Vivendi Games reports profits

Blizzard's continuing WOW factor boosts parent company yet again.

Vivendi Games, the French conglomerate that owns Blizzard, has today reported its unaudited revenue information for the full year 2006, showing that revenues were once again on the rise. The games division revenue was up 25.4 percent from the previous year to 804 million euros (about $1 billion) for the full year 2006.

This increase was--perhaps unsurprisingly--primarily due to Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, which the company describes as "the most popular MMORPG around the world." During 2006, the game experienced strong growth across all the regions where it was played. Its Burning Crusade expansion pack was released on January 16, selling 2.4 million copies in its first 24 hours and becoming the fastest-selling PC game to date in both America and Europe.

The Vivendi Games division also had the biggest year-on-year increase of all Vivendi's divisions. The Universal Music Group was up 1.3 percent to nearly 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion), TV company Canal+ Group was up 7.7 percent to 3.6 billion euros ($4.7 billion), SFR was down 0.1 percent to 8.7 billion euros ($11.2 billion), and Maroc Telecom was up 10.4 percent to 2.1 billion euros ($2.7 billion).

World of Warcraft recently announced that it now has 8 million active subscribers. It can be played in six different languages and is available in North America, Europe, China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Other Vivendi games that the company said performed well during 2006 were Scarface: The World Is Yours, Ice Age 2, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, Eragon, and F.E.A.R.

For the fourth quarter of 2006, which the company also reported today, Vivendi Games made revenues of 326 million euros ($422 million), up 33.1 percent from the same quarter the previous year.

38 Comments

  • Vertigto

    Posted Feb 6, 2007 12:47 pm PT

    Blizzard does not charge the same in all countries, so $14 a month is only US, Europe , Korea etc.

    In china people pay about $5 dollars a month, so half of the WoW population pays a third of the 15 bucks.

    Source:
    http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/55135.html

  • Alcotamaysees

    Posted Feb 4, 2007 9:06 pm PT

    Yeah that's alot of money.

  • Acemaster27

    Posted Feb 4, 2007 12:41 am PT

    "Vivendi Games reports profits"

    well... duh

    where else do u think my $15 a month is going?

  • Naggeh

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 1:01 pm PT

    IN YOUR FACES EQ2 fanboys! WOW>EQ2!!!

  • Ironwulfen

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 12:13 pm PT

    SmallPower, are you done releasing gas?

  • akazergling2

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 11:39 am PT

    Keinuveye, there are rumors it's headed there next however the Japanese gaming industry is fiercely constrained because of their loyalty to local gaming companies such as Sega, Sony, and Nintendo. if you remember the launch of the Xbox in japan Microsoft only made 60% of their projected sales causing them to actually lose quite a bit of cash. I believe that blizzard will at least find many consumers there however I doubt it's their top priority because of the risk involved in going to a country with it's track record. Not that I'm anti-Japanese, I love the culture...food...tv, just saying that it's a risk that blizzard is slow to take. That being said blizzard rox my sox! I wish they were independent of vivendii but meh, viv hasn't stood in their way before in any extreme way and hopefully will increase blizzard's spending budget in the future.

  • darkmagicianx5

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 9:22 am PT

    SmallPower is kind of right.

    While WoW does bring in massive amount of revenue @ on average $14/ month / subscriber. Yielding several hundred million euros for Vivendi as revenue. Profit is rather small compared to this figure. 8000000*14*12 = 1.34 billion dollars per year on subscription alone. Game sales nets around $20 per copy. And sales of games probably nets blizzard an additional 60 million dollars a year. Now all the server maintance/ upkeep, Employee wages, should cost Blizzard a health chunck. But Blizzard still should have a net profit.

    Note, Blizzard would either raise their subscription fee, or stop development if they were losing money on a project of this massive scale. If you'll note, their current active projects only include these WoW and BC. Not Starcraft II nor Diablo III although rumor has it they are developing those in secret.

  • indigoAK200

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 7:30 am PT

    EA doesn't own Half-Life or Half-Life 2.

    There's a difference between owning a series and publishing it.

    EA is simply the distribution partner for Valve.

    Just like EA was the distribution partner for Square Enix for a time in the late 90s; which is why games like Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VIII say, "Published by Square Electronic Arts". Go look it up.

  • cjcr_alexandru

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 6:32 am PT

    They get $120 million every month, only from WoW subscribers, so that's not a surprise.

  • Hakensou

    Posted Feb 1, 2007 5:53 am PT

    HAHAHAHA Best thing 'bout all this is readin' all the WOW hater's comments on these outstandin' revenues... LOL you ppl kill me... I mean you'll trash WOW for being a loss of time but still you'll come to GameSpot to trash it with remarks that ain't even true... talk 'bout loss of time...
    Well I'd like to praise Vivendi and all affiliates for the acomplishment but seriously after the 1st year of WOW... all this was expected...
    Still amazing game, amazing work!
    on MMORPG games, WOW just took the Crown! WOW rules!
    all haters can go get married on L2... LOL you ppl are incredible...

