Activision Blizzard Q1 2020 Earnings Call

[facefist]

How can something that comes out when its ready by definiton be delayed?

Delayed would be releasing it after it was ready.

People should stop putting imaginary dates in their heads and claim a release after that is a delay.

You'll understand when you get your first job with deadlines.

Delayed means that something is not ready/released when it was 1) supposed to be ready or 2) promised to be ready. Thus, it is delayed if it's released after 2020 because that is the date customers are currently given. "Delayed" has nothing to do with the product being finished or not.

You even see gaming companies use the term if the original release date is pushed forward...

[DesoPL]

Oh yeah... The mobile games are coming...

Whatever do what you want, i don't care.

[DarkBlade6]

You really want repeat of BfA rushed launch? Let them work until they say product is ready.

Also I don't get how Q4 is a news. We had "before December 31" message on pre-order (both BfA and Legion had "before September 21"). Last big patch launched really late in expansion lifetime compared to Legion and MoP. Last upgrade to legendary cloak is scheduled for 9th September.

If anything, some MMOChamps here, that always must come with doomer&gloomer version of reality (no matter how bad reality is), were rather spreading news about "certain" 2021 release. Good to know Q4 schedule remain intact so far, but I hope they are more flexible this time if something would go wrong during Beta like it went during BfA testing.

This is not old Blizzard we're talking here, they have deadline set by Activision and they don't care if the product is rushed
All they can do is polish the turd as much as possible but it's still gonna stink

[Gray_Matter]

Quater 1 is jan, feb, march btw.
and the qaurntine didnt start till march in a lot of places (april in others), so not very much.
Q2 is when we will see how much the qaunrtine did, (q2 is april, may, june)

(q3 is july, august, sept, and q4 is oct, nov, dec, just for reference)

There was over 150 million people under stay at home orders before the end of March. It doesn't matter if someone subs on the last day of March, they still count as a sub. The stay at home orders certainly helped Blizzards numbers in a big way. And yes, it will probably get higher in April.

- - - Updated - - -

Halfway through March for many. I think ours was officially March 10th or so. So its literally 20 days out of 90 that the stay-at-home order was in place. You aren't going to see a massive amount of MAU increase in 20 days, since the closures did not all happen at once.

Blizzard will see a person who subs on March 1 and March 29 in the same way from a financial perspective. That money has already been realized.

[MasterHamster]

Wish they could separate Retail and Classic for these numbers, to see how each are doing overall. Perhaps not in an earnings report but if there were some more detailed info somewhere.
Classic is niche, and I'm not really surprised it's stronger in the East than in the West (West prefers drop-in-and-play hack and slash, East prefers long-term rewarding grinds), but just how much of player engagement is largely only in one or the other?
I sure wouldn't be subscribed if it wasn't for Classic, but that also makes me a "MAU" for WoW as a whole, even tho 95% of my time logged in is in Classic instead of BFA (hey, can at least use that part of the sub to have a few hours of loot-rain)

Which is unfortunate, because I think game design paradigms would change if they looked more closely instead of counting everyone as a WoW MAU.
There's a lot of things for Blizzard to bring with them into the Shadowlands, if they really start looking at what works so well in Classic, and what it is that keeps players coming back.
But at least interviews with Ion makes it clear they are very much interested in the parts of Classic that creates the community feeling, and how to bring that back to Retail.

[Gamekeeper]

western culture more addicted to quick reward/dopamine kicks.

not just in wow

Not at all. I played wow in eastern server over 7 years, Eu for 4 years

Eastern culture has more addicted to quick play quick rewards just fast level up kind of stuffs.

of course, not just in Wow.

[Kralljin]

Which is unfortunate, because I think game design paradigms would change if they looked more closely instead of counting everyone as a WoW MAU.

Blizzard obviously has the numbers, they just don't share it.

I mean, let's pretend for a minute that they say "Classic is doing super well in comparison to retail"...which of these took up more money to develop?
Like, they would be essentially admitting that a team of a few software and server engineers that make a 15+ old code working on new infrastucture are more profitable than a team made up by over 60+ people.

It just makes the Executives look bad in front of the shareholders because they would be indirectly admitting that they've been fucking it up for the last 5+ years.

[Caerrona]

Wish they could separate Retail and Classic for these numbers, to see how each are doing overall.
Classic is niche, and I'm not really surprised it's stronger in the East than in the West (West prefers drop-in-and-play hack and slash, East prefers long-term rewarding grinds), but just how much of player engagement is largely only in one or the other?
I sure wouldn't be subscribed if it wasn't for Classic, but that also makes me a "MAU" for WoW as a whole. Can barely stand BFA for more than a few hours at a time, but for an earnings report it doesn't matter where I am logged on.

Which is unfortunate, because I think game design paradigms would change if they looked more closely instead of counting everyone as a WoW MAU.
But at least interviews with Ion makes it clear they are very much interested in the parts of Classic that creates the community feeling, and how to bring that back to Retail.

They will never do that cuz it would just make one version look "worse" and it will cause is one side of extremists nutjobs reeeeeeeeeing "i told you".

I'm not surprised at all that retail has more engagement in the west. Classic is outdated, clunky and grindy and fills a certain niche that not everyone will enjoy. That doesn't mean it has no value or merits but anyone with brain could see the twitch hype beasts insta quiting after the first month subs was up.

[erifwodahs]

Which is unfortunate, because I think game design paradigms would change if they looked more closely instead of counting everyone as a WoW MAU.
There's a lot of things for Blizzard to bring with them into the Shadowlands, if they really start looking at what works so well in Classic, and what it is that keeps players coming back.
But at least interviews with Ion makes it clear they are very much interested in the parts of Classic that creates the community feeling, and how to bring that back to Retail.

