With a view to the closure of the Blizzard offices in Versailles announced in October, you might think that WoW, Hearthstone and Co. are generating ever decreasing sales and Activision Blizzard therefore had to react. However, the freshly published financial report for Q3 2020 paints a different picture: the publisher's portfolio once again exceeded expectations. In the following, we have summarized the most important findings from the Activision report with a view to the Blizzard franchises.

  • In addition to Call of Duty and Candy Crush, World of Warcraft will also surpass the $1 billion mark in net bookings this year. The online role-playing game has the clear potential to continue to grow in this regard, in the view of those responsible.Thanks to the hard work on several titles in the Diablo universe and the upcoming innovations for the Overwatch franchise, the future looks bright in terms of long-term revenues and revenue increases.The number of monthly active players in WoW remains stable compared to the previous year. This means that the live servers - as in the second quarter of 2020 - have the most players in ten years when it comes to the "idle phases" of an expansion.With the launch of Shadowlands on November 24, a sharp increase in player numbers is then expected. The number of pre-orders exceeds all previous expansions.Compared to Q3 2019, the number of active players in Hearthstone increased. Battlegrounds in particular remain an important feature to keep players logging in. The new content in November will provide more reasons to play Hearthstone in the coming weeks and months.After four years, Overwatch is still able to inspire around 10 million active players in the quarter. The Overwatch League has also been able to attract millions of players this year. The Grand Finals in October were the most watched event in League history.Diablo Immortal will soon move into an external regional testing phase.Overall, Blizzard saw net revenue of $411 million in Q3. That's up four percent from Q3 2019, thanks in large part to WoW's strong months. Operating income is actually up 80 percent year-over-year.

For more details, such as Call of Duty and the other Activision franchises, check out the quarterly report here.

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