{"id":4359,"date":"2022-08-02T03:16:39","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T03:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/02\/activision-blizzards-quarterly-revenue-steeply-declines-but-call-of-duty-will-come-to-the-rescue\/"},"modified":"2022-08-02T03:16:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T03:16:39","slug":"activision-blizzards-quarterly-revenue-steeply-declines-but-call-of-duty-will-come-to-the-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/02\/activision-blizzards-quarterly-revenue-steeply-declines-but-call-of-duty-will-come-to-the-rescue\/","title":{"rendered":"Activision Blizzard&#8217;s quarterly revenue steeply declines, but Call of Duty will come to the rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Activision Blizzard saw declines in revenue and operating income during the second financial quarter of 2022, with $1.64 billion revenue, compared to the $2.3 billion it made during the same period in 2021. To recover from that drop, a lot hinges on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, both of which will release in the company&#8217;s next financial quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With those Call of Duty games around the corner, that substantial drop probably isn&#8217;t causing too much sweat around Activision HQ. It&#8217;s fair to say that 2022&#8217;s Modern Warfare 2 will make bank for the company, as its 2019 predecessor was &#8220;the most successful Call of Duty title to date,&#8221; according to Activision&#8217;s report. The earnings drop is also in keeping with a notable decline across the industry as a whole, which experienced a massive 26% expansion at the height of the Covid pandemic, according to Ampere data (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/07\/07\/video-game-industry-not-recession-proof-sales-set-to-fall-in-2022.html\">CNBC<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The industry has since contracted for a number of reasons: fears of recession abound, and both Sony and Microsoft are still struggling to meet demand for their new consoles. Also, the end of lockdowns has lessened demand for homebody-friendly entertainment. Closer to home, Call of Duty: Vanguard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/activision-says-call-of-duty-vanguard-did-not-meet-expectations-due-to-our-own-execution\/\">didn&#8217;t meet expectations<\/a>, with Activision Blizzard&#8217;s 2021 annual report stating that the company &#8220;didn&#8217;t deliver as much innovation in the premium game as we would have liked.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During the second financial quarter, Activision Blizzard games attracted 361 million monthly active users. Interestingly, the company writes that &#8220;over half&#8221; of Diablo Immortal&#8217;s player base are new to Activision Blizzard games. That makes sense: despite the game&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/blizzard-defends-diablo-immortal-microtransactions-as-it-hits-15m-downloads\/\">egregious microtransactions<\/a>, it&#8217;s estimated to have made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/diablo-immortal-hits-30-million-players-estimated-to-have-raked-in-over-dollar100-million\/\">over $100 million<\/a>, with 30 million players.<\/p>\n<p>The report is otherwise pretty unsurprising. Slightly noteworthy is that Warzone 2.0 will be &#8220;tightly integrated&#8221; with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, though that could just mean the games will share cross-progression, and themed events, just like Warzone and Call of Duty: Vanguard did. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/diablo-4-everything-we-know\/\">Diablo 4<\/a> is still planned for launch in 2023, and both World of Warcraft and WoW Classic will see expansions by the end of the year. \u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[#item_image]Activision Blizzard&#8217;s quarterly revenue steeply declines, but Call of Duty will come to the rescue<!-- wp:html --><\/p>\n<p>Activision Blizzard saw declines in revenue and operating income during the second financial quarter of 2022, with $1.64 billion revenue, compared to the $2.3 billion it made during the same period in 2021. To recover from that drop, a lot hinges on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, both of which will release in the company&#8217;s next financial quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With those Call of Duty games around the corner, that substantial drop probably isn&#8217;t causing too much sweat around Activision HQ. It&#8217;s fair to say that 2022&#8217;s Modern Warfare 2 will make bank for the company, as its 2019 predecessor was &#8220;the most successful Call of Duty title to date,&#8221; according to Activision&#8217;s report. The earnings drop is also in keeping with a notable decline across the industry as a whole, which experienced a massive 26% expansion at the height of the Covid pandemic, according to Ampere data (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/07\/07\/video-game-industry-not-recession-proof-sales-set-to-fall-in-2022.html\">CNBC<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The industry has since contracted for a number of reasons: fears of recession abound, and both Sony and Microsoft are still struggling to meet demand for their new consoles. Also, the end of lockdowns has lessened demand for homebody-friendly entertainment. Closer to home, Call of Duty: Vanguard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/activision-says-call-of-duty-vanguard-did-not-meet-expectations-due-to-our-own-execution\/\">didn&#8217;t meet expectations<\/a>, with Activision Blizzard&#8217;s 2021 annual report stating that the company &#8220;didn&#8217;t deliver as much innovation in the premium game as we would have liked.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During the second financial quarter, Activision Blizzard games attracted 361 million monthly active users. Interestingly, the company writes that &#8220;over half&#8221; of Diablo Immortal&#8217;s player base are new to Activision Blizzard games. That makes sense: despite the game&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/blizzard-defends-diablo-immortal-microtransactions-as-it-hits-15m-downloads\/\">egregious microtransactions<\/a>, it&#8217;s estimated to have made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/diablo-immortal-hits-30-million-players-estimated-to-have-raked-in-over-dollar100-million\/\">over $100 million<\/a>, with 30 million players.<\/p>\n<p>The report is otherwise pretty unsurprising. Slightly noteworthy is that Warzone 2.0 will be &#8220;tightly integrated&#8221; with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, though that could just mean the games will share cross-progression, and themed events, just like Warzone and Call of Duty: Vanguard did. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/diablo-4-everything-we-know\/\">Diablo 4<\/a> is still planned for launch in 2023, and both World of Warcraft and WoW Classic will see expansions by the end of the year. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:html --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bwgamespot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}