for many apps. With a card you at least have to put in the cc code ect... but if you don't add a card purchases just go through as fast as if you were using in game currency so many people do not even seem to be aware that they are spending actual money or are ignorant to the fact until they get a phone bill that is more than the down payment for a house.

[Toybox]

Microtransations are a predatory practice. The people that came up with the idea know that people are willing to spend a few $ and most won't look at their total spending until its to late. Same reason LoL makes so much money, I have plenty of friends who buy skins once in a while because its only a $5-$10, but after a couple years they have spent $4-$500 on a "free" game.

Looking at it from a different POV, if they've spent a few hundred hours playing, that money to time ratio is still on par/higher than you'd get from buying a few AAA games on release. That said, the best thing about Dota is the ability to buy & sell cosmetics with other players. 90% of all tradeable items can be had for less than $1, and can be resold for similar amounts afterwards.

I don't participate in microtransactions all that much personally, but some are a lot worse than others. Fifa for example is absolutely predatory on young kids.

[FAILoZOFF]

Good for them, let them milk off the sheeple dry.

[lolmmofuture]

what a joke this has become....

[Queen of Hamsters]

bUt ThEy ArE StRuGGlInG LuL

Eh, let them make money. I get my microtransactions through Gold converted to Battle.net Balance. So much money saved since WoD!

[Zergin8r]

Another note about being able to have purchases added to your phone bill, this is allowed by default unless you call your provider to specifically have it blocked. Even then it will only block any app ID's that are available up to that point... so 3 months down the road a new app comes out and you could have stuff on that app billed to your phone.

[LordVargK]

Isn't that mostly from KING (developer of candy crush)? And they are already mobile, so why should activision or blizzard compete with another company of their own?

[aldurhan]

bUt ThEy ArE StRuGGlInG LuL

Eh, let them make money. I get my microtransactions through Gold converted to Battle.net Balance. So much money saved since WoD!

I remember when mounts cost 500-1000 gold.

[apelsinjuice]

yes but people on the internet tell me microtrsancations is needed to support the games content, and that bobby kotic really needs his yearly 30 million dollar bonus, meanwhile blizzard is known for paying their developers very low compared to others

[Sughs]

Even if you are rich, I don't get it how can people throw so much money at microtrasactions. I mean, a few bucks for an awesome DLC or expansion with a lot of content? Sure.
Now, skins? Toys? Mounts? The problem is the people, if no one bought that shit, they wouldn't make it.

[BeepBoo]

People are starting to turn to video games for validation more, and a lot of people just plain fucking suck at games, so they look for alternative things that are within their "control" to feel special.

Guess what's really easy? Tossing money at a problem until it gets solved. They don't care if there's actual value or not. They get to feel special in a public setting for very little effort, and despite everyone constantly bitching about being too poor, needing a "living wage", etc, apparently they can still scrape together metric fuck tons of cash to get endorphins off pixels...

It's a horrible trend for the video game industry IMO.

[McNeil]

They own some of the most played mobile games under KING so its not that surprising. What frightens me more is this example in the article where you can buy ''CoD points'' for loot boxes, basically dumping way more money into the game for just unlocking cosmetics instead of getting it after you payed the full price. Still haven't played Overwatch once just because I don't agree with their business practice. I did play HotS which also has loot boxes, but it is F2P and I was able to collect all the heroes and skins I wanted by just playing in which case its fine imo.

[Knight Meta]

So let us break apart a few details that OP is glossing over entirely:

First off: This is they year of Corona, has not every god damn video-game developer / company which has Microtransactions within / as a part of some of their titles seen a decent increase this year? With so many being locked up at their homes; realizing that having 0 or just 1 hobby was not enough - It turns people to try new things; and fresh players is the easiest to bait money from; since unlike veterans who has mostly what they want / need: "Why not just SWIPE to get what I want faster."

Secondly: This goes for the ENTIRE Catalogue of Acti-Blizz games? Which also includes their CoD games which just like FIFA and BF to name two others; has had a near slave-like following for years which garners them so much money it is insane? It is important to point this out as this IS MMO-Champion and some mongoloid is sure to think "MAN LOOK WAHT THAT FEY DRAGON COSTUME HAS DONE" unless it's noted that this sum of money spans 4 CoD games AT THE VERY LEAST in addition to the other Blizzard games.

Thirdly: And this may strike a nerve with everyone here - So what? Let us look at what the Microtransactions does for all of the games available in the Blizz app besides CoD which we already have addressed.

