Activision Blizzard Q1 2021 Investor Call

[bluspacecow]

It's notable because Kotick also took a huge paycut. It's shameless fishing for PR, but it would be of interest to investors to know since that sort of stuff inspires market faith in the company's continued performance at a time when they've been taking it on the chin in the news.

The pay cut wasn't done as a PR move.

Sure it makes for good optics but the reality is it was done after 12 months of feedback and over 70 meetings with their shareholders. This is after they only got 57% support for their 2020 compensation program.

I think gamers sometimes forget that not everything a game company does is about them. Sometimes it's about having to fulfill a company's fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

[Nerovar]

That will happen to a design studio that doesn't release much of anything over three years. Blizzard's real problem is that they're not releasing any new games. Expansions are fine but audience growth is in new IP's, something they haven't done in five years. Overwatch was the last (May 3, 2016).

Hey, they realized WC3 reforged last year.

[Skandulous]

The implicit assumption here is that the drop in MAU is all about WoW. In fact, we don't know how much of that drop is in WoW, how much is in Hearthstone, Overwatch or the Diablo franchise. It's a total number for Blizzard's available titles, not a measurement of how WoW is doing at all. WoW could be up for all we know and the drop has to do with Hearthstone / Overwatch. There is simply no hard data to support how WoW is really doing. Same for microtransactions. How much is the WoW shop? How much is Hearthstone cards and expansions? How much is Overwatch? Again, we have no idea how it all splits out.

I'd very much like to see all of that but that seems very unlikely. Everyone posting on these forums needs to really get over the fact that when these financial performance numbers come out they're not all about World of Warcraft.

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That will happen to a design studio that doesn't release much of anything over three years. Blizzard's real problem is that they're not releasing any new games. Expansions are fine but audience growth is in new IP's, something they haven't done in five years. Overwatch was the last (May 3, 2016).

There's a reason why they stopped showing sub numbers and there's a reason they lumped all Blizzards MAUs into one.

[Osmeric]

That can explain the loss of MAUs, but not earning increase.

If there are less players, but higher revenue, where did the money come from?

More micro-transaction.

I suspect they earn a lot from server transfers.

[Monstafish2k]

Blizzard is in a state of managed decline. Activision gonna squeeze every last penny out of TBC, maybe release the last WoW Addon next year and then sell Blizzard for cheap in 2023.
I bet Kotik would like to sell Blizzard 2022 already. Mark my words.

Every other companies got more MAUs in the last 12months because of corona and because of it people playing more games. But Blizzard managed to lose 5million MAUs within that year... thats an OOF never seen before.

[rrayy]

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

They didn't force him to do squat. The only ones made about how much he was making are irrelevant people squealing on message boards.

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Blizzard is in a state of managed decline. Activision gonna squeeze every last penny out of TBC, maybe release the last WoW Addon next year and then sell Blizzard for cheap in 2023.
I bet Kotik would like to sell Blizzard 2022 already. Mark my words.

Every other companies got more MAUs in the last 12months because of corona and because of it people playing more games. But Blizzard managed to lose 5million MAUs within that year... thats an OOF never seen before.

Not going to happen. And you also don't know how the comapny is set up. Activision and Blizzard are two separate companies under one roof so Activision can't sell Blizzard. I will mark your words because they will be wrong.

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There's a reason why they stopped showing sub numbers and there's a reason they lumped all Blizzards MAUs into one.

They stopped showing sub numbers because it was no longer anad end all/be all metrtic to show game health with all the different ways the game makes money. People need to stop with this nonsense because it is nothing more than an ignorant conspiracy theory.

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The implicit assumption here is that the drop in MAU is all about WoW. In fact, we don't know how much of that drop is in WoW, how much is in Hearthstone, Overwatch or the Diablo franchise. It's a total number for Blizzard's available titles, not a measurement of how WoW is doing at all. WoW could be up for all we know and the drop has to do with Hearthstone / Overwatch. There is simply no hard data to support how WoW is really doing. Same for microtransactions. How much is the WoW shop? How much is Hearthstone cards and expansions? How much is Overwatch? Again, we have no idea how it all splits out.

I put money on Overwatch being the problem.