They tried some of that "grindy leveling" and little talent points for that leveling during start of Legion. Also they brought back questing for professions in dungeons as well as special quests for it. Class quests too as it used to be in Vanilla. They made dungeons relevant again, tho that be more of a Diablo influence I don't think that you can write everything off as of "Classic made this change" because they were already looking into it and Legion is certainly well received expansion so they were looking at their old selves already before classic even was announced. It looks like the cycle might continue - good - bad- good expansions. We shall see

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I bought WC3 Reforged.

But I take it you are taking this all very much to seriously. So I will just laugh and move on.

So you decided to pre-order a game which was plagued with problems while being developed. You could have gotten a refund, that's on you.

[Sanguinerd]

You expected the expansion to be released even earlier? It's most likely going to be in december and have a cata-esque release date.

People really can't read about here can they.. you're not the first to quote me and completely miss the part where I say "NOT THAT IT'S A SURPRISE" so no I didn't expect that, I just hoped for a pre-patch sooner seeing as how 8.3 is boring af.

But no worries, plenty of other shit to play.

[Beet]

Botting market is very active in classic in the east, many mass-bot classic and sell gold for real money as an income over there.

I don’t think you see how this works. If they botted for gold there then the gold they make there is only able to be sold to OTHER Chinese players because ya know they’re on the Chinese servers. You seem to be going off the idea that they are being counted as eastern players yet play on west servers or something. That isn’t how Blizzard would count it. An Asian player that is botting for gold to sell would be counted as western player since they’re subbed to the western servers.

[Edlarel]

I'm sorry, but even though I am not a native English speaker I could not resist:

It's "It's 'you're a retard'"

*Slow clap into thunderous applause* Thank you, lol. I needed that while I wake up for the day.

[Coldkil]

Well, it seems the turnover is done. After a downwards curve either people who don't like the game moved on or bit the bullet and just became part of the core playerbase. New players that are basically not used to how the game was are experiencing a new game and i don't exclude some returning ones.

If the playerbase keeps stabilizing, the game is going onward for a looooooooooong time. Personally, i have no fun anymore with it and it looks just more and more a mobile game riddled with layared systems to keep people online which i don't have the material time to tackle on - i am one that goes for 100% or doesn't even try, no middle ground.

But nice to see it still going. If anything, stable revenue means support for the other franchises (YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU D4 AND YOU BETTER BE DAMN GOOD).

[scelero]

Wish they could separate Retail and Classic for these numbers, to see how each are doing overall..

You do realize you have to buy World of Warcraft via retail to play on an official 'Classic' Realm. The same purchase gets you access to current realms as the game stands in BfA.

You can't separate, because when you pay for a subscription, you get them both. So they are the same thing.

You're wanting to create something out of nothing. Overall, the population as a whole support the progression of current realms. Why? Because everything will be used to developed new content on the current realms. Nothing the Classic population does will impact their game overall, it will only impact the current realm side of the game.

But yeah, when you buy a sub, you get access to all the realms. CLassic is a realm/server on RETAIL. Bfa is a realm/server on RETAIL.

[unbound]

"improved sequentially"

"increased meaningfully"

"strong execution in live operations."

Ill have to remember these for when I have to downplay bad news at work. Genius stuff.

That's what the PR department gets paid for. I even get a chuckle out of the bullet points...each by themselves sounds pretty good for Blizzard, but when you consider them together, you realize that it can't be nearly as rosy as hinted.

If the MAUs haven't changed from Q4 to Q1 then the 3rd bullet means less than they are trying to portray it (likely a minuscule growth...and I'm ignoring the obvious lie of "...as the team continued to deliver more content between expansions than ever before". And the 4th bullet similarly means much less than they are trying to portray and obviously means that "non-key" properties lost as much as "key" properties gained.

The reality is that the MAUs for Blizz hasn't statistically changed in over a year now.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

So you decided to pre-order a game which was plagued with problems while being developed. You could have gotten a refund, that's on you.

So now my hunch you are taking this way to seriously is confirmed.

It is ok man. I don't have a dog in the race either way.

I didn't even buy the game if it makes you feel better. I just say things sarcastically and it is harmless unless someone like you comes along and highlights it for the world to see dozens of more times.

- - - Updated - - -

WC3 Refunded?

WC3 REFUELLLED!

[Liftinmammals]

Covid-19 response? Lol. Gosh, the entire world is being suckered right now by these global elites pushing this shit causing a lockdown on the entire planet. Wake up people. This is all bullshit that has been blown of proportion to cause society to turn into a bunch of government wanking hermits. Get outside, live life, open your businesses, and start being free people. These corporations that are going with the flow of this are falling in an orderly line with this agenda that has been set in motion years ago. Head up, people. This ain’t shit.

[Zolaris192]

Your a retard it means blizzard is still winning even in 2020 feels good man!

"30 million less MAU" and you think that's winning lmao

[shoc]

"30 million less MAU" and you think that's winning lmao

Activision is down 30 mil which I expected because all of their recent titles have been trash. but Blizzard MAUs have been a flat line for years. The only new thing they released in 2019 was Diablo 3 on Nintendo Switch so I don't think it's that bad. 2020 will bring Shadowlands, and likely Overwatch 2 beta by late 2020, that's going to push the numbers up big time.

According to some other site, COVID has been good for the gaming business overall. "While Activision Blizzard reported net revenues down about 2% to $1.79 billion for the quarter ended March 31, net bookings -- the total amount consumers spent on the company's products without deferring revenue as required by GAAP -- were up almost 21% year-over-year to $1.52 billion."