Activision Blizzard, The Largest Video Game Company, Is Barely Making Video Games Anymore – Forbes

Activision Blizzard had its quarterly earnings call yesterday in which it announced that it had beaten expectations, and yet stock fell 4-5% all the same. It appears that at least some investors didn’t like what they heard on the call where the big news was that ATVI was selling city-based Call of Duty League spots and…not much else.

As part of its presentation, Activision laid out one of its goals going forward:

“We are focused on delivering a strong cadence of major content releases, where we meet the growing demand of the industry’s gaming communities and release our high-quality content more frequently.”

Why is that a focus? I mean, has anyone stopped and really taken stock of Activision’s catalog lately?

Call of Duty is the one annual release Activision can always count on, and it’s always a massive hit. An eternal golden goose, even if the series likely peaked years ago.

Activision has now lost Destiny after ending its publishing deal with Bungie, removing itself from the increasingly popular loot shooter space entirely, when it’s now more popular than it’s ever been with Destiny 2, The Division 2 and the pending arrival of Borderlands 3.

Skylanders is the 11th highest-selling gaming franchise in history, but the toys/games genre has evaporated and there hasn’t been a Skylanders game since 2016.

King, which makes up the bulk of Activision’s 300+ million “active users,” releases two new mobile games a year to varying degrees of success.

Blizzard has not released a new game since Overwatch in 2016, almost exactly three years ago. It’s the longest Blizzard has gone without a major release since the yawning six-year gap between World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2. Outside of that, Blizzard generally releases a new game every 1-2 years. But unlike World of Warcraft between 2004 and 2010, there is no one title that’s a cash machine for Blizzard right now, which just continues to extract revenue from updates to ongoing titles that have stagnant or dwindling playerbases.

All of this isn’t to say that Activision doesn’t make money. They do from these existing games and their limited releases and recently, from selling esports league spots for huge price tags. But when you actually look at their catalog, it is in pretty rough shape. The only games Activision published in 2018 were Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. King released Legends of Solgard and Candy Crush Friends Saga. Blizzard released nothing but expansions and events for existing titles. 2019 will bring Modern Warfare 4, and a publishing credit on Sekiro. Blizzard, again, seems poised to release nothing, still a year or two away at least from releasing anything at all. If we’re lucky we’ll get Diablo Immortals on mobile, and I think Blizzard fans have been pretty clear on how they feel about that.

This is why, frankly, I was surprised to see Activision agree to let Bungie out of its deal and the two go their separate ways. Destiny may not have been some super crazy money printer for Activision, and yet it was a game that was consistently releasing new content and sequels with a very active, passionate playerbase. Activision does not have another series like that outside of Call of Duty, and pretty much every old Blizzard IP is fading while its new flagship, Overwatch, is still struggling against the current tide in many ways. Activision now does not have a loot shooter and its only battle royale entry is a sub-mode of Call of Duty, one that is still getting eclipsed by PUBG, Apex Legends and Fortnite.

This is a strange position for the world’s largest video game company. I do wonder if they will stay on the throne indefinitely, at this rate.

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