author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
Two Hits Boosted Activision Blizzard's Results; Company Goes Against the Tide and Won't Lay Off Staff
We learned Activision Blizzard's financial results for last year. Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, among others, contributed to the achievement.
Activision Blizzard has been struggling lately, most notably the leaving of Chinese gaming market by ending its partnership with NetEase Games. Added to this is the publisher's acquisition by Microsoft, which worries a growing number of authorities. As it turns out, this has little to do with Activision Blizzard's revenues. From the recentfinancial report for 2022, we know that recent months have been very good for the corporation.
In the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, Activision Blizzard's revenue was $2.3 billion, which is a 7.9 percent improvement compared to the last three months of 2021. The approximate monthly number of active users of all Activision gamesduring the period was 389 million - an increase of 4.85 percent. The publisher's revenue for the full year 2022 is $7.5 billion (down 14.5 percent from 2021), while net profit is $1.5 billion (down 43.9 percent from a year ago).
Disliked but popular games
Two games released in 2022 contributed most to Activision Blizzard's financial success. The first is the moderately warmly received (only 57 percent positive reviews on Steam) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. As the publisher admitted, huge interest in the game is due in large part to the fact that it was released on Steam. Many previous installments in the series were only available on PC through the Battle.net launcher. Plans are underway to further develop the game, which has so far proven successful in keeping the community engaged.
The second title bringing in huge revenues for Activision Blizzard is Overwatch 2, released in early access in October. This free-to-play online FPS upset the players with microtransactions, but still millions decided to test the game. As in the case of CoD, players can count on new content - today began third season, introducing, among other things, a new map.
Also contributing to the huge revenue was the release of the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic and WoW: Dragonflight DLCs. And although sales of the latter were not as strong as those of the earlier Shadowlands, it was liked by the players. We also can't forget about Diablo Immortal, which despite its criticized business model within the first two weeks of its debut earned millions of dollars. Blizzard continues to introduce paid innovations to the game, most recently, for example, one that enables the players to store a greater number of items.
Activision's plans
Missing from the report was any mention of potential layoffs at Activision Blizzard, which have recently announced by, for example Amazon or Microsoft. So, in addition to financial success, this is good news for the employees.
Activision Blizzard seems inspired by its 2022 results and plans to achieve similar, if not better, results in future months. As the holding company's CEO Bobby Kotick stated:
"We are looking forward to this historic year, in which we will join forces with Microsoft. It will [...] enableus to succeed in an increasingly competitive gaming industry."
