Tidbits From Today’s Money-Filled Activision Earnings Call

Future legal ramifications aside, the Infinity Ward fiasco seems long forgotten at Activision HQ, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 being yet another runaway success for the company.

That Skylanders turned out to be a huge hit with kids--20 million toys sold, by Activision's count--was a nice bonus, too.

More Skylanders and Call of Duty in 2012 was the reoccurring theme on today’s quick ‘n dirty fourth quarter investor call, which also featured some interesting numbers about the last few months.

Diablo III being pushed back a few months was the big “news” out of the call, and as with the last few calls I’ve been listening to, I decided to publish the notes I was taking as the call went on.

Here’s what stuck out:

• Activision generated $1 billion dollars in operating cash flow throughout 2011.
• World of Warcraft has 10.2 million subscribers.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic was not mentioned once during the call, neither was Battlefield 3. The Old Republic was briefly brought up during an investor question, but Blizzard avoided much comment.
• Skylanders is “one of the most innovative products we’ve ever created” and will have “success for many years.”
• Call of Duty Elite is “one of the fastest growing online services in history” with 1.5 million paying members, ranking behind World of Warcraft and Xbox Live.
• There will be a new Call of Duty game later this year. No details on what it is.
• Activision will continue to invest “in our new universe from Bungie,” as that universe will be “one of publishing's next big games,” and will be “a genre-defining new IP” and a “key strategic growth pillar for the future.”
• Can you tell that Activision is excited about Bunge’s next game? Unfortunately, no details just yet.
• Activision declined to make any sales predictions about Wii U, but it was mentioned on a sales chart.
• The company expects high-definition consoles to continue selling well throughout 2012.
• In December 2011, there were 40 million users playing Call of Duty across the last five games.
• Call of Duty Elite 2.0 is coming with “several new features” to work “hand-in-hand” with the next game.
• A press event for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria will be held next month.
• Blizzard hopes to release multiple games this year but declined to specify what games.
• Activision has sold more than 20 million Skylanders toys since launch.

yes!

EDIT: sorry had to.

EDIT 2: Also, nothing to surprising here. Seeing how Skylander toys were scarce everywhere, it's not too hard to see 20 million sold. But does "success for many years" mean it will go the way of Guitar Hero? Call of Duty did well, no big surprise.

20 million? That's insane. In-fucking-sane.

So, Skylanders as a brand, dead by next year ?

"Bunige" heh

I blame Jeff!

Call of Duty Elite has one and a half subscribers?

Well I'm not that surprised they didn't mention Battlefield 3 or TOR considering it's an Activision thing.

New Call of Duty game this year, I never! I wonder if Treyarch will handle it or the same 20 studios that stitched together MW3.

@MattyFTM said:

20 million? That's insane. In-fucking-sane.

Crazy!

Elite now has 1.5 paying customers?

Hell, I bought 2 Skylanders & I don't even own the game. My Chop Chop & Drobot are just chillin' on my shelf.

Here's hoping for a little more innovation in the next CoD.

Call of Duty Elite has one and a half paying members?

Wow 20 million. Wonder if that means the supply issue for Skylanders won't be fixed anytime soon.

Really interested to see what Bungie's working on. Hope they can find success after Halo.

@coribald said:

@Eldredpe: fastest growing online service in history!

soon they will have 2 paying members

Skylanders, really?!? Insane

"Call of Duty Elite is “one of the fastest growing online services in history” with 1.5 paying members,"

Do you think he meant 1.5 million?

@Animasta said:

@coribald said:

@Eldredpe: fastest growing online service in history!

soon they will have 2 paying members

They're keeping expectations realistic and projecting 1.8 by the end of the next fiscal quarter.

Skylanders is the biggest thing in gaming at the moment. Go to a store that has the figures in stock, and just watch. The reaction of kids and their parents when they see those figures in stock is priceless.

I feel like "kids" (when talking about Skylanders being a hit) should be a hyper-link to Jeff's profile.

But, holy shit... that's a lot of Skylanders.

Well 1.5 paying members for CoD Elite is what I hoped it would be, but I assume that's supposed to be 1.5 million in which case I don't want to live on this planet anymore. Also this;

Call of Duty Elite 2.0 is coming with “several new features” to will work “hand-in-hand” with the next game.

makes me infuriated. 3 months after launch and they're already back to beating that dead dilapidated horse carcase that they've been beating on for the past 6 fucking years. I hate children and frat boys and I want to kill all of them for supporting this shit series.

I really hope we hear from Bungie at E3 this year, I am excited too.

@DrDarkStryfe said:

Skylanders is the biggest thing in gaming at the moment. Go to a store that has the figures in stock, and just watch. The reaction of kids and their parents when they see those figures in stock is priceless.

I work in a store that sells them, we had a lady come in and buy all 67 of the figures we had in stock (Which will not be happening again we had no limits on them at the time that has since changed) so she bought them all and a little boy ran up to me about an hour later and asked me where all the Skylanders figures were and I had to tell him some mean old lady who wanted to sell them on ebay bought them all the Sorrow on that kids face was Priceless, in a sad kind of way but still Priceless.