WoW: Purely cosmetics.
Hots: Mostly Cosmetics but heroes can be bought too: Not that they are difficult to earn via free-play anyway.
OW: Purely cosmetics.
Hearthstone: the "biggest offender" where people still claim the game is purely P2W although going Eternal in the Arena mode is easy as sh*t and earns you more than enough Dust / Gold to skip this imaginary "paywall" entirely.

Unlike EA and *Insert any Company that owns a Asian MMORPG Here* - Acti-Blizz has the least damaging ways of microtransactions currently seen in big-budget gaming (Ignoring CoD that is; but that wheel is already rolling so fast that stopping it is impossible)

As long as they do not add P2W Elements to OW and WoW's game stores; What does it matter that they earn money off it? The more money they have; the more likely is it that some of your fave Blizzard games will get better treatment in the future (Ignoring HotS which is pretty much already buried)

To end this off I will do a quick PSA:

If microtransactions offends you to the point where you stay up at night (Even Cosmetic only ones) - Leave whatever game you play behind. The gaming industry just WILL NOT change because some people dislikes microtransactions. It's become so ingrained now that unless Law and Order changes to prohibit Microtransactions: it won't go away.

And if you think that will ever happen then go crazy on Change.org or whatever.

[Krastyn]

Secondly: This goes for the ENTIRE Catalogue of Acti-Blizz games? Which also includes their CoD games which just like FIFA and BF to name two others; has had a near slave-like following for years which garners them so much money it is insane? It is important to point this out as this IS MMO-Champion and some mongoloid is sure to think "MAN LOOK WAHT THAT FEY DRAGON COSTUME HAS DONE" unless it's noted that this sum of money spans 4 CoD games AT THE VERY LEAST in addition to the other Blizzard games.

It's even worse than that. It also includes King, their mobile game arm, which accounted for almost a third of their revenue, and the new CoD mobile game from Activision.

Further still, the $1.2 billion for Q3 is technically "net amount of downloadable content and microtransactions sold during the period". So it isn't just MTX, it's also DLC (though some consider those the same thing).

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I wasn't aware that Activision-Blizzard was the only company to utilize microtransactions. How dastardly of them and them only.

[Unholyground]

Looking at it from a different POV, if they've spent a few hundred hours playing, that money to time ratio is still on par/higher than you'd get from buying a few AAA games on release. That said, the best thing about Dota is the ability to buy & sell cosmetics with other players. 90% of all tradeable items can be had for less than $1, and can be resold for similar amounts afterwards.

I don't participate in microtransactions all that much personally, but some are a lot worse than others. Fifa for example is absolutely predatory on young kids.

It is predatory any way you try and spin it. I actively refuse to buy DLC unless it is a full on expansion to a game.

[Toybox]

It is predatory any way you try and spin it. I actively refuse to buy DLC unless it is a full on expansion to a game.

The severity changes for me depending on the target audience for the game. When a hardcore CRPG comes out with preorder/DLC skins & in-game pets I tend to think a bit less of it because the game is primarily aimed at adults who can make their own minds up about that sort of stuff. Fifa however is gambling aimed primarily at children, which to me is a hell of a lot worse than most titles.

I'm like you. I'll always buy soundtracks, but other than that, it's almost always just expansions & in-game content. I stopped buying WoW store mounts/pets back in Cata/MoP & I'm glad to say I've stuck with it since.

[Mad_Murdock]

Even if you are rich, I don't get it how can people throw so much money at microtrasactions. I mean, a few bucks for an awesome DLC or expansion with a lot of content? Sure.
Now, skins? Toys? Mounts? The problem is the people, if no one bought that shit, they wouldn't make it.

How can anyone spend $4 on a cup of coffee that is no better than 60 cent coffee? How does anyone pay $8 for a burger when there are $1 burgers to buy? Who would pay $15 a month to play a video game when there are thousands of free games to play?

I don't get a lot of the microtransactions myself, but I also have to admit I've wasted lots of money on things over the years, things one could easily argue could be done for a fraction of the cost.

[Varodoc]

Even if you are rich, I don't get it how can people throw so much money at microtrasactions. I mean, a few bucks for an awesome DLC or expansion with a lot of content? Sure.
Now, skins? Toys? Mounts? The problem is the people, if no one bought that shit, they wouldn't make it.

Huh, what? What's so weird about paying money for a cosmetic skin that you really like aesthetically?