We're used to seeing plenty of big numbers when it comes to the games industry these days, but this latest figure from mega publisher Activision Blizzard will likely have rival companies turning green with envy. The firm's reported that it earned $1.28 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2015, ending 31st March.
It's a rather astounding amount, but we suppose that it all adds up when you consider what Activison's got under its belt these days. After its merger with Blizzard back in 2008, the publisher is technically behind such money printers as Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, but we can't forget that Destiny has also been a massive success for the company. In a statement, Activision said that the two aforementioned titles boast a combined life-time revenue of over $1 billion.
Are you impressed? What would you do in the shoes of Activision's CEO? We'd probably crack open a bottle of expensive champagne and stumble into the comments section below.
[source uk.ign.com]
Comments 17
I guess all of you "I'm never buying another COD game again" were lying!
Ha Got em
Don't those Skylanders figures alone make about $1B per year?
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/02/05/skylanders-is-now-a-3-billion-franchise.aspx
If they included sales of the $80 Kaos Traps on eBay they could have doubled their revenue.
@BLPs
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is king! Profit is also just a number. If you don't invest you dont have depriciation which are costs. If you dont write off assets you also have an higher profit. My point is profit is manipulative number. You can do al much things to change profit.
all I know is not a single cent of that came from me
@DualWielding
Lol...
@ShogunRok I believe that Hearthstone, Diablo, WoW and Starcraft don't figure into that since those are Blizzard's dealings. Yes the full name is Activision/Blizzard but they are ran as separate entities. Activision has as much to do with Hearthstone about as much as Blizzard has to do with CoD.
@Tasuki You're right, but they do report the financials across the entire company.
@get2sammyb Really? I thought even those were kept seperate.
@BLPs They are great at giving us numbers that dont really matter. Like, they haven't even told us how many copies of Destiny they've sold.
They only mention stuff like how many copies they've sold in 5 days or how many hours people have played the game in its first week etc etc.
@get2sammyb - Hey Sammy wheres the Wed Media Create #s for Japans weekly sales? TW hasnt covered it on NL either? They on holiday over there or something?
Oops just realized it 0130, sorry.
Good for activision! They always were a good company.
@JLPick Well they are the first third party video game company.
£1.2 billion would probably buy a legendary all dlc included version of the next call of duty. Lol. Great going by Activision and to be fair diablo3 and Destiny are in my top 5 games this gen, and Diablo 3 is probably the most polished game in years.
@Tasuki I know...I always thought they were part of Atari. It's good though for a company that a few years ago, many thought were going under. Glad they're making a big comback.
It just proves that if you have the 'right' games, then you can be successful. Activision have been around a long time and judging by this, will be around for many years too. They obviously aren't afraid to invest as we heard that Activision were investing £500m into Destiny - even if this figure isn't accurate and represents a long term investment (i.e. that figure over a period of years rather than just a lump sum) it still shows they are willing to put big money into 'new' IP's.
Obviously it helps with having the most successful 'Franchise' in CoD too. Even if the last 2 hasn't sold as many as Black Ops 2 did, they have still outsold a lot of other big name franchises.
Apart from CoD, Destiny, they also have Skylanders, Transformers, Spiderman, Angry Birds, Tony Hawks and the Guitar Hero games. That's without mentioning the Blizzard side which has Diablo, World of Warcraft and Starcraft - The biggest names in their genre. I hear that WoW though has lost 3m subscribers in 3 months though - its down to 7m...
@BLPs
Yeah, exactly. My girlfriend's home business is set to make a fortune in revenue this year--most of it to be spent on operating costs, so her profits are pretty marginal thus far.
Still, that's a lot of money. I would have three Mountain Dews. In a row.
I know. I'm a madman.
Congrats Activision...my game library must be almost 50% Activision if you count games where they were just the publisher.
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