More than a third of all users at Blizzard have disappeared in the last quarter. Nevertheless, there is great satisfaction – and there are many reasons for that.
Every 3 months, Activision Blizzard publishes the rough key figures regarding revenues and the general state of the company. This is to inform the shareholders about the current situation at Activision Blizzard and what the plans for the near future are.
Blizzard, in particular, had to take quite a hit, as they lost 40% of their users. The reason for this, however, could be quite simple – and apparently, the numbers are hardly affected by it.
What has changed at Blizzard? Even for the 4th quarter of 2022, Blizzard reported a total of 45 million monthly active users (“MAUs”). However, in the 1st quarter of 2023, this number has drastically dropped, with only 27 million MAUs now recorded.
This is a decrease of 40% compared to the last quarter. Compared to the 1st quarter of 2022 – in year-on-year comparison – the value has actually increased. Back then, there were only 22 million MAUs.
Where does the significant decline come from? The main reason for the massive drop in numbers is likely the incident with NetEase in China. Blizzard had a falling out with their Chinese partner, which led to World of Warcraft and other Blizzard games being unavailable in China since the end of January. All those Chinese WoW or Hearthstone players are therefore eliminated as monthly users – because they simply no longer have access to the games.
How is Blizzard doing in general? Based on the pure numbers, quite well – despite the loss of the Chinese player base. Blizzard alone is said to have achieved a growth of 62% in revenue compared to the 1st quarter of 2022. All three major franchises, namely Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo, are said to have contributed to this growth, especially with the pre-order for Diablo IV having had a significant impact.
- The development of Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft is particularly highlighted, as both games receive content faster and more of it, which is well received by the players.
- World of Warcraft can retain significantly more subscribers in the West than has been the case with other expansions in recent history.
- Interest in Overwatch has decreased somewhat; however, Season 3 ran significantly more successfully than Season 2. The playtime is still at double the level compared to before the switch to Free2Play.
- Diablo Immortal contributed significantly to growth, whether on mobile or PC.
- Diablo IV has strong pre-orders, and it is expected that this will increase significantly on the release date in June.
Elsewhere, there is currently a lot of criticism for Blizzard, because the WoW team is losing developers.
