Activision’s year
Activision gave an earnings call today for press people to post all the wonderful news they had. However Activision were surprisingly open about their losses and wins.
The years successes with Blizzard (World of Warcraft, no word on how amazingly Starcraft is doing) and Call of Duty were offset by poor sales of racing title Blur and Singularity. Blur only sold around 30,000 copies in the US, falling far short of expectations. “Singularity fell short of meeting what is an exceptionally high bar within the shooter genre,” said CFO Thomas Tippl.
“Fortunately, Call of Duty was the title that raised that bar and shortfall of Singularity was offset by Call of Duty’s catalogue and DLC performance. Additionally, Blur was not able to break out in what turned out to be a relatively soft racing genre despite the number of high-quality releases. “Importantly, the game broke new ground in creating innovative, social and multiplayer features – including functionality – enables our unique online and back-end platforms that will play an increasing role in driving value in the future.”
Weirdly, they said licensed titles sold very well. Transformers (the movie game, not War for Cybertron) and Shrek games sold well. Furthermore, stimulous packs for COD and WoW expansions kept the company afloat this year.
They went on to mention their new friends, Bungie, who will wrap up their final Halo game this year before focusing on new IP. “The majority of the Bungie team has moved into their new space and is now focused on crafting their new universe,” Tippl said.
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