Marty O’Donnell comes out to give his two cents.
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Tag: Activision
Activision Blizzard Q4 Finances: Lesser Billions
Activision Blizzard has released their fourth quarter financial reports and if you were hoping the company would burn to the ground following last year’s Hearthstone debacle, well you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
The positive side of this year’s Q4 report is that Activision didn’t pair an announcement of record revenues with hundreds of layoffs. We still expect the company to siphon a few hundred million in taxpayer dollars for simply existing in 2019. Unfortunately Activision hasn’t been able to keep up its record results from last year as the company has seen multiple straight quarters of revenue loss. Sad for the investors, but since Activision isn’t infinitely expanding not quite a surprise.
Despite this, Q4 results exceeded expectations according to Bobby Kotick.
“Our fourth quarter results exceeded our prior outlook for both revenue and earnings per share,” said Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard. “Our recent Call of Duty® success illustrates the scale of our growth potential, as we expanded the community to more players in more countries on more platforms than ever before. With our strong content pipeline across our franchises and momentum in mobile, esports, and advertising, we look forward to continuing to delight our players, fans and stakeholders in 2020 and beyond.”
Net revenue dropped from $2.3 billion for Q4 2018 to $1.98 billion in 2019, while overall net bookings similarly fell. Activision boasted a monthly average user rate of 409 million with a large portion coming from King (249 million) and of course the ongoing success of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch.
Investors are happy because Activision increased dividend payouts by 11% and you have to focus on the important things.
Source: Activision
Not Massive: Blizzard Offers Instant Warcraft 3 Refunds
Insert your speculation on their motivation here.
Warcraft 3 Reforged is the latest fiasco in Activision Blizzard’s ongoing saga titled “How To Show Contempt For And Lose Customers,” and it looks like someone at Blizzard wised up over the weekend and decided to go halfway to doing the right thing. According to users over at Reddit, Blizzard has activated instant refunds for Warcraft III: Reforged, with requests going through almost instantly (within a minute, which is basically instant in customer service terms).
Blizzard seems so enthusiastic about refunding Warcraft 3 that one user received a refund for their Warcraft 3 purchase when they actually contacted customer support to refund a World of Warcraft token they had purchased. Similar to Fallout 76 receiving a satirical website, someone has gone ahead and created a Warcraft 3 website roasting the game as well as Blizzard’s perceived anti-consumer sentiments.
Have you tried to refund your Warcraft 3 purchase? Let us know in the comments below.
It’s Official: Gamers Hate Warcraft 3 More Than Digital Homicide
Digital Homicide will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing blights on the gaming industry. Since one of the two Romines has decided to put himself back into the public eye by publishing propaganda about the company’s short-lived history, now is as good of a time as any to bring up the company’s titles in reference to…Warcraft 3?
Yes, Warcraft 3. Following Blizzard’s PR nightmare last year regarding Hearthstone and Blitzchung, the company finds itself once again being nearly universally roasted over the release of Warcraft 3: Reforged. You name it, customers are probably angry over it. Misleading advertising, reduced animations, broken servers, merging the remake with the original client, Blizzard’s EULA stating they own any mod you make, the list goes on and on and on.
But you know the proverbial shinola has hit the fan when your AAA game is rated lower than Digital Homicide’s worst-rated title. More than 10,000 people have voted on Warcraft 3 on Metacritic and have given the game a 0.6 rating. By contrast DigiHom’s lowest rated game is The Slaughtering Grounds which stands at a 0.9.
Yes, Warcraft 3 is viewed less favorably than a developer that tried to launch frivolous lawsuits against 100 Steam uses and a Youtube critic for being mean.
Streaming Buddies: Activision Blizzard Partners With Google Cloud
Google and Activision Blizzard today announced that the two companies will be joining forces to power new player experiences. Activision Blizzard will use Google Cloud services to power their game hosting infrastructures while Youtube will play exclusive host to live broadcasts of eSports and other events (excluding China). In other words, Youtube will be hosting Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone, and others.
Call of Duty’s inaugural league kicks off today (January 24) at 2p.m. PST where twelve teams will face off in Minnesota with Overwatch League following on February 8.
