Activision Blizzard revenue for the first quarter of 2022 was $1,768 million.
Activision: This year's Call of Duty is a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare and will be released later this year.
Blizzard: Dark Immortal listed on june 2 synchronous landing on the PC side, Dark 4 company-wide internal testing, Overwatch returns tomorrow to start testing. Monthly activity continued to fall, reaching a recent low of 22 million.
King: Revenue continues to grow, and Candy Crush is the highest-grossing game series in the U.S. app store for the 19th consecutive quarter.
Financial performance
· Activision Blizzard's revenue was $1,768 million in the first quarter of 2022, compared to $2.28 billion in the year-ago quarter, down 22% year-over-year. Earnings per share were $0.64, compared to $0.98 in the year-ago quarter. The data was all lower than analysts expected.
Guess who makes the most money? It's King, with net income of $682 million. Activision net income was 453 million and Blizzard's net income was 265 million.
Highlights section
· The year-on-year decrease in financial results was primarily due to the impact of Call of Duty and Blizzard's product cycle, which offset King's strong growth.
· The company increased legal and other professional fees, largely because of the Microsoft acquisition
· Continued to invest heavily in product development and added hundreds of developers in the first quarter
· Great strides have been made in product content development, and the results are reflected in the fourth quarter and longer term of the business
· In April, the company announced the conversion of more than 1,000 temporary workers to full-time employees, most of whom received salary increases and benefits.
· Settlement was reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission through a $18 million fund
· Appointed Kristen Hines as Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer
Activision section
· In the first quarter, call of Duty console and PC net bookings decreased year-over-year due to lower premium sales for Call of Duty: Vanguard than in the same period last year, and lower engagement for Call of Duty: Warzone. Call of Duty mobile bookings have not changed much year-on-year
The Call of Duty team provided plenty of gameplay improvements for Vanguard and Warzone in the first quarter. The development of the Warzone Experience, led by Infinity Ward, is well underway.
This year's Call of Duty is the sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare, the most successful Call of Duty game to date, and will be the most advanced experience in history. Built from scratch alongside paid games, the new free-to-play experience features groundbreaking innovations that will be announced later this year.
Activision continued to rapidly expand its Call of Duty development resources in the first quarter. Its growing team is focused on delivering more engaging content to the community on PCs and consoles, and expanding the war zone to mobile platforms.
Blizzard part
· Blizzard's first-quarter financial results were lower year-over-year, mainly due to the product cycle of the Warcraft series.
· In recent months, the Blizzard team has reached important milestones in the development of its major IP, and the second quarter also marked the beginning of the launch of a large amount of content in Blizzard's planning.
· Blizzard continues to work on rolling out a host of new content experiences to meet and expand the Warcraft community. The latest Hearthstone expansion pack was released on April 12.
· The Blizzard development team is working on major new content for World of Warcraft, including the World of Warcraft Dragon Age expansion pack, updates to the official costume game content, and the World of Warcraft Lich King's Wrath Nostalgia Suit.
· Blizzard also plans to announce more details about the first Warcraft mobile game in the coming weeks.
· Diablo Immortal will launch in most parts of the world on June 2, 2022, with the Asia-Pacific launch postponed for a few weeks. More than 30 million people have pre-registered for the game.
· In addition to providing a deeply authentic and free Diablo experience on mobile platforms, Diablo Immortal will also be available for free on PC, and public testing on PC will begin on June 2, 2022, which will support cross-platform gameplay and progress sharing.
· Development of Diablo 4 and Overwatch Returns is also well underway. Company-wide internal testing of Diablo 4 is currently underway, while overwatch returns with PVP player external testing will begin tomorrow (April 26, 2022).
· By the way, Blizzard's monthly activity this quarter continued to fall, reaching a recent low of 22 million.
King section
· King's team continued to deliver engaging new content, features, and activities during the first quarter, driving year-over-year growth in engagement and player investment. King's in-game net bookings increased 8% year-over-year, driven by double-digit year-over-year growth in King's largest franchise, Candy CrushTM, both of which build on strong growth in the previous quarter.
· For the 19th consecutive quarter, Candy Crush became the highest-grossing game series in the U.S. app store.