Activision Blizzard Q3 2021 Investor Call, Jen Oneal Leaving Blizzard

[Lorgar Aurelian]

There is almost a night and day difference between the launch of Shadowlands and the last few months on my realm. The AH is often a good indicator on how many people play the game. So are WoW tokens. The lower the price, the more demand there is for WoW tokens. Auctions and mats have crashed on my server since no one is buying anything. The realm has had a huge drop in activity in the last few months.

This is just one realm. Now factor in another few dozen realms.

Expan launch's have far more player then all other time's in expans this isn't news to any one.

as to AH uses on your realm in the last few months, Anecdotes really mean nothing without something to back them up.

[Nzx]

there is literally nothing you can argue because its all facts, the bulk of which are the topic of this entire thread. Dunno what you're getting upset over.

You: makes an entire post out of guesswork, assumptions, and "i only care about NA so only NA matters"
Also you: its all facts

c o p i u m

I think it means monthly active users. But a 16 million drop in 3 years with a downward trend is pretty disastrous for a company like this. Yeah, it clearly means whatever they're doing isn't working.

I mean, not really. Three years ago D3:ROS was only a few years old, Heroes of The Storm was only a few years old, BFA had just released off the back of one of the most popular expansions in years, Overwatch was only a couple years old and, probably most importantly, was at the peak of its popularity with the first season of OWL starting.

I wouldn't call it disastrous. It's not ideal, obviously, but it's very clear that Blizzard are just in a valley currently. Despite delays, they have upcoming releases from some of their most popular IPs, 10.0, and the inevitably profitable (if not popular here) mobile Diablo that will boost their MAUs by substantial margins within the next few years.

It seems to me that a lot of you are the kind of people that day traders make a killing off of. You're "buy the high, sell the dip" type people that can't see more than a few inches from your face, so long as that reality agrees with what you've already internalized. Blizzard isn't dying as a company because you personally dislike the most recent World of Warcraft content, and if you don't understand that then you're living evidence for why investor calls are irrelevant for most regular people.

[munkeyinorbit]

how much copium do you have to be on to actually believe that the extreme amount of players leaving the game for good and posting on the forums are all lying to you about a massive amount of players leaving WoW. It's okay you will just say "it's always been doom and gloom" and not see what is in front of your face. This game is dying so quickly. I don't give a crap about what the weasels say about MAUs.

They don't face jail time and fines for lying. People lie all the time on the internet. People you know are probably lying straight your face. You may not care about MAUs but I would trust financial reports over people on a small fansite like this that claim wow is dying.

[Armael]

Anything Activision/Blizzard says will be spun in a way to support their argument. If it's anything positive or leans neutral, then it must mean they're lying or manipulating words or numbers or jargon. Anything they say that's explicitly negative and they'll be like SEE!!!!!

[munkeyinorbit]

as in more people are *potentially* still playing post-expansion release than in the previous ten years. but given they don't actually say players playing maybe it's hours played per player and net bookings I assume is money spent. the language used is obviously purposefully vague.

Or it means that this year will be the most successful year, where people don't spend 50 bucks on an expansion, in a decade if things continue at this level.

[starstationprofm]

Sigh.... I'd love to see real Wow numbers not only "MAUs" of all Blizzard games thrown into the same pot.

Not gonna happen. FF14 is smart not to do it either. When you announce player counts on an MMO you risk people starting up doomer drama about it.

[munkeyinorbit]

One of the saddest things to see are the people that actually still defend Blizzard and their god awful games. They will ignore everything and be good little consumers. You have to be on serious copium if you think all the content creators are just lying about an exodus from the game. Keep buying your store mounts and paying your sub for 1 patch a year because the game is "as good as ever". Praise the MAUs. That's all you are to them and it is so obvious to everyone, but y'all.

Content creators are incentivised by money to blow things out of proportion. Blizzard is incentivised by fines and jail time to tell the truth. Who's snorting the copium now buddy?

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Somehow I am sure they will still spin it as positive no matter what.

That's their job. Present the data truthfully but spin what they think is happening. They can't lie but the spin will be positive. It's up to the investors to make decisions.

[dwarven]

Wall of text.

You know it's looking bleak when even the Blizzard shills are saying "well, it's not that bad". I highly doubt Blizzard is going away any time soon, but their biggest game is on life support. Whatever "engagement" means, it certainly doesn't pertain to anything related to an engaging gameplay experience. There are just a lot more good alternatives to WoW now than there once were. Blizzard has lost the ability/desire to innovate.

