Activision Blizzard Q3 2021 Investor Call, Jen Oneal Leaving Blizzard

[Neufab]

While they may or may not be able to legally use it that way it doesn’t track as the only mentions of subs is in the section where they say the joint sub drove higher engagement and that subs are stronger then past expans.

When they are talking about wow’s actual earnings there’s no mention of subs just this.

I was replying to someone who claimed stronger subscriber base has no other possible meanings than more subscribers, which is wrong.

Regarding earnings the SEC filing states that WoW revenues are down YoY and the transcript states that net bookings are the strongest ever at this expansion point so they sold a lot of prepaid gametime to less actual subscribers, or to more subscribers who are spending less in the webshop?

Personally I haven't played since the Hong Kong incident so I wouldn't know.

[MoanaLisa]

They said that the subscriber base is stronger than what is typically seen at this point in previous expansions (they did not mention sub numbers) this does not mean that sub numbers are higher than previous expansions, it is obviously based on internal metrics but we do NOT know what they are or what it means.

Given that they have deliberately chosen a vague statement over something clear that mentions sub numbers and says that are higher than previous expansions it is likely that this is not the case.

They are never going to mention active subscriptions again on a quarterly results call. No one else does and given the many streams of revenue associated with WoW now subs are irrelevant as a metric.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I was replying to someone who claimed stronger subscriber base has no other possible meanings than more subscribers, which is wrong.

Regarding earnings the SEC filing states that WoW revenues are down YoY and the transcript states that net bookings are the strongest ever at this expansion point so they sold a lot of prepaid gametime to less actual subscribers, or to more subscribers who are spending less in the webshop?

Personally I haven't played since the Hong Kong incident so I wouldn't know.

I'm not going to go back and check every shop item but I don't think there were any in this quarter so it could be that or less people are buying tokens for one reason or another.

But I don't keep trap of token stuff or shop stuff so I honestly have no clue about that side of stuff.

[Pann]

They are never going to mention active subscriptions again on a quarterly results call. No one else does and given the many streams of revenue associated with WoW now subs are irrelevant as a metric.

Maybe you should direct this post at the person who believes that they have done just that?

Subs are not irrelevant as a metric - they will keep a very close eye on them within Blizzard - they are simply no longer useful for promoting ATVI's profitability to their shareholders.

[MoanaLisa]

So the stock is having its worst day in 13 years because investors were ... happy?

No, they are not at all happy about hearing about long delays for new product. There is very little to suggest that WoW has much of anything to do with this. It means yet another year from Blizzard without new announced games. The other stuff going on with the lawsuit and O’Neal’s exit suggests there’s more bad news to come about the lack of management stability.

[FelPlague]

You still really think its coming out 2022? They have showed nothing that proved that.

and they have shown nothing that proves otherwise.

[Dystemper]

First female co-lead has already quit lmao

[Cosmic Janitor]

First female co-lead has already quit lmao

Let's be real here, if she was good enough and actually wanted to do the job for long, then she would have just been the leader alone. There is very little reason to have 2 leaders outside of heavily politically motivated organisations and pleasing statistics/quotas. If you need to keep backup you have the vice president role. The whole thing was always fishy..

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

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.

I don't think you understand some of the words you are using and the posts you are replying to, maybe you should go read up a little.

[Pratt]

Blizz did such a great job with the release that literally no one has any idea how the company is actually doing. Pretty hilarious.

[Dolus]

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Its hard to see how people can defend this company speak.

-They stopped reporting subs for a reason, because they were going down down down and would make them look bad.

-They count you as a separate MAU for logging into Hearthstone on mobile/PC, because it makes them look better.

-They count you as a separate MAU for logging into Hearthstone for 15 minutes so you can get that mount in WoW, but lets be honest, you weren't really playing in any meaningful way, it was the tutorial.

-They separate MAUs for Activision and Blizzard games, but not for each Blizzard game because it would make them look worse.

-They keep having these "log into Hearthstone for 15 minutes to get a mount!" deals to pad numbers, and nothing more, because it makes them look good.