[Lolites]

This. But there is a big "but".
Hearthstone with an introduction of Battlegrounds is doing better than before.
Starcraft and Diablo scene is too small to make a serious dip in numbers.
Overwatch was already half dead throughout 2020.
WoW classic was doing really good in the early 2020 and later with Naxxramas.

So with above mentioned I would not be surprised if SL has lower numbers than BfA.

it might, it might not, i for one think that MAUS droping each quarter last year can have a lot to do with classic, which is doing admirably for what it is, but weve seen on realms how people were gradualy loosing interest...

but after all, thats all gueswork, only fact is from MAUs we have no clue which game/franchise is doing how

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I wonder if any developers called up Bobby wondering why they didnt get their bonuses but Bobby got his 200m.

i wonder if they called you to tell you they didnt get bonuses, or how the hell you actualy know that...

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There's a reason why they stopped showing sub numbers and there's a reason they lumped all Blizzards MAUs into one.

yes, and the reason is the information is FOR INVESTORS... investors dont give a fuck about sub numbers for 1 of 5 games or which franchise is doing well and which is dying, they care about the company as WHOLE...

as for not giving sub numbers, which MMO actualy publicise them?
they said multiple times they dont do that bcs its not their primary metric, and tbh can you blame them for not telling community which is prone to jump to stupid conclusions?

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Blizzard is in a state of managed decline.

lol... you might not like it bcs hating on them is mainstream, but blizzard is financialy doing very well...
its actualy even mentioned in the investors call itself, but i guess drawing conclusions without actualy reading the post is norm to some people...

[Osmeric]

Activision and Blizzard are two separate companies under one roof so Activision can't sell Blizzard.

If you mean the Activision part of Activision-Blizzard cannot sell Blizzard, then yes.

But if you mean Activision-Blizzard itself, nonsense. Activision-Blizzard owns Blizzard entirely. Of course it can be sold, in whole or in part.

Who did you THINK owned Blizzard, if not ATVI?

[ONCHEhap]

If you mean the Activision part of Activision-Blizzard cannot sell Blizzard, then yes.

But if you mean Activision-Blizzard itself, nonsense. Activision-Blizzard owns Blizzard entirely. Of course it can be sold, in whole or in part.

Who did you THINK owned Blizzard, if not ATVI?

Yeah,that's a common misconception people have.

Activision and Blizzard are separate,but they're both owned by Activision-Blizzard

[Niwes]

/yawn
/10chars

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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?

4 weeks before the last wow server is shutdown in 2027, you will read exactly the same polished text for share holders. i know ppl from small companies (my old company hired them), doing that (writing such texts) full day for money. ppl with psychological and foremost juristic background write such texts for companies, to be offered the share holders. their job base on the fact that they have to write a text that not including any lies that are juristically not true while also let it shine most possible, by doing clever maths and smart wording. you can make a huge amount of money, by designing such texts.

or in short: you will NEVER see a text like „...even more worse year for year for year.... loose profit....“ for ANY share holder report aka earnings call. never. not even in a company that already closing their doors. thats the nature of the financial and management BS game.

but all share holders know this. 12 year old gamers not. its like the testimonials at work. all ppl in the personnel management section know how to read them. normal employees mostly not. often you contact a lawyer, specified in that rights, to translate it to you. share holder reports are ca. the same thing.

so, in short: you can totally piss on that texts. its just multibillion dollar company BS. nothing more.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I wonder if any developers called up Bobby wondering why they didnt get their bonuses but Bobby got his 200m.

They moved bonuses into the normal salary's some years ago so hopefully they would have kept upto day on how there pay works and wouldn't need to ask.

[Niwes]

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

long term / older devs ? no one. them/we (i am one by myself) know why.

younger or short term devs do that, using it as startup/pushup. when you can get into a top200 and work there for 2-3 years, especially early in your career, your portpholio for the rest of your life will be valued over average. its a form of „investment“ for the rest of your life/carreer. thats the reason why so many young devs wanna go to Microsoft, Google etc. I know ppl, from the Linux world, that HATE Microsoft, but tried hard to get into MS for 2-3 years, that it opens the doors for the companies they later REALLY wanna work at.

thats normal career shit...

[Osmeric]

Yeah,that's a common misconception people have.

