World of Warcraft, Hulk bolster VU Games' Q3

Hulk smashes Vivendi Universal division VU Games' 2004 third-quarter revenue figures! With a little help from World of Warcraft, that is.

Vivendi Universal this morning reported its revenues for the year to date, and the company's fun and games division is making serious money. For the third quarter, VU Games pulled in $189 million, more than two-and-a-half times the $63 million it reaped for the same time period last year. The company attributed this growth to the success of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, as well as promising figures from the release of The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Strong North American sales of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and FlatOut were also mentioned as contributing to the figure.

The third-quarter numbers were above and beyond what was already shaping up to be a banner year for VU Games. For the year so far, the company has pulled in $473.6 million, 88 percent more than in the first nine months of 2004. VU Games credits its year-long growth to the strong performers of Q3, as well as Robots, Empire Earth 2, and The Simpsons: Hit & Run. While the sustained success of Hit & Run is remarkable (it was originally released in September 2003), VU Games won't get the chance to capitalize on it with a sequel, as the company lost the popular license to Electronic Arts earlier this week.