[Theangryone]

Same ole shit every time these earnings come out.

MAU= number of people who log into a game in a month. If you play WoW, Classic, Hearthstone, WC3, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, you count as 6 MAUs

Net Bookings are defined as the net amount of products and services sold digitally or sold-in physically during the period, and includes licensing fees, merchandise, in-game advertising, strategy guides and publisher incentives.

Basically, there are multiple ways for a game to be profitable regardless of content or the playerbase rising and falling.

[munkeyinorbit]

The next one will be propped up by the kitty mount. They've made bank on that one already, plus alot of the 6 month subs are about to end by then, so they will probably announce a new bonus for that as well, which will save the them the quarter after that.

Wow. I think you've just described a successful business that keeps their customers coming back. Do you think any other companies know about this?

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I wonder if they'll throw in another Hearthstone incentive like the last one. Maybe they'll throw in a few some overwatch loot boxes to boost that games metrics.

If it makes them money there's no doubt that they will. You would be stupid not to, right?

[arkanon]

The next one will be propped up by the kitty mount. They've made bank on that one already, plus alot of the 6 month subs are about to end by then, so they will probably announce a new bonus for that as well, which will save the them the quarter after that.

Bemoaning (not sure if you are or not, seems like you are) blizzard for a successful business model, which only succeeds because players are willing to pay the dosh to support it, is like blaming the kardashians for having a successful tv show for so many years, rather than being stunned that so many people supported it.

I think what it shows is that Blizzard are being VERY smart with their product releases, to try their very best to at least stem the flow from their ship. Obviously these numbers would be VERY different without the D2 launch, but thats not what we are dealing with, they DID release it, and im sure everyone can agree it went a VERY long way to boost their numbers.

It will be interesting to see how they do the same in first and second quarter of 2023, maybe a Wrath Classic announcement?

[munkeyinorbit]

Btw, the double lead thing kinda ending just like that is.. amusing, given how it was clearly done to garner some brownie points in the first place. I hope she got payed handsomely for the PR stunt.

Yeah. It seems like there was a major fuck up somewhere and it makes blizz look terrible.

1. Either it was complete virtue signaling or
2. Blizzard didn't know or
3. Blizzard failed to communicate that this was a transition but because of her experience and vision she was needed to start the bal rolling or
4. She's complete scum and only wanted the money or
5. Things are so toxic tht she got out while she could

[arkanon]

Yeah. It seems like there was a major fuck up somewhere and it makes blizz look terrible.

1. Either it was complete virtue signaling or
2. Blizzard didn't know or
3. Blizzard failed to communicate that this was a transition but because of her experience and vision she was needed to start the bal rolling or
4. She's complete scum and only wanted the money or
5. Things are so toxic tht she got out while she could

To be honest, imo, all options look bad for Blizzard.

[munkeyinorbit]

To be honest, imo, all options look bad for Blizzard.

I agree. They are terrible and paint a picture of incompetence. If I was ActiBlizz I would be looking at this very seriously and be looking for heads to roll.

[rogoth]

You must have replied to the wrong person because I just showed you where it said that player engagement was the best that it's been in a decade (that's 10 years) for a non-expansion year. That means there was no mass exodus. You literally cannot have a mass exodus from WoW AND have it setting a 10 year player engagement record. Those two things are mutually exclusive.

Unless you think Blizzard is lying to shareholders in which case you should report that shit because it's highly illegal.

lets break it down shall we, in all investor calls where there have been actual improvements in player numbers, they have differentiated between what 'version' of WoW that was, and talked about each product individually, the way they have worded this latest pile of bullshit, they are taking the ENTIRE POPULATION of every single version of WoW and combining it into 1 single figure to make it look as though they are riding high, when the reality is, if you looked at the component parts it would likely show a monstrous decline in player numbers for each 'version' of the game, you have the playerbase split between 'classic' realms, 'TBC classic' realms, 'retail' realms, if they were so confident in their player numbers why would they all of a sudden stop commenting on individual playerbase sections and start talking about the entire playerbase of each separate portion?, i'll tell you why, because that line that you think means so much is a legally 'true' lie, retail playerbase is the lowest it has ben since the original game released, and the 'classic' version playerbase isn't exactly that high either, but combined they can come out with such an ambiguous statement spun in such a way to make it appear that everything is fine despite the absolute shitstorm that has been raging for the last few months and will continue going for a while to come yet.