Activision and Blizzard are separate,but they're both owned by Activision-Blizzard

And Kotick, who calls the shots, is the CEO of Activision-Blizzard.

[Skandulous]

They didn't force him to do squat. The only ones made about how much he was making are irrelevant people squealing on message boards.

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Not going to happen. And you also don't know how the comapny is set up. Activision and Blizzard are two separate companies under one roof so Activision can't sell Blizzard. I will mark your words because they will be wrong.

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They stopped showing sub numbers because it was no longer anad end all/be all metrtic to show game health with all the different ways the game makes money. People need to stop with this nonsense because it is nothing more than an ignorant conspiracy theory.

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I put money on Overwatch being the problem.

game health and profit are 2 different things

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it might, it might not, i for one think that MAUS droping each quarter last year can have a lot to do with classic, which is doing admirably for what it is, but weve seen on realms how people were gradualy loosing interest...

but after all, thats all gueswork, only fact is from MAUs we have no clue which game/franchise is doing how

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i wonder if they called you to tell you they didnt get bonuses, or how the hell you actualy know that...

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yes, and the reason is the information is FOR INVESTORS... investors dont give a fuck about sub numbers for 1 of 5 games or which franchise is doing well and which is dying, they care about the company as WHOLE...

as for not giving sub numbers, which MMO actualy publicise them?
they said multiple times they dont do that bcs its not their primary metric, and tbh can you blame them for not telling community which is prone to jump to stupid conclusions?

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lol... you might not like it bcs hating on them is mainstream, but blizzard is financialy doing very well...
its actualy even mentioned in the investors call itself, but i guess drawing conclusions without actualy reading the post is norm to some people...

they gave them out all the time in investor calls before thast is untill they started steadily bleeding subs

[FelPlague]

That can explain the loss of MAUs, but not earning increase.

If there are less players, but higher revenue, where did the money come from?

More micro-transaction.

Idk blizzcon made some good money im sure. So did people pre-ordering diablo 2, people buyying shadowlands, people returning to the game, less free to play players playing games, etc.

[javierdsv]

So, they just lost 5 million active players in 1 year. Nice.

[shise]

You think all 7 billion people even want to play video games lol?

I was talking about classic not vanilla.

Classic spiked super hard, massive queues on servers despite multiple layers raising the population cap. Then 2 months later all layers are removed and only a few servers have some prime time queues.

Where did all the players go that drove the need for multiple layers and queues???

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WoW subs definitely go down after spiking after then expansion launch.

But nobody seems to even care or talk about how Blizzard MAUs cover 5 other video games. It’s just assumed everything is WoW.

Overwatch, hearthstone, etc have never lost players I guess? It’s just WoW?

My bad, was thinking about vanilla.

But, tbh, classic is crowded with players. I am in Firemaw Alliance EU and the place is simply crowded, is not even a "full" server. PvP ques are quick, the world is full of people leveling and the cities are also full. Heard the same from other realms too.

[T-34]

game health and profit are 2 different things

No, they are exactly the same thing.
Without profit a company will go out of business and the game will be shut down.
Without profit a company will not invest in further development of its product and no new content or expansions will be made and then the game will be shut down.

If we want WoW to exist for many years in the future the only thing that is relevant for us players is whether the game is profitable or not.
What I read from this managment-speak "investor call" - I hate managment speak - is that WoW is still making good money for Blizzard and that ensures that the game I like will exist for the foreseeable future.

I want Bobby to get a fat bonus check, not because I love him - I consider him less worthy than my dangleberries, but because that will ensure that WoW will survive.

[MoanaLisa]

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

They wouldn't be working for Activision per se. They would be working for whatever studio hires them. A lot of the new jobs will be in Europe supposedly. Other comments about having a major studio on your resume is quite true. Spending a couple of years at Blizzard opens a lot of doors for future employment.

[rrayy]

They wouldn't be working for Activision per se. They would be working for whatever studio hires them. A lot of the new jobs will be in Europe supposedly. Other comments about having a major studio on your resume is quite true. Spending a couple of years at Blizzard opens a lot of doors for future employment.

Activision-Blizzard is who people are applying to. People here don't seem to understand that Blizzard and Activision are two separate gaming compnanies under that roof and continue to falsely believe that Activision owns everything when it isn't the case.