Biggest video game maker Activision Blizzard kicks off E3 announcements with plan for financial domination
Activision Blizzard webcast a press conference today, highlighting the games it expects will generate millions and millions of sales for the company this year. The event was the first of many from game companies at the E3 conference.
While other companies are touting their new titles solely from the gamers’ view, Activision Blizzard spent its time pitching its financial performance to analysts, describing the overall drivers that are enabling it to become the largest independent maker of video… Continue Reading
Anticipating E3: the video game giants prepare to show their cards
The E3 video game trade show gets under way Monday, and is expected to draw more than 40,000 people with a new grandiose format.
Held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, it will be much more like a Las Vegas extravaganza than the boring, press-focused shows that drew 4,000 or so people last year. And yes, those booth babes (below) will be back, as well as 3,500 journalists.
(Listen to my NPR Weekend Edition interview on E3).
There will be… Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard beats expectations as consumers keep playing its hit games
The video game industry isn’t falling off a cliff, thanks to franchises like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero.
Those are the video game brands that are driving Activision Blizzard’s revenues and earnings. Today, the company said it beat expectations for both in its first quarter ended March 31.
The company reported GAAP revenues of $981 million, up from $325 million a year earlier (before the two companies combined last summer). GAAP earnings were… Continue Reading
Blizzard switches World of Warcraft partner in critical China
Blizzard Entertainment, owner of the massively popular World of Warcraft game, has switchted distribution partners in the increasingly important Chinese market.
Blizzard will now work with NetEase.com to distribute and operate the game for the next three years in China, following the expiration of a deal with The9. The change isn’t surprising, since Activision Blizzard’s chief rival, Electronic Arts, holds an ownership stake in The9.
China is one of the fastest growing games markets, because of its… Continue Reading
Activision Blizzard isn’t immune from the recession, but it beats Q4 estimates
Video game publisher Activision Blizzard lowered the forecasts today for its 2009 earnings targets, sending its stock down in after-hours trading.
Activision shares dipped five percent and are now down about 1.4 percent to $9.48 a share. But the company reported better-than-expected earnings for the holiday quarter, which was driven by strong sales of its Guitar Hero World Tour and Call of Duty World at War games.
For 2009, the company forecasts it will earn 61 cents… Continue Reading
Are profits in video games shifting from the West to the East?
The worldwide video game industry is experiencing healthy revenue growth. In the U.S., sales grew 19 percent to $22 billion in 2008, according to market researcher NPD. That has been a cause for much celebration as games outrun the recession.
But market researcher DFC Intelligence in La Jolla, Calif., has a different take. In a report today, the company asked whether revenue gains are coming at the expense of profits. And while U.S. companies have collectively… Continue Reading
Microsoft’s Massive scores in-game ad deals with Activision Blizzard
Microsoft’s Massive announced today that it has won multi-year contracts to provide in-game advertising to Activision Blizzard. In doing so, it has landed the big kahuna of the video game business.
In separate deals, Massive will provide ads to both Activision’s line of games and the Blizzard Entertainment division. Massive’s deal with Activision will cover 18 games, including Guitar Hero: World Tour, James Bond: Quantum of Solace, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and Tony Hawk.
Massive, which… Continue Reading
Black Friday video game sales were strong, Microsoft claims victory
All eyes are on video games as the lone bright spot in a weak economy. So far, the industry is succeeding in delivering fun to otherwise shell-shocked consumers.
Sales of video game hardware and software appeared to be strong on Black Friday and over the holiday weekend, according to analyst Colin Sebastian at Lazard Capital Markets.
Sebastian said that initial checks indicated sales were strong at stores, and that comparison-shopping engines Shopping.com and Pricegrabber.com show that video… Continue Reading
New World of Warcraft expansion sold 2.8 million in 24 hours
I guess they should rename the company Blizzard Activision. In any case, Activision Blizzard scored big time with the launch of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Published by Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard Entertainment division, the online game expansion for WoW players sold 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours.
That’s a big chunk of WoW’s 11 million subscribers, which suggests an unusually high enthusiasm for the game, nicknamed “Warcrack” because of its addictiveness…. Continue Reading
The good, the bad and the ugly in Nintendo’s upcoming lineup
Nintendo showed off both its strengths and weaknesses as a game company last week in San Francisco as it debuted its lineup for fall 2008 and games for next year.
Over two days, I saw games that I liked, including the wonderfully creative “Wii Music,” and games that I hated, like Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty: World at War” for the Wii. And then there were weird games, like “Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party,” which required… Continue Reading
Big Fish Games raises $83 million venture round for downloadable games
The party is on for video game entrepreneurs. Big Fish Games just raised the bar for the industry by reeling in a huge venture round by video game standards.
The Seattle-based casual downloadable games company raised $83 million in a first round of financing from Balderton Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Salmon River Capital. That’s the biggest round I can remember for a game company. The deal is the largest in the state of Washington this… Continue Reading
Q&A with Paul Sams, Blizzard Entertainment’s chief operating officer, on post-merger life
Paul Sams is the chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. The Irvine, Calif.-based company is a division of Activision Blizzard, the newly created gaming powerhouse created from the $18 billion merger of Activision and Vivendi Games. Sams is one of the top executives responsible for making sure that Blizzard keeps pumping out hits like “World of Warcraft,” which has 10-million-plus paying subscribers.
VB: How many people do you have in Blizzard?
PS: It’s around 3,000 globally.
VB: Will Blizzard… Continue Reading
Q&A: an interview with Sega’s Simon Jeffery on monkeying around with iPhone games and the Wii
Simon Jeffery is the president of Sega of America. He joined the U.S. arm of the Japanese publisher, famous for games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, in 2005 to recruit U.S. and European game developers to work with Sega on both original games and to Westernize its portfolio. Before joining Sega, Jeffery was the president of LucasArts from 2000 to 2003. We spoke about how the Japanese company is doing at its “Westernization” strategy and… Continue Reading
Blizzard cuts deal with NetEase.com to take Starcraft II to China
The original “StarCraft” is one of the most successful video games of all time. The sci-fi real-time strategy game debuted more than a decade ago and had sold more than nine million copies by spring of last year.
No doubt the sales would have been even bigger if the game had global distribution from the start. With years of experience in China behind it, the game publisher now looks like it will be aggressive about launching… Continue Reading
Roundup: Scrabulous returns, Dell’s music player and more
Here’s the latest action:
Scrabulous returns as Wordscraper — The popular Facebook application was redesigned and relaunched less than 48 hours after it was taken down due to a potential legal tussle with Scrabble-maker Hasbro.
Dell tests digital music player — The computer maker stopped selling players in 2006 due to disappointing sales, but it has a new offering that could go on sale as early as September.
Job site Monster acquires search company Trovix for $72.5 million in cash — Monster… Continue Reading
More video game publishers embrace Comic-Con show
SAN DIEGO, CA— The Comic-Con show is on the rise, with so many game companies showing up there to unveil new games that it is probably a contender to replace E3.
Over 150,000 fans flocked to downtown San Diego for Comic-Con less than a week after the E3 Media & Business Summit, which is undergoing a big makeover as we write. While E3 focused on a core group of journalists, Comic-Con International is an event squarely… Continue Reading
E3 trendspotting: the triumph of music
LOS ANGELES — I just came back from the “Rock Band 2″ party at the E3 video game show. Inside the Orpheum theater, The Who belted out 40-year-old songs to the delight of the crowd of game executives and journalists. The event was the most exciting so far in a dull conference that has proved, in most respects, to be a shadow of its former glory.
As lead singer Roger Daltrey exhorted the crowd to belt… Continue Reading