Publisher posts record net income on revenues of $4.76 billion; Modern Warfare 3 top-selling game last year; Elite paid subscribers reach 1.5 million.
No shocker here: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game of 2011. Today, Activision Blizzard reported its fiscal 2011 earnings report, and the success of the first-person shooter franchise helped propel the company to record profits of $1.08 billion on revenues of $4.76 billion. That's a significant improvement over 2010, when profits were $418 million on revenues of $4.45 billion.
Activision Blizzard did not reveal exact sales numbers for Modern Warfare 3, but it did tout the game's social platform, Call of Duty: Elite. As of January 31, the service now has 7 million registered users, with more than 1.5 million of those gamers signing up for the $50 premium tier.
Unsurprisingly, the company confirmed that a new installment in the Call of Duty franchise will be released in 2012. The company also said that it is working on Elite 2.0, with details coming in the next few months.
It also appears as if Activision Blizzard's gamble on the toy market is paying off. The company called Skylanders Spyro's Adventure the No. 1 kid's game in 2011, and it also said that it sold more than 20 million toys based on the franchise. The company expects to release a new installment in the series, Skylanders Giants, in 2012.
Blizzard Entertainment offered a bit of disappointing news. The company no longer expects to launch its anticipated action role-playing game Diablo III during the first quarter of the year. Blizzard's Michael Morhaime said that the company is now targeting an April-June release window for the game. It will be accompanied by at least one other game--likely Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm or World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.
The company also said that World of Warcraft continues to shed subscribers. The genre-leading massively multiplayer online role-playing game finished the year with 10.2 million subscribers, down from 10.3 million at the end of September.
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
All I heard from that commercial was "I want more money to feed my obese ego". Whoever is paying for this CoD ELITE is a complete moron mindlessly thinking they are winning. Rather just spend that money to go out with my friends and play some paintball. GL HF.
@SheepdogXpress Haha nice! this is how companies get hurt believe it or not. I've never payed for a single CoD game, and WoW didn't get a single dime from me after vanilla.
@Defender1978 As a game it is good but the player base just ruins it for me....I mean i like it but going online just makes me want to toss a grenade at the TV
then why don't them take some of that money, create a new street racing franchise so they can spit on NFS and Midnight Club silly faces, and make me happy :). I miss NFS: Underground and Tokyo Xtreme Races type of games :(
@CocaColaNinja I disagree. I thought it was a decent expansion pack. Still waiting for it to drop to 20 before I purchase though.
With Guildwars 2 and KotoR I guess its inevitable that WoW is going to go down, its a good run and the company made so much money out of it I guess its time to find another cash cow. But for CoD, like I said last year it doesn't matter if BF3 is more innovative CoD will still trump sales. It also didn't help EA that they introduced online pass while CoD doesn't have one which means more people can try playing the MP and if they like it, keep the game. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of BF3 sales were later traded for another game because people wouldn't want to use the MP online pass because it lessens the resale value of the game. Oh well here comes all the thumbs down......
@wexorian So, taking time with games and content is a bad thing. I guess they should just rush everything and milk everything like Activision.
well ofcoarse they do, when you dont hire people to create, just copy/paste evrything, then ride the supporting income of another company's product(wow) ofcoarse your making millions hand over fist.
I hate that Blizzard allowed themselves to get bought by Actvision, and also id, another favorite of mine getting bought by Zenimax....
I'm surprised that Blizzard would associate themselves with Activision and Call of Duty. Most of the time I read anything that mentions the three together I just try to ignore it. Blizzard's always been a company that has put quality before quantity; Both Activision and whoever makes CoD, don't; they found the highest-selling genre in the industry and capitalized on it, with the same terrible rehashed games every year, and continue to make money off them. It's really gross the more you think about it. They treat CoD as if it's so great, but it's probably the worst game franchise out there, on a lot of different levels.
Activision is like a parasite, a freckn huge parasite sucking on people brains and giving money to them. But to be honest the COD games maybe aren't as bad as people says but most important they don't deserve the money. They should made better quality game but Instead placing everything on advertising.
