Activision Blizzard Sets a New Record for Revenue Earned in One Year
Although there was a huge campaign against microtransactions this year, there’s one company that definitely isn’t complaining about it. No, it’s no EA, it’s Activision Blizzard. Yesterday the company announced their fourth quarter and 2017 financial results, and they raked in a record setting amount of money last year.
In the Q4 2017 financial report, Blizzard announced that it made $7.05 billion in revenue for the entire year, setting a new record. A total of $5.48 billion was earned through their various digital channels! Last year the company earned $6.61 billion total. Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, had this to say about their success, “This was a record quarter to cap off a record year for Activision Blizzard. In 2017, our community reached new milestones for engagement, our business delivered record revenues and cash flows, and we made important progress in building future growth opportunities such as the Overwatch League. We couldnʹt be more excited for the opportunities ahead in 2018 to continue serving our players and fans.”
Interesting, despite the condemnation of microtransactions within games like Star Wars Battlefront II, Activision Blizzard revealed they earned over $4 billion from in-game purchases. About half of this was earned from Candy Crush alone, as Activision owns the game, as well as its developer King. The mobile studio earned $2 billion from in-game purchases last year, meaning that the other $2 billion was earned from titles like Call of Duty: WWII, Destiny 2, and Overwatch.
You can check out some of the highlights from their earnings below:
- Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII was the top‐grossing console game of the year globally, with the franchise’s biggest launch quarter sell‐through on current‐generation consoles.
- The game set a Sony PlayStation milestone as the biggest day 1 digital release ever. Call of Duty has been the number one franchise globally for 8 of the last 9 years.
- Activision and Bungie’s Destiny 2 was the second‐highest‐grossing console game in North America for the year, had the largest PC launch in Activision history based on units, and had a higher attach rate on its first expansion than Destiny 1.
- Activision’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy was the number one‐selling remastered collection in PS4 history.
What do you think about these numbers? Are you surprised by just how much Activision Blizzard earned through microtransactions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.