Call of Duty has nearly 90 million monthly players, and half of all Call of Duty engagement is on mobile, Activision Blizzard reveals.
The confirmation comes as Microsoft’s longtime commitment to Activision Blizzard draws to a close. Today, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard officially extended the deadline for their merger to allow time for the $69 billion deal to receive approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). A resolution is expected within the next few weeks.
The importance of Call of Duty was central to the Federal Trade Commission’s failure to block the deal, and Sony president Jim Ryan was drafted to highlight the shooter series’ phenomenal popularity. rice field. Call of Duty is claimed to be the best shooter in the world, even EA, which owns the Battlefield franchise, can’t compete.
New financial numbers released today by Activision Blizzard show why Call of Duty causes such a stir. Activision’s revenue increased 17% year-over-year in the three months ended June 30, and operating profit increased 80% year-over-year. All of this was “driven” by growth across the Call of Duty franchise, Activision Blizzard said.
Premium Call of Duty sales (most of which came from last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) saw a “exponential” year-over-year increase. In-game net bookings (DLC and microtransactions) in Q2 were higher than in both Q1 and Q1 2018, and Season 3 saw “a strong response from the community, making Modern Warfare 2 games so far It was the highest-grossing game of the season “toward enhancing gameplay and offering the new BlackCell Battle Pass,” said Activision Blizzard.
Overall, Activision Blizzard generated $1.5 billion in the quarter from DLC and microtransactions, up 30% year over year. That number would have been further boosted by his big early June release of Diablo 4, which included an in-game cosmetics shop, but Call of Duty’s microtransactions would make up the bulk of the total.
Meanwhile, Call of Duty Mobile engagement and online bookings are said to be “steady” year-over-year. According to Activision, worldwide lifetime consumer spending on Call of Duty Mobile exceeded $3 billion in the second quarter since its launch in October 2019.
Despite the success of Call of Duty, Activision’s own monthly active users (MAU) figures for the quarter were down 2 million year-over-year to 92 million. After the release of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, Activision’s MAU dropped dramatically, reaching a total of 111 million MAUs in the three months ending December 31, 2022.
Activision will soon unveil Call of Duty 2023, widely expected to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is currently in testing and will be released later this year.
Wesley is IGN’s UK news editor. Find @wyp100 on Twitter. Wesley can be contacted at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
