Activision Blizzard has just held their Q3 2013 financials conference call and it brings a few bits and pieces of interesting information. I won’t go into how well they’re doing financially since their split from Vivendi because numbers are boring.
What we have learned from the call this evening is that a there will be a new Call of Duty in 2014. It’s already planned folks. If you thought Ghosts could be a break point for the franchise then you’re sadly mistaken.
With $1bn worth of CoD shipped out to retailers Activision say that “Q3 was a record high for COD franchise engagement”. Gamers will believe the hype it appears.
With the recent uncovering of the trademark and domain registration for Warlords of Draenor, I think we can say that this will be the next World of Warcraft expansion. In the call it was stated that there would be “significant” World of Warcraft content coming from Blizzard.
How are the World of Warcraft subscriber numbers doing? They’re still strong but have fallen another 200,000 to 7.5 million since the last investor call. With a WoW expansion looming these will likely rise again, for a few months at least.
Diablo 3 was also discussed and the latest sales numbers were a little underwhelming considering the game has now been released on both console platforms. Back in April Diablo 3 had sold 12 million copies on the PC and today they announced that 14 million copies have now been sold on all platforms since the game was launched last year.
The release of Diablo 3 on consoles did have one positive effect on the PC version of the game, it helped Blizzard come to the decision to remove the auction house . Mike Morhaime said in the call:
“Much of the praise (for the console version) has been on changes we made to the loot system and the decision to keep the auction house off of the console platform. Players and critics alike have noted that these changes have resulted in a more fun and satisfying gameplay experience. That reaction factored in our decision to remove the auction house from the PC version effective next March which players have responded positive to.”
More Diablo 3 news is expected to be revealed at BlizzCon later this week according to Mike Morhaime.
So more COD eh? Let’s just hope they have some original ideas left. I’ll leave you with this video that has been doing the rounds today.