“We’ve worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience,” said Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud. “We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world.”
Activision boasts that the cloud will allow gamers to play their favorite titles with low latency and packet loss.
“This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world,” said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. “It’s our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube’s powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment.”
Source: Press Release
In 2018, Activision Blizzard Got $228 Million From Taxpayers For Existing
If you live in the United States and thought you could get away with not giving Activision money simply by not buying their products, you’re in for a nasty surprise.
ITEP, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, posted a list of 60 companies avoiding all federal income taxes in 2018.
“For decades, profitable Fortune 500 companies have manipulated the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report provides the first comprehensive look at how corporate tax changes under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect the scale of corporate tax avoidance. The report finds that in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest corporations zeroed out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income. Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion.”
Activision Blizzard notably started out 2019 with the best results in company history, which they celebrated by firing nearly a thousand workers. While celebrating their major financial success and putting hundreds of people out of work, Activision also wound up claiming a -51% effective tax rate. Yes, Activision got $228 million from US taxpayers simply for existing.
We should all get a ride on Bobby Kotick’s private plane. We helped pay for it after all.
Source: ITEP
Call of Duty, WoW Classic Make Activision Blizzard Mucho Dinero
The success of World of Warcraft Classic could only come as a shock to J. Allen “You think you do but you don’t” Brack, but to the rest of the world the idea that the classic servers brought back a lot of players isn’t surprising in the least.
Activision released their third quarter statements for 2019 and the results are pretty great for them. With sales from Call of Duty BLOPS 4 and WWII still strong and World of Warcraft Classic leading the way, Activision hauled in $1.28 billion dollars compared to $1.51 billion in 2018. World of Warcraft Classic drove subscriptions to its highest quarterly increase in franchise history while Candy Crush somehow continues to grow in revenue. In addition, the launch of Call of Duty Mobile has been a major success in terms of downloads and revenue.
Despite recent controversy, Blizzard has created a good amount of hype with the announcement of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV at this year’s Blizzcon.
The quarter ends on September 30 and does not reflect any potential consumer reaction to the Blitzchung Hearthstone controversy, nor does it include sales from the latest Modern Warfare title.
Source: Activision report
Falling Out #4: To Hell and Back…To HR
On this episode of Falling Out, Bobby Kotick comes face to face with a force so evil that even he is powerless…Human Resources.
Sprites created by Stephen Challener (Open Game Art)
Activision Blizzard Celebrates Record Results With Mass Layoffs
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick announced in an investor earnings call today that the company will lay off nearly 800 employees, mostly in non-game-development areas. The layoffs are expected to impact Activision, Blizzard, and King studios. The decision comes after the company achieved “record results” in 2018, however not as high as investors had hoped for.
Last year Activision parted ways with Bungie following the less than stellar launch of Destiny 2’s latest expansion. Last year’s announcement of Diablo Immortal, a mobile spinoff in development in conjunction with Netease, was very poorly received. Black Ops IIII meanwhile has proven to be very popular with its Blackout battle royale mode.
Bobby Kotick stated:
“While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.”
MMO Fallout sends our regards to those affected by the layoffs. In response to the layoff announcement, support has been pouring in from around the internet with various developers posting their job openings and offering assistance to those affected. According to Activision, laid of employees will receive a severance package, health benefits, and career placement assistance. Activision stocks jumped by about $2 in after-hours trading.
The recently unemployed (or even others) are encouraged to check out this Google doc in which dozens of developers have been listed with openings.
Bungie Announces Split From Activision, Retains Destiny IP
To the surprise of just about everyone, Bungie made the announcement today that they are splitting ways with Activision, with the former retaining publishing rights and control of the Destiny game going forward. In a joint statement released alongside this news, Activision/Bungie noted “going forward, Bungie will own and develop the franchise, and Activision will increase its focus on owned IP and other projects. Activision and Bungie are committed to a seamless transition for the Destiny franchise and will continue to work closely together during the transition on behalf of the community of Destiny players around the world.”
Activision stock has dropped nearly 7% after trading hours following this announcement.
Source: Activision Press Release
MMO Fallout 