According to a recent report, sales of items inside video
game showed a more profitable business for Activision Blizzard than selling the
titles themselves.
Despite the fact that gamers are
opposed to the implementation of micro-transactions in modern video games, they
do not hesitate to open their own wallets to spend money on such virtual
products. Namely, some companies have already confirmed that selling items
within a games earns them more money than selling games themselves, and
recently US company Activision Blizzard joined them.
In particular, according to the
2017 financial report, Activision Blizzard earned $ 7.16 billion, but it is
interesting, and perhaps a bit scary, more than half - over four billion -
comes from selling or buying various in-game items. It should be noted that
most of this amount comes from King, the creator of Candy Crusha and other
mobile games with lots of micro-transactions, owned by Activision. However,
even if we divide King's share of $ 2 billion, we still have two billion left
on PC and console video games.
"Blizzard has produced record-breaking results for the year without launching big titles, but was largely driven by steady streams of content and events across their franchises, especially Overwatch, Heathstone, and Wold of Warcraft," said the finance director of the company. He also adds that "the impressive players investment in additional virtual products and services surpassed the DLC's investment in 2017 for Call of Duty and Destiny," and nothing less is to be expected this year.
"Blizzard has produced record-breaking results for the year without launching big titles, but was largely driven by steady streams of content and events across their franchises, especially Overwatch, Heathstone, and Wold of Warcraft," said the finance director of the company. He also adds that "the impressive players investment in additional virtual products and services surpassed the DLC's investment in 2017 for Call of Duty and Destiny," and nothing less is to be expected this year.
