World of Warcraft Loses Another 1.5 Million Subscribers in Three Months

Activision Blizzard on Tuesday reported earnings for the quarter ended June 30, revealing financial performance and new statistics for popular games like Destiny, World of Warcraft, and Diablo III.

Here are some quick-hit highlights from the report.

• Destiny hits 20 million registered accounts; players have logged over 2 billion gameplay hours since launched in September 2014, which comes out to around 100 hours of gameplay for every player on average.
• Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Destiny combined for 70 million registered players and over $1.25 billion in revenue life-to-date.
• World of Warcraft subscriptions continued to slide, falling from 7.1 million to 5.6 million. Activision notes that the game remains the No. 1 subscription-based game on the planet.
• Diablo III has now sold more than 30 million copies to date.

A new World of Warcraft expansion will be announced later this week at Gamescom. As history shows, expansions help bring people back. At the end of 2014, World of Warcraft had 10 million subscribers.

The drop-off could have been worse had it not been for World of Warcraft's huge Fury of Hellfire update, which helped "stabilize" subscriber figures, Activision said.

In terms of financial performance, Activision Blizzard revenue rose during the quarter. The company posted $759 million in revenue for the period, up from $658 million last year. Profit, meanwhile, was $93 million, double the $45 million in net income this time last year.

Another bright spot was digital revenue, which reached a Q2 record of $611 million during the period, up 27 percent compared to last year.

Activision Blizzard will hold an earnings call to discuss these results and more today, starting at 1:30 PM PDT / 4:30 PM EDT. Check back later for more.