Looks like the past year has not been too kind financially to Activision Blizzard. Who could’ve seen this coming?
As reported by Gamespot, the publisher/developer released its latest financial report for the last quarter ending March 31. According to the report, Activision Blizzard’s revenue in comparison to the same period last year was significantly lower, with the same drop being seen in active monthly users. Gamespot writes:
For the quarter ending March 31, Activision Blizzard had revenue of $1.77 billion, compared to $2.28 billion during the same period last year. Net bookings, meanwhile, amounted to $1.48 billion, down from $2.07 billion last year. In-game net bookings came in at $1.01 billion, a decrease from $1.34 billion.
With monthly active users for the period, Activision Blizzard reported 372 million players. This is, of course, still a lot, but is a drop of roughly 63 million players in comparison to the previous period’s 435 million monthly active users.
There are likely myriad reasons for this drop in revenue and users. Activision has stated that sales for Call of Duty: Vanguard were noticeably lower than Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Call of Duty: Warzone wasn’t doing them any favours either. Blizzard attributes their decrease in revenue to a lack of major releases. On the other hand, Candy Crush developer King saw its revenue and userbase continue to grow.
Another potential contributor to Activision Blizzard’s drop in revenue and monthly active users could also be the internal issues reported at the company in the past year involving allegations of misconduct, and controversies surrounding CEO Bobby Kotick. While many have chosen to separate the art from the CEO in this instance, there are still plenty of people that decided to abstain from Activision Blizzard releases in the wake of these allegations.
Source: Gamespot
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