Activision Blizzard has released its final-quarter financial results, and it has exceeded expectations. The company attributed much of its success to the business model used with recent Call of Duty games, featuring free-to-play access with optional premium content available to purchase, and announced its intention to apply the model to its other franchises.
According to a release from the company, revenue for the 4th quarter of 2020 sat at a comfortable $2.41 billion, a healthy margin above the anticipated figure of $2 billion, and brought up the total annual net revenue to an impressive $8.1 billion, up from $6.5 billion over the course of the previous year. The release also notes that the company had around 400 million monthly active users across all their games, credits their “Call of Duty framework” with the huge amount of engagement and announces the intention to apply it to its other franchises like Diablo and Overwatch, with the aim of reaching a staggering 1 billion MAUs in the future.
The so-called “Call of Duty framework” is the company’s way of referring to their recent business model with regards to their flagship franchise. The main pillars are free-to-play access for all consumers, a robust and regular delivery schedule of content updates, expansion to mobile platforms, and the availability of premium content to be purchased in-game.
This model can be seen at work with the release of November’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War: its first season of content and integration with Activision’s free-to-play battle royale title Call of Duty: Warzone seems to be paying impressive dividends, with increases in in-game purchases and a sharp spike in active players. The release even notes that the strategy has seen the highest number of battle passes sold to consumers since the introduction of the system in 2019, while Call of Duty Mobile saw strong growth in microtransactions in the West and a respectable launch in the Chinese market.
The company’s announcement of its intention to start applying the Call of Duty model to its other franchises has many curious about how that might manifest in the future. World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s iconic MMO, runs on a subscription service currently and a transition to a free-to-play model would certainly be a bold move. However, the upcoming Diablo Immortal is set to release as a free-to-play game, and is even confirmed to have a service in which players can spend real money to buy in-game items.
Activision Blizzard certainly seems to think that many of these impressive statistics are down to its Call of Duty strategy, and whatever fan opinions on microtransactions and the games-as-a-service ideology, it’s hard to argue with the results. Some have suggested, though, that some degree of the company’s success in the last year may be down to an increased portion of their customer base being stuck at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving many wondering whether the company will be able to sustain that growth once more people are vaccinated and returning to work or school. Time will tell, but Activision Blizzard seems confident for now.
Source: Activision-Blizzard
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