Activision Blizzard Q1 2021 Investor Call

[deenman]

Wrath had probably 5 times the amount of players than SL has. I still don't see it. I think you are thinking like a raid logger too, which Wrath had a good bit of, but a lot of the players were casual world content runners, crafters and altoholics in Wrath.

5 times the players at peak maybe(kinda a strech but sure)..but by their own statistics not the same activity,are you actualy implying they are lying?

[dope_danny]

What the fuck Overwatch League is still going?

[deenman]

What non chore stuff was there in Wrath? Keeping up professions is a chore. Dailies were a chore. Earning PvP points/currencies was a chore. Running your dungeons for valor was a chore. Farming gear to raid was a chore. Raiding weekly was chore.

Everything by design is a chore to keep you busy long enough to stay subbed for months on end.

In wrath i didnt play alts much,my main was done pretty quickly,pve and pvp wise,these days you are in a constant forced chore mode,back then you were actualy done fairly quickly if you were decent

by done i mean complete character

[McNeil]

Still would love to see the subs. I remember the golden days where this was the one metric that showed the game in a great state, without the cash shop and all these other services keeping the game afloat financially. Everywhere I go in game except occasionally Oribos is completely dead.

[Puupi]

5 times the players at peak maybe(kinda a strech but sure)..but by their own statistics not the same activity,are you actualy implying they are lying?

Probably changed their methodology/metrics since so they can dismiss old stats.

[Sentynel]

2000 want hire to work in Activision? Who the fuck is dumb enough to do it? xD

Uhmm... people who want to develop video games?

Putting ATVI on your resume is actually a pretty solid bullet point as they are one of the biggest companies in the industry.

[korijenkins]

"Early in the pandemic, Bobby shared his personal phone number with all Blizzard employees in case they needed anything"

There is no fucking way that actually happened. Just confirms what I already believed, that these "quarterly reports" is just the company spinning bad news as positively as possible and cherry picking numbers that make them look good.

Perfect example: 7% increased revenue with no mention of profit. The company is in shambles right now but they just want you to look at the 7% revenue increase as an indicator that everything is peachy!

[Gurbz]

"Early in the pandemic, Bobby shared his personal phone number with all Blizzard employees in case they needed anything"

There is no fucking way that actually happened. Just confirms what I already believed, that these "quarterly reports" is just the company spinning bad news as positively as possible and cherry picking numbers that make them look good.

Perfect example: 7% increased revenue with no mention of profit. The company is in shambles right now but they just want you to look at the 7% revenue increase as an indicator that everything is peachy!

It's an investor call. Revenue increase IS the most important thing to their investors, and as far as they are concerned if revenue is up and projected to stay high or rise further, everything is peachy. Also, IIRC the phone number thing was confirmed by Blizzard employees back when it actually happened.

[deenman]

Probably changed their methodology/metrics since so they can dismiss old stats.

well its only been growing over the years,i guess they change em every few months of expansion....just a sec my tinfoil hat just fell off

[Stardrift]

Still would love to see the subs. I remember the golden days where this was the one metric that showed the game in a great state, without the cash shop and all these other services keeping the game afloat financially. Everywhere I go in game except occasionally Oribos is completely dead.

Every expansion has always been like this lol. Outside world dead, cities booming.

[crusadernero]

Still would love to see the subs. I remember the golden days where this was the one metric that showed the game in a great state, without the cash shop and all these other services keeping the game afloat financially. Everywhere I go in game except occasionally Oribos is completely dead.

As it has often been. Its especially normal to not see out in the world this xpac, cause shadowlands world content is for the most part obsolete and all optional. Unless you collect mounts, pets and/or anima for cosmetics, you dont need to be out in the world. People do m+, bgs, arena, raid. Instanced content, cause thats where rewards are.

[dwarven]

Are you really surprised that Shadowlands is hugely successful on game sales alone (ignore player retention or concurrent users)? Especially with everyone quarantined at launch, starving for entertainment at the time?

Keep in mind they sold 3,7M copies at launch day.

A lot of people probably buy into the pre-expansion hype and impulse buy it, only to play sporadically across the expansion.

[Gouca]

More developers is what we truly need in the absence of support staff to resolute existing issues like blatant botting in WoW, +7 days ticket queues and zero live chat / phone support.

[willtron]

Bobby shared his number in case anyone needed anthing.

Yeah how about you split that 200 million bonus amongst your employees who actually did the work, you squalid fucking slug.

[Tesshin20]

I'm wondering how each new WoW expansion somehow does so much better than the last. Like, from every metric available to player it seems to be on a steady decline, even ignoring all the vitriole behind the community, it genuinly doesn't appear to be growing (though no falling as fast as people say).

Like are they using some weird metric?

Maybe not believe everything you read from people with negative intentions on wow forums and the like?

- - - Updated - - -

Bobby shared his number in case anyone needed anthing.

Yeah how about you split that 200 million bonus amongst your employees who actually did the work, you squalid fucking slug.

If you can do a better job than him. Why don't you apply for his position and be the moral light house for everyone to see. Oh let me guess. You don't want to sink to that low level for position like that?

[Onikaroshi]

Bobby shared his number in case anyone needed anthing.

Yeah how about you split that 200 million bonus amongst your employees who actually did the work, you squalid fucking slug.

He's not getting the bonus, he turned it down along with taking 50% pay cut to salary and yearly bonuses.

[ONCHEhap]

He's not getting the bonus, he turned it down along with taking 50% pay cut to salary and yearly bonuses.

He didn't turn anything down,and he didn't "take" anything.

The shareholders forced him to do these things,as they were already quite upset with how overpaid he was

[Darknessvamp]

What the fuck Overwatch League is still going?

Doesn't Blizzard have some sort of streaming rights contract with Youtube or Twitch? I'm pretty sure as dead as the audience for it is they have something contractual that requires them to keep it alive for several more years.

Also I'm surprised they signed a deal with Bilibili, I only hear terrible things about that community. Plus it doesn't help they've currently got controversy from some chinese teams threatening to throw their games over a Korean player because they don't like him.

[MoanaLisa]

Still would love to see the subs. I remember the golden days where this was the one metric that showed the game in a great state, without the cash shop and all these other services keeping the game afloat financially. Everywhere I go in game except occasionally Oribos is completely dead.

They changed their stats to be in line with their competition and so Activision / Blizzard would report out on a consistent platform for engagement and financials. That was, I'm sure largely driven by their acquisition of King (Candy Crush).

No one in the investment community gives one flying fuck about WoW's subscriptions. The stock is for the entire company, not just Blizzard, not just WoW.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Meh, if SL continues to perform well, I suppose one can expect the next expansion to follow its design and ideas.

Bad mojo for this fan of the game. Not that I'm surprised, not a single friend of mine that plays has anything bad to say about SL. It's usually the other way around, they burnout a month into the expansion whilst I play throughout. Oh well...