Activision Blizzard lost 63 million monthly active users over the last year

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Activision Blizzard finished the quarter ending March 31, 2022, with $1.77 billion in net revenue, down more than 22 percent from the $2.28 billion generated during the same period a year earlier. Net bookings, meanwhile, checked in at just $1.48 billion compared to $2.07 billion in the year-ago period.

Worse yet is Activision Blizzard's monthly active user count, which fell from 435 million at the end of Q1 2021 to just 372 million at the end of the most recent quarter. The silver lining here is that from Q4 2021 to Q1 2022, total MAUs actually increased but only by a million users.

Activision said sales of Call of Duty: Vanguard, the most recently released CoD game, were lower than the year ago title. Lower engagement was also witnessed in Call of Duty: Warzone, the free-to-play battle royale game from 2020.

The company did note that development on this year's CoD entry, which is being led by Infinity Ward, is proceeding well. It'll be a sequel to the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, and according to Activision, it'll be the most advanced experience in franchise history.

Activision Blizzard's 2023 CoD game, if you recall, has already been delayed due to Vanguard's poor performance thus far.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still fluid. Pending regulatory closing conditions and completion of regulatory review, the deal is expected to close during Microsoft's fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/94343-activision-blizzard-lost-63-million-monthly-active-users.html

 

[BadThad]

Well, they need to figure out how to completely remove all the PC cheaters. Aimbots and wallhacks have ruined the game on PC - as per usual with COD titles.

 

[RudyBob]

Well, to quote the movie "Slapshot". "Yeah. Johnny always says you can just screw so much and drink so much. "

I guess that applies here as well in a manner of speaking

 

[Nobina]

The last two CODs were blatant money grabs. They re-skin it and sell it for $60 minimum with microtransactions. They don't make them with the product in mind but use those games as a vehicle to get as much money out of people as possible. A full-priced game plus all the freemium stuff, you gotta be kidding me. The best thing for the gaming industry is for Activision Blizzard to disappear.

 

[SirDigby]

The last two CODs were blatant money grabs. They re-skin it and sell it for $60 minimum with microtransactions. They don't make them with the product in mind but use those games as a vehicle to get as much money out of people as possible. A full-priced game plus all the freemium stuff, you gotta be kidding me. The best thing for the gaming industry is for Activision Blizzard to disappear.

The last 2?! Just the last 2?! The last decade of CoD games have been blatant cash grabs.

 

[Guberian]

Well, they need to figure out how to completely remove all the PC cheaters. Aimbots and wallhacks have ruined the game on PC - as per usual with COD titles.

Have you heard of Cronus Zen? Its a undetectable device that you plug your controller into that allows for no recoil scripts.

 

[Guberian]

The last two CODs were blatant money grabs. They re-skin it and sell it for $60 minimum with microtransactions. They don't make them with the product in mind but use those games as a vehicle to get as much money out of people as possible. A full-priced game plus all the freemium stuff, you gotta be kidding me. The best thing for the gaming industry is for Activision Blizzard to disappear.

They were so greedy they nerfed the amount of free cod points you get in a battle pass and started jamming in lazy copypaste blueprints stickers and other eyecandy.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

COD has been uninspired trash for a LONG time now, and with so many new BR games in the last few years demand for COD has evaporated, and activision's greed has destroyed most other series they had. Blizzard is a has been studio that torpedoed fan investment with multiple bone headed moves.

INB4 somebody blames it all on activision's sex dungeon rings.

 

[Nobina]

The last 2?! Just the last 2?! The last decade of CoD games have been blatant cash grabs.

Well, I thought 2019 MW was decent.

 

[SirDigby]

Well, I thought 2019 MW was decent.

Decent enough, still a very blatant cash grab. Reboot-mania cashing in on the nostalgia.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I wasn't much of a fan of the CoD series after CoD2.

CoD:WaW wasn't very memorable
CoD:MW was okay. Better than WaW.
CoD:MW2 was where things kept going down hill reiteration after reiteration of CoD games.

I wish they'd bring back a solid single player game that supports co-op (2 to 4 people) and isn't littered with a ton of shitty QTE. The addition of QTE that stopped you mid game play to watch some "cinematic" event, like your character making a long jump, almost falling, but someone else pulling them back up is just stupid and breaks immersion. Save the cinematic scenes for between missions.

Sell a game with a solid single player game and design a solid MP game to accompany it. Take a couple years designing a well laid out game for both ends of the spectrum instead of the horseshit reskins they keep pushing out, trying to milk folks with extra microtransactions on top of the $60 game price.

What am I saying. They clearly aren't learning from their mistakes. Just keep rehashing that crap you've been pushing out over the past 12+ years and see where it keeps taking things.....down the toilet.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Well, they need to figure out how to completely remove all the PC cheaters. Aimbots and wallhacks have ruined the game on PC - as per usual with COD titles.

That's what happens when you use P2P networking and/or centralised servers.

 

[Avro Arrow]

You know, the narratives that we buy into make me laugh my posterior clean off. Somehow, the fact that Activision/Blizzard "only" brought $1.77 BILLION DOLLARS in a year is a bad thing. If I owned a company that "only" brought in that much, I can assure you that I sure as hell wouldn't be crying about it.

 

[jason lee]

Cheaters and hacks ? No thanks.

 

[SirDigby]

You know, the narratives that we buy into make me laugh my posterior clean off. Somehow, the fact that Activision/Blizzard "only" brought $1.77 BILLION DOLLARS in a year is a bad thing. If I owned a company that "only" brought in that much, I can assure you that I sure as hell wouldn't be crying about it.

It's more the case it's decreased so much YoY, spells bad things for a company that has continually grown for over a decade.