furthermore, there very much was a 'mass exodus' from WoW to FF14, so much so that SE ran out of server space to house the sheer influx of new players, not only that but they had to stop printing new download keys and actively turn players away due to these issues, whether those that left the game came back between then and now is unknown, but the biggest content creators for WoW have all left, the majority that remain are either small time people who didn't have much of a following before and have been left to pick up what scraps can be found.

as a final note, bobby has been lying to shareholders for years now, it's nothing new, as long as what you say is ambiguous enough and worded in such a way as to allow you to deflect, then you're golden, and that's why whoever proof writes these reports is paid so much, to allow these cunts to falsely report things while also being legally 'free and clear', and i don't know how long you have played the game for, but 10 years ago saw the biggest player drop since the games peak back in wrath, after the debacle of the 4.2 patch that added no real end game content to the game with only a super small raid to keep players going, and since then it's pretty easy to get a 'record high' number of MAU's relative to what it was like back then, if we assume an equal distribution between retail and 'classic' of 50/50 split, it would only take a total subscriber count for both sides of 2.75M subs to reach that 'record' seeing as at the lowest point of BFA the playerbase was estimated to be as low as 1.7M worldwide (not counting china), so if blizzard is actually counting china to inflate total player numbers even further, then i don't know what to say really other than the desperation is apparent for all to see.

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Content creators are incentivised by money to blow things out of proportion. Blizzard is incentivised by fines and jail time to tell the truth. Who's snorting the copium now buddy?

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That's their job. Present the data truthfully but spin what they think is happening. They can't lie but the spin will be positive. It's up to the investors to make decisions.

apparently you seem to be that person, do you genuinely believe that actiblizz would tell the actual truth no information held, no information obscured, and furthermore, they are currently in a lawsuit with investors over BREAKING THE LAW and reporting false information or omitting extremely important information for years now, literally every major company in the world looks at the cost (both financial and non financial cost) and if it is a financially viable strategy then they will break the law because the worst that happens in these cases is fines, due to the fact almost all the laws that are attached to these things are 'civil' in nature and outside of rare circumstances cannot levy 'criminal' punishments against them.

[Nzx]

You know it's looking bleak when even the Blizzard shills are saying "well, it's not that bad". I highly doubt Blizzard is going away any time soon, but their biggest game is on life support. Whatever "engagement" means, it certainly doesn't pertain to anything related to an engaging gameplay experience. There are just a lot more good alternatives to WoW now than there once were. Blizzard has lost the ability/desire to innovate.

Lol, Blizzard shill. That's cute.

It just... Isn't that bad. I'd say that's an objective fact. The funniest part is that you try to say this MAU report is "disastrous" for Blizzard because of the figures three years ago - except three years ago, ATVI was 33% cheaper than it currently is.

I'm not sure if you've ever heard of a "gym" before, but if you were going to sign a deal to advertise your product there, would you be more interested in the raw number of paying members they have, or the number of members that attended in the last month?

[rhorle]

I'm amazed at this point that people aren't talking about the fact that Blizzard admitted WoW is dropping in revenue significantly, so much so that it's underperforming Q3 2020, which was BfA's end-of-expansion lull.

World of Warcraft is on track to deliver its strongest engagement and net bookings outside of a Modern expansion year in a decade.

I don't think WoW is underperforming based on reading the information they gave.

[october breeze]

I think it means monthly active users. But a 16 million drop in 3 years with a downward trend is pretty disastrous for a company like this. Yeah, it clearly means whatever they're doing isn't working.

Ye, I really don't understand how they can continuously losing MAUs, but constantly reporting increase in netbooking every quarter! This doesn't add up.

[Kittahsmash]

Rats still abandoning the sinking ship I see

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The WoW Exodus was either very small and minor, or half the people who said they left WoW really didn't and have their subscriptions still on, ready to jump back in a heartbeat.

I wonder how many months worth of subscriptions that the average WoW user buys. If a lot of them are doing the 6-month thing (as it's usually the cheapest option), it'll be a little while yet before them deciding to cancel their subscriptions would really start to show up. Assuming that any of them care to do it and don't just keep their sub rolling for whatever reason.

[Thelxi]

The next one will be more interesting, but hey they managed to make these look good.