The maker of Call of Duty and Diablo Immortal posted its Q2 2022 earnings online and the results show a slightly better than expected quarter, but year-over-year revenue is down. However, that’s to be expected in the post-covid era.
Looking at the earnings report, the latest installment in the Diablo Series seems to be doing well, collecting well over $100 million on mobile alone, but the overall revenue of Activision Blizzard for this quarter is down to $1.64 billion, from $2.29 billion in Q1 2021. Experts say the drop is due to the latest entry to the Call of Duty franchise doing badly. Call of Duty: Vanguard wasn’t that well received by the fans, and despite raking in money for the gaming giant, it did poorly by Call of Duty standards.
Activision Blizzard will launch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on October 2, and fans are already eager to get their hands on the new CoD game. The first Modern Warfare (to be more specific, the 2019 version) sold over 30 million units in its first year alone and was a big success and Activision expects the second entry to be a major hit too, but game releases can go sideways unexpectedly, the industry has seen it happen enough many times already by now.
Diablo Immortal bringing all the hot cash wasn’t enough to close the big gap year-over-year, but with the game finally being released in China at the end of July 2022, analysts expect a rise in download numbers of Diablo Immortal, as well as the revenue.
If everything goes smoothly, Activision Blizzard will be acquired by Microsoft within this financial year, but the main rival Sony isn’t thrilled about the acquisition and fears losing Call of Duty, one of its main third-party money makers.
The gaming giant was expected to make about $$1.59 billion in this quarter but scored a $1.64 billion revenue. However, earnings per share were down by a point ($0.47) than what the analysts expected ($0.48).
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that the company grew its headcount 25% year-over-year, while most other tech and gaming companies were announcing hiring freezes and layoffs.
