It's that time of year folks, companies are releasing their earning statements for the benefit of shareholders and accountants alike - which makes me wonder how I ended up doing a news write up for Activision-Blizzard's financials...anyway.
From the start of 2013 to the end of March, Activision Blizzard has seen an increase in profits, having earned a total of $1.324 Billion over the three months, which - according to Bobby Kotick - was "driven by continued consumer interest in all of our key franchises. Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm was the #1 PC game for the quarter."
Additionally, during the quarter, Blizzard's World of Warcraft remained the #1 subscription based MMORPG in the world with more than eight million subscribers", with further business highlights including Diablo 3's top 10 place in North America and Europe, Black Ops 2 being the #2 selling game for the quarter, Skylanders doing spectacularly well among the young audience, and both Hearthstone and CoD: Ghosts being announced.
The other real thing to note within this earnings report is that WoW's subscriber base has dropped significantly - around 1.3 million people. While it's still the number one subscriber MMO at this point, it does seem that Activision-Blizzard is realising that WoW may no longer be the company cash cow it once was, with Kotick quoted as saying "While we have had a solid start to the year, we now believe that the risks and uncertainties in the back half of 2013 are more challenging than our earlier view, especially in the holiday quarter. The shift in release dates of competing products, the disappointing launch of the Wii U™, uncertainties regarding next-generation hardware, and subscriber declines in our World of WarCraft business all raise concerns, as do continued challenges in the global economy. For these reasons, we remain cautious." He did, however, make a note in the audio announcement that Blizzard plans to release more frequent content for WoW to ensure that it remains interesting for current subscribers, and to potentially draw lapsed players back into the fold.
