author: Tom Borys
Activision Blizzard Achieves Record Value
Activision Blizzard can count the last few months as extremely successful. The company's value has never been so high, and its thanks to, in part, by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As PC Gamer reports, citing information from The Wall Street Journal, Activision Blizzard's estimated value just broke through the $72 billion mark, and it's historic. The company's stock now costs $95 per share - the most since 1984, when it was obviously much less. Since December 2020, Activision Blizzard's stock market value has been steadily rising. The success of one of the gaming industry's biggest giants has been influenced primarily by two factors: the pandemic and the growing microtransaction market.
While many other sectors of the economy are hitting rock bottom and thinking hard how to survive another lockdown, video game developers are celebrating success. Unsurprisingly, many of those in forced isolation are choosing games as a way to pass this period of boredom and inactivity. This phenomenon, among others, has enabled Activision Blizzard to climb to the top of the stock market charts.
More than half of the company's profits comes from microtransactions, which dominate the gaming market in 2020. As much as $1.2 billion was paid this way by users of Activision Blizzard's games in the last financial quarter. The bulk of the microtransaction revenue comes from last year's Call of Duty: Warzone, the first-ever free-to-play installment of the series on PC and consoles to boast massive popularity.
Activision Blizzard's success isn't an isolated case - the pandemic has also had a positive impact on overall game sales, with revenues exceeding 4 billion pounds for the first time in 2020 in the UK - more than the combined total of the movie and TV series market. If you want to know more about that, take a look at the 2020 gaing industry summary.