All this shows they they just aren't confident in their numbers without these things being true. Its dishonest and we all know it, though maybe its not "tEcHnIcAlLy" lying; I doubt as an investor you would be quite so impressed and ready to bootlick if you had any meaningful concept of how the game works at all. The stock markets seem to have shown this.

If WoW is so healthy, why don't they just show the MAUs specifically for WoW? I mean, its healthy and strong, right? Its "on track to blah blah blah" and "making us tons of cash blah blah"

[Gadzooks]

1. stock price is dependant on thousand different thigns...
for example the female lead (cant recall the name) leaving have probably quite big impact, especialy given its after few months
2. stock price is for ACTIVISION BLIZZARD as whole, that is activision, blizzard, king, blizzard being SMALLEST of the 3, have the least impact on the stock price, so blizz could do amazingly as long as activision and king are not stock price will suck

Thousands of things? Nah. It's a couple things, the analysts are pretty clear what the #1 issue is, the sheer lack of new product or even revamped products coming out of ATVI, in all of their divisions. There's nothing to indicate growth for 2022. The investors want to know if the dividend will still be paid, and if it will be bigger or smaller. ATVI had a bad day on the market today, and every news outlet that covers the market has said the same thing - lack of products, which can and will impact their profits for 2022. WoW is no longer pooping money like it used to - it's still carrying the load for Blizzard, but ATVI as a whole has a pretty empty cupboard for new games.

Call Of Duty's 2022 release is expected late 2022. Overwatch and Diablo 4 were going to be the big releases this year. Can you name a single game, other than Call of Duty and 4 more expansions for Hearthstone that's being released in 2022? Yeah, neither can I, unless King comes up with another Candy Crush variant.

Publishers who don't publish aren't an attractive stock. It means it's stagnant, or poised for a big slide down. Bobby and his divisions are gonna need to push the cash shop HARD in 2022 across the board to even hope to maintain their profitability.

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except that's exactly what bobby boy has been doing for years now, so while legally there's a set of rules that need to be followed, if you spin something to your favour enough you can use it as a shield against any potential ramifications by going against those rules, all i take away from this is that they have framed everything in such a way as to soften the blow of the entire debacle that's been going on now for the past few months, and have omitted some data that shows that negative side of the business while using other things to keep focus away from that.

If you have proof Bobby is lying, then tell these guys, I'd bet they'd want to know. And how you know he's lying.

https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower

Have fun.

[Berndorf]

20million in 1 month LUL, not dying. Sheep are hilarious
ALSO who didn't call this? they put a female as co lead and then she "quits" 3months later? 100$ says qwik will be defacto leader now and she was only put as co leader to calm the masses

This is disingenuous on your part. Bliz MAU's have been going down steadily since July of 2017 from 45m to 26m now even despite the release of D2:R and wow classic in recent years and them doing their best to get people to log into other games to claim rewards. Also, no one is somehow fooled or calmed by them inserting a female as co Bliz lead for a while. Her stepping down that fast does more harm than good in the eyes of anyone important. I'd rather see Bliz turn it around and start releasing quality stuff again but nothing right now gives much reason for optimism. Especially with the rise of FF and some decent new mmo's coming out or in last stages of development.

[glowpipe]

Its hard to see how people can defend this company speak.

-They stopped reporting subs for a reason, because they were going down down down and would make them look bad.

-They count you as a separate MAU for logging into Hearthstone on mobile/PC, because it makes them look better.

-They count you as a separate MAU for logging into Hearthstone for 15 minutes so you can get that mount in WoW, but lets be honest, you weren't really playing in any meaningful way, it was the tutorial.

-They separate MAUs for Activision and Blizzard games, but not for each Blizzard game because it would make them look worse.

-They keep having these "log into Hearthstone for 15 minutes to get a mount!" deals to pad numbers, and nothing more, because it makes them look good.

All this shows they they just aren't confident in their numbers without these things being true. Its dishonest and we all know it, though maybe its not "tEcHnIcAlLy" lying; I doubt as an investor you would be quite so impressed and ready to bootlick if you had any meaningful concept of how the game works at all. The stock markets seem to have shown this.