  • redgopher

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 9:49 pm PT

    According to a good deal of Gamespot users, it's apparently a bad thing to be successful.

  • ryanthegreat232

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 9:40 pm PT

    2.4 million copies at lets say 49$ (give or take) is 119,880,000$ (119 million 880 thousand dollars). So just from Burning crusades they made a killing.

  • Gmacrusher

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:07 pm PT

    Lucky people...blizzard will eat your souls and it will make you happy when you are playing but later you'll be sorry because you won't have a life!

  • Polarskill

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 5:41 pm PT

    Duh blizzard takes ppls souls, that is what blizzard feeds on..

  • ajy2

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 5:23 pm PT

    Actually, EA owns Half Life now...

  • SmallPower

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 5:22 pm PT

    World of Warcraft brings in a profit? That's impossible. All of the revenue is spent on server maintenance, a large and skilled group of game-masters, constant development and creation of new content [ aside from new content that you're expected to pay $40 for, in addition to the game's monthly fee], etc., etc. World of Warcraft LOSES money.

    Blizzard rolls *need* on [15 dollars] because it simply has no other choice. All of these frequent news stories that you've seen for years about the massive PROFIT that the company is making on the game is a hoax.

    Blizzard doesn't charge people to play this game to make massive PROFIT, that's never been what World of Warcraft is about.

    In closing, some words to live by:

    73 million people can't be wrong - 297 billion meals have been served at McDonald's, and they were all delicious, nutritious, and of extraordinarily high quality

    if you can't or don't want to pay for this then LOL suxxz to be u git uh job

    there is no better way to spend 1,500 hours of your time

  • GiftedSlayer

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 3:03 pm PT

    dergy
    crap, who needs all those other games? i'd just sit back and watch WoW give me all the cash i need. almost all those other games aren't even that good. Spyro? who cares?

    lol what about Half Life 2? dont they own that?

  • anarchicgoth

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 2:51 pm PT

    mmm WoW addicts- too many of them!

  • dergy

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 2:49 pm PT

    crap, who needs all those other games? i'd just sit back and watch WoW give me all the cash i need. almost all those other games aren't even that good. Spyro? who cares?

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 2:44 pm PT

    looks like things are looking really up for vivendi

  • Rickiej

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 1:56 pm PT

    well, you could say they're rich now

  • Sharvie

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 12:14 pm PT

    It's good to see game companies doing well.

  • keinuveye

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 10:41 am PT

    why is it not in Japan?

  • _Knifes_

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 10:37 am PT

    Argh, why is Spyro still doing well. It seriously needs a complete do-over, not encouragement to produce more shoddy junk.

  • Destroyeron13

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 10:22 am PT

    Blizzard makes me happy in the pants.

  • CaptainSmirk

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 9:24 am PT

    Too bad that Vivendi is still in the dog house. Yes, Blizzard made a ton of money, but not much else did. So I wonder who's keeping their jobs and who isn't?

  • quietguy

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 8:39 am PT

    WoW... the next best thing since Star Wars?

  • Vorlin

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 8:35 am PT

    I remember when Vivendi was thinking of selling off Blizzard and EA approached them to buy...and got told "you don't have enough money", haha..

    As far as Blizzard breaking off, it wouldn't be a good idea. Vivendi already has let them be everything rolled into one and hasn't been stingy with the money. They produce, test, and do everything in-house so no outside company is being depended on.

  • Doolum

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 8:20 am PT

    Good going Vivendi

  • blackdamage

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 8:18 am PT

    Spyro performed well?

    Anyway, this looks like a good time to be a Vivendi manager, what with WoW so popular. I wonder what will happen once people start to get bored (will it ever happen?)

  • KingKongofDeath

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:58 am PT

    Blizzard delivers. Other game companies should start doing the same.

  • FlameMe

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:44 am PT

    making that much money and it still takes them 2 years to release 1 expansion pack...

  • midway_nights

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:40 am PT

    capcom is another big game devoloper gigantay

  • smiley17O

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:20 am PT

    good for them.

  • swiftstar183

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:12 am PT

    hey look im 4th. thats never happend. anyways. i think WOW is getting to the point where its un-touchable. The popularity around this game is Crazy. 2.4 mill in 24 hours, God damn. This games going to be around for a very long time

  • uberjannie

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 7:02 am PT

    oh, this is sick stuff.
    Vivendi is getting too big, they are like microsoft and google, but in the game universe...

  • Berem

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 6:53 am PT

    blizzard should break off and be its own boss.

  • Re_ensurer

    Posted Jan 31, 2007 6:38 am PT

    $6,462 million... wow.

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