Activision Blizzard Makes it Rain

On Wednesday, August 3, Activision Blizzard announced better-than-expected second quarter financial results. They made $1.33 million more in net revenues than they did in the second financial quarter of 2010. CEO of Activision Blizzard, Robert Kotick, announced, “Our better-than-expected second-quarter performance was driven by record digital sales of our online-enabled franchises,” including World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, both of which are top-10 PC titles.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was also the #1 game in the US and Europe for the first half of 2011, and has enjoyed a better reception than its predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

While Activision Blizzard is excited about these financial results, they are also looking toward the future. Kotrick said that they expect audiences will be, “especially excited by three key properties — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, our new online service Call of Duty Elite and Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure – all of which are shaping up to be incredible.” Preorders for Modern Warfare 3 have already exceeded the pre-orders for Black Ops at this time last year.

Although there was no mention of Diablo III in the press release, it was stated that Activision Blizzard will be focusing primarily on and investing resources into, “new content for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises,” upcoming Call of Duty titles, a vague “new property from Bungie,” and Skylander’s Spyro’s Adventure, described as “an innovative new universe bringing the world of toys, video games and the Internet together in an unprecedented way.”