Activision Blizzard, the company behind games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, CoD Warzone, and World of Warcraft, is on a high. According to reports, the stock is more valuable than ever, with the company’s value exceeding 73 billion US dollars. And this is despite many players currently expressing criticism.
Where do the numbers come from? The Wall Street Journal reports that Activision Blizzard’s current market capitalization is 73.5 billion US dollars (via Wall Street Journal, as of January 21, 2021).
The stock currently costs 94.98 US dollars, exceeding the peak from December 2020. Since 1984, it has never been so expensive to invest in Activision Blizzard.
There are many reasons for the steady growth. In the third-quarter report of Activision Blizzard 2020, the company had some successes to report:
- 10 million players play Overwatch every month
- Diablo Immortal is reportedly doing very well
- over 1.2 billion US dollars came in through microtransactions (via PCGamer)
- Shadowlands had more pre-sales than any other WoW expansion before
The new WoW expansion has even become the fastest-selling PC game of all time. Still, many players are currently not necessarily happy with the company.
Activision is doing well – Despite criticism
Why are players grumbling? Although Shadowlands is well-received, there are also negative voices among the many players. On Metacritic, there were initially poor reviews, and players are still disturbed by some of the new mechanics, such as Anima, which can only be farmed slowly. This is a resource for which thousands of units are needed for important upgrades or cosmetic items, but can only be found in small quantities.
In Overwatch and Diablo 3, not much is happening anymore. The games are just coasting along, still receiving updates, but are no longer as prominent in the media as they were at their release. Fans of the games may feel somewhat neglected.
Additionally, Blizzard laid off over 800 employees in 2019, which caused a lot of negative sentiment, even though the company was doing very well at that time. There were also other significant points of criticism, such as:
- the botched remaster of Warcraft 3
- the announcement of Diablo Immortal
- the handling of a Hearthstone pro
Recently, however, Call of Duty has been receiving a lot of criticism. Since the release of the new Black Ops installment Cold War, players of Warzone in particular are dissatisfied. Cold War was integrated into Warzone and brought with it new weapons that many players do not like. They are even demanding that Cold War be removed from Warzone.
What is Activision Blizzard doing now? The revenues are apparently flowing into development. In May 2020, Activision Blizzard was looking for 2000 new employees. One of the largest current projects is presumably Diablo Immortal, which has already impressed with its alpha, as well as its “big brother” Diablo 4.
Hearthstone also just received a new mini-set along with new monetization on January 21. The card game has been considered a huge success since its release.
In February, BlizzConline 2021 will take place, the replacement for the BlizzCon 2020 which was canceled due to Corona. During this event, Blizzard will present online and free for all what the future holds for the many games of the company. We have already made some speculations about what you can expect at BlizzConline 2021.
