Activision Blizzard Q2 earnings fall due to Call of Duty decline
What you need to know
- Activision Blizzard reported its Q2 2022 earnings for the quarter ending June 30, 2022.
- At $1.64 billion, revenue for the quarter dropped year-over-year.
- This drop was primarily due to lower engagement with Call of Duty.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is slated to launch on Oct. 28, 2022.
Call of Duty is still a juggernaut, but performance from the latest game is significantly lower than in 2021.
Activision Blizzard shared (opens in new tab) its financial results for Q2 2022, which details revenue for the quarter ending June 30, 2022. The company saw $1.64 billion in revenue for the quarter, down year-over-year from $2.29 billion in Q2 2021. This drop is primarily attributed to lower engagement with the Call of Duty franchise, which was even seen back in the company’s Q4 2021 financials.
Sales of the 2021 title Call of Duty: Vanguard have been softer than sales of other Call of Duty games across the last couple of years, especially the 2019 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which is the best-selling Call of Duty game of all time, reaching over 30 million copies sold in its first year.
Looking ahead, Activision Blizzard is planning to launch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Oct. 28, 2022. It’ll be accompanied by Call of Duty: Warzone 2. There are also multiple upcoming games from Blizzard Entertainment, with Overwatch 2 launching on Oct. 2, 2022 as a free-to-play game, and action-RPG Diablo 4 slated to release at some point in the first half of 2023.
Activision Blizzard is also expanding heavily, claiming that its workforce has expanded 25% year-over-year. The company also recently acquired Proletariat, a studio in Boston that will be integrated into Blizzard Entertainment to support the upcoming World of Warcraft: Dragonflight expansion, which is currently scheduled to arrive at some point before the end of the year.
Activision Blizzard is currently in the process of being acquired by Microsoft for almost $69 billion. The deal is currently undergoing regulatory review and is slated to finalize before June 30, 2023.