WoW is finally imploding, it'll go free-to-play by the end of the year but by then it'll just be another face in the crowd
i just realized that this trailer also does a wonderful job of summing up pretty much every-damn-thing that is wrong with modern video gaming.
@da_chub The Blizzard you know has long since been in its death throes my friend. Feel no guilt towards hating them equally.
Weird... This Elite trailer totally reminded me of Two Girls One Cup... ...Hmm I think i'm gonna go watch that now just to get the taste of this bulls***t out of my mouth...
Greedy is the fact here. Their games and how they operate don't really speak to how much this company brings in either.
1 Like Getting your arm cut off with a rusty spoon would be better than giving these clowns your money. WoW and COD, the crack cocaine and crystal meth of gaming.
these 2 companies are complete opposites. i despise activision and COD since it has brainwashed so many people into buying $60 map packs every year. and blizzard is one of my all time fav devs because of the games. they arent afaid to delay them. i played starcraft 1 until the day i bought 2. thats over 10 years of use i got out of a game. i still play warcraft 3. so i can wait for diablo 3.
@M-S-M-S what you sya that blizzard Treat custommers good? that's joke srsly. They delay Diablo 3 For unknown reason since 2008, They are killing wow with slow Patch releases and Low content wich cost 1 month max, and They aint releasing sc2 expansion this year and thi's Good treatment? :D
Now Le'ts finish of thsoe franchises Activision let's finsih off call of duty and Blizzard let's kill Warcraft universe and i'l be happy and Released from addicted Wow chains.
@psu808 I think that's the reason why they don't work on new IP's. All they need is a rehash, and they get 1 billion in profits. Sad, but true.
With 1billion in profits, why don't they work on new IP? Why rehash every year? I would love to see something different for a change.
I wonder if they sent a thank you later to Kobe Bryant yet, cause there not just successful there over the top.
Looking like gaming industry is either bragging about how much profit they make and complaining about what they didn't make. Looking green for them but that isn't enough for them. Oh they could of made this much this quarter blah blah. It just isn't so cool anymore.
I should have known those greedy f@#%s at Activision would be responsible for that Skylander game which charges kids up to £18 just to add another character to their game. Nothing lower than a company that is happy to rip off kids.
Why would that many people waste their money on a stupid overpriced service? must be a lot of idiots out there.
ha!haaaa! whooooo! elite! all you trolls can just suck it! ELITE! all my bros way before hoes ELITE! DOOMANDBOOM thats our clan! i'll pay to have a good time rather than enjoy free subpar 30 frame per second trash! ha haaa! you all suck! call of duty forever!!!!!
Eventually the characters in COD are gonna get sick of killing each other every year and then, Activision will have to launch the Call of Duty: World at Peace series.
the franchise has sold out. 'tis sad news, indeed. it seems that MW2 marks the last CoD game that Activision ever actually put any work or effort into creating.
This is bad news. "Activision didn't make any profit last year" "Activision confirms no Call of Duty this year" Now that's good news!
stevie456 Posted Feb 10, 2012 10:08 am PT I'm proud to say that I didn't give these crooks a single dime last year. Thumbs up. Me either.
WOW...lol and fubar...i remember people used to lambast mmo players for paying subs. of roughly 15$ or less..... now you have idiots paying 50$ a month for a FPS, with the upkeep-development schedule of a third party seasonal development studio run by 3 monkeys.
Yeah, well nothing new. Activision killed with Call of Duty, Blizzard delays a game one more time, same ol same ol lmao. This definitely could have been a tweet, not a full article.
WOW, I billion dollar profit. Must be from all those used games they are always complaining about 8-|
You know, we don't need a whole article just to confirm that another COD game will be coming out this year. We predicted this years ago. You could have just wrote one sentence and that would have been enough.
Game consultancy business founder says ZeniMax will launch new MMORPG with paid subscription, but will drop fee in time.
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