If WoW is so healthy, why don't they just show the MAUs specifically for WoW? I mean, its healthy and strong, right? Its "on track to blah blah blah" and "making us tons of cash blah blah"

Citations and sources for all these claims please

[Berndorf]

Thousands of things? Nah. It's a couple things, the analysts are pretty clear what the #1 issue is, the sheer lack of new product or even revamped products coming out of ATVI, in all of their divisions. There's nothing to indicate growth for 2022. The investors want to know if the dividend will still be paid, and if it will be bigger or smaller. ATVI had a bad day on the market today, and every news outlet that covers the market has said the same thing - lack of products, which can and will impact their profits for 2022. WoW is no longer pooping money like it used to - it's still carrying the load for Blizzard, but ATVI as a whole has a pretty empty cupboard for new games.

Call Of Duty's 2022 release is expected late 2022. Overwatch and Diablo 4 were going to be the big releases this year. Can you name a single game, other than Call of Duty and 4 more expansions for Hearthstone that's being released in 2022? Yeah, neither can I, unless King comes up with another Candy Crush variant.

Publishers who don't publish aren't an attractive stock. It means it's stagnant, or poised for a big slide down. Bobby and his divisions are gonna need to push the cash shop HARD in 2022 across the board to even hope to maintain their profitability.

- - - Updated - - -



If you have proof Bobby is lying, then tell these guys, I'd bet they'd want to know. And how you know he's lying.

https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower

Have fun.

Companies getting busted for lying or using deceitful practices isn't really anything new though. Lots of the biggest companies in the world have been fined or faced litigation for it. Most of the biggest banks, oil companies, tobacco, the biggest pharma companies and others. Just in the last 5-10 years banks got busted for libor/interest rate fixing, commodity price fixing and many other things. Act-Bliz lying about stuff wouldn't be shocking at all.

[MoanaLisa]

Let's be real here, if she was good enough and actually wanted to do the job for long, then she would have just been the leader alone. There is very little reason to have 2 leaders outside of heavily politically motivated organisations and pleasing statistics/quotas. If you need to keep backup you have the vice president role. The whole thing was always fishy..

I had thought that Ybarra was to keep the game and product side going and O’Neal was to oversee the corporate culture stuff. Just a personal observation. The structure for that, relations between managers and supervisors with employees may now be in place or expected to be in place by the end of the year. If that is the case, and I’ll warrant that’s speculation on my part, she may feel that she has done what she was charged to do and be ready to move on. I never thought that co-leadership was going to stick in any case.

I do think the announcement came at an unfortunate time but I don’t believe that Wall Street much likes co-leadership situations either. That’s just my take on it. The only people who really know aren’t saying and likely never will. Bridge burning isn’t a thing in IT as a rule since it’s all very project oriented and fluid.

I don’t view it as fishy. There were two big very different things to manage after Brack was fired so they put two people in place to do with it. Honestly I won’t be surprised if Ybarra’s tenure is relatively short.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I have no issues with the rest of your points, but on this one, it's already been shown in this thread that this is inaccurate. They base MAU's on account, not device. Logging into HS on PC and then logging in, with the same account, on mobile still only counts as 1 MAU.

Okay my bad, I was basing that on information from this thread that was posted much earlier in the thread. Thanks for the edit.

[munkeyinorbit]

So the copium is simply ignoring that its biased data. Just concede your initial statement was pure bullshit and the sec doesn't fine you for bias in data.

It would only be biased data if the definition had been changed from previous reports. It hasn't so it's just data. The spin is the comments about the data from blizzard. Everything that was said about the data is their interpretation to look good. Using the same data people can also put negative spin on it. It's up to the professionals to determine if things are going well and to act accordingly.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Citations and sources for all these claims please

Its on the front page? This very post we are posting on? So go look?

Or here you go: https://investor.activision.com/fina...rterly-results

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It would only be biased data if the definition had been changed from previous reports. It hasn't so it's just data. The spin is the comments about the data from blizzard. Everything that was said about the data is their interpretation to look good. Using the same data people can also put negative spin on it. It's up to the professionals to determine if things are going well and to act accordingly.

You mean like when ACTI stock dropped massively? Those professionals?

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/atvi