Those are some crazy number.

Has it been confirmed whether or not Bungie's next title is an FPS game? That would make sense but I kinda want to see them doing something else outside of that genre.

Skylanders are just Boglins with delusions of grandeur.

Still reckon that Bungie thing is gonna be MMOFPS... or at least 'MMO' enough that they can charge a subscription for it.

Metacritic put up a year-in-review wrap-up today, and Activision's metacritic average came in dead last amongst major publishers.

@qawsed: Why is Capcom missing from that list?

Edit: Nevermind. They're at the top of the mid-size publisher list. I didn't realize they didn't count as "major."

I can't imagine a kids toy line will have any more staying power than a couple years but I'm sure Activision will get every penny there is to get while they can.

I propose that Patrick loses the right to use the Edit button. 1.5 paying members was so much better and funny.

Hopefully we hear about Bungie's new IP at E3 and also COD BLOPS 2.

Those are some crazy number.

Has it been confirmed whether or not Bungie's next title is an FPS game? That would make sense but I kinda want to see them doing something else outside of that genre.

Wow, a new COD game. There's a surprise! *cough*

The Skylanders boom is all Jeff's fault.

That's not a bad thing necessarily, but I can imagine that Jeff is really dreading how far downhill this is going to go...knowing Activision and their penchant for driving shit into the ground.

"Sorry, Morhaime, you're old dick"

@qawsed said:

Metacritic put up a year-in-review wrap-up today, and Activision's metacritic average came in dead last amongst major publishers.

Well, since Data Design Interactive closed down, ActiVision and Ubisoft probably are the biggest Wii/Kinect shovelware publishers

I'm so confused... why would Activision mention Battlefield 3?

I'm a bit surprised WoW still has 10.2 million subscribers. Last October it had 10.3, so apparently The Old Republic barely made a dent in it. Maybe a lot of their userbase is in kind of a "trial mode" with TOR, having both subscriptions active? I can't imagine the majority are new MMO players or players from other MMOs.

Either way I don't have a dog in this race (I'm done with MMOs as they are right now), but I find it interesting, as someone who started playing them way back at the beginning of Everquest (which is still going!)

Also, Skylanders is a genius idea. Activison may do some terrible things but they sure know how to make money.

@qawsed said:

Metacritic put up a year-in-review wrap-up today, and Activision's metacritic average came in dead last amongst major publishers.

Man, guess I won't buy Diablo 3.

They did kinda say something about the Old Republic. THat Call of Duty Elite has more paying subscribers than the Old Republic says something.

This article is disgusting.. Not Patrick's work or writing, but the content itself.  
 
Activision is the epitome of all the things that consist of money hunger, streamlining games, killing creativity, killing titles by milking them to death and so on.. How we're even discussing this disgusting and unholy company is beyond me.

@DazzHardy said:

So, Skylanders as a brand, dead by next year ?

You'd think Activision would have learned from it's mistakes with the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero cluster-fucks but they've already announced a sequel to Skylanders for this year.

Double Fine has shown that publishers are FUCKED.

@sawtooth said:

Double Fine has shown that publishers are FUCKED.

i'd love it if this were even kind of true, but relying on independent investors and fan funding doesn't seem very viable to me in the long run. I love that it seems working out for them though. Now we just wait if whatever they release actually makes them money.

Still printing money... Wonder how long the Call train lasts.

@NegativeCero: Yes, you're right, but I hope for a future where developers are enabled to make games because people want the game rather than publishers having developers make games and convincing people they want them.

Blizzards multiple games will be Diablo 3 and I'm sure they count Mists of Pandaria as a second game shipped.

@Aldrenar47 said:

I'm a bit surprised WoW still has 10.2 million subscribers. Last October it had 10.3, so apparently The Old Republic barely made a dent in it. Maybe a lot of their userbase is in kind of a "trial mode" with TOR, having both subscriptions active? I can't imagine the majority are new MMO players or players from other MMOs.

Either way I don't have a dog in this race (I'm done with MMOs as they are right now), but I find it interesting, as someone who started playing them way back at the beginning of Everquest (which is still going!)

Also, Skylanders is a genius idea. Activison may do some terrible things but they sure know how to make money.

IMO if WoW is losing numbers, it's because it's player base is burning out on MMOs in general - current style of MMO anyway - rather than due to some competing product. It takes quite a bit of investment to get into another MMO (another $60+) and the game ... well probably isn't going to stray all that far from WoW anyway, not to mention probably won't be as polished as WoW that has been running for 6 years.

While WoW isn't anything really special nowadays, but it was damn great when it came out. It's art style and it's well-tuned and easily to pick up gameplay got itself a ton of players. IMHO if MMO developers/publishers want to actually take the crown from the aging WoW, they are going to make a game that provides as much of a "leap" as WoW did 6 years ago. If you are too chicken to make anything but a "me-too", you will just be left in WoW's shadow. But with MMOs costing $200-$300 million to make, I suppose we can't really blame the developers/publishers too much.