Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 sees a huge jump in player numbers ahead of Black Ops 4
User engagement is up across the board for Call of Duty: WW2, Black Ops 3, Destiny 2, and Overwatch.
Activision Blizzard has reported its Q2 2018 financial results, noting record user engagement across all of its major titles.
Activision Blizzard had 352 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) during the quarter. Blizzard games made up 37 million of those MAUs.
The company said World of Warcraft momentum remains high ahead of the Battle for Azeroth expansion, which is still seeing strong pre-orders.
Blizzard also plans a continuous stream of Overwatch content for the second half of this year. This includes seasonal events, maps, heroes, and new cosmetic items.
Pre-purchases for the upcoming Hearthstone expansion, The Boomsday Project, are tracking ahead of any prior expansion at the same point in time pre-release.
Activision had 45 million MAUs with Call of Duty: WW2 users tracking significantly higher than the prior franchise release.
Pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 are strong, and due to the excitement surrounding the upcoming title, Black Ops 3 MAUs grew quarter-over-quarter. During the month of June, player numbers for Blops 3 reached the highest level for this year with over 15 million players.
The firm said it expects Black Ops 4 to be the best selling game this fall, and believes it's the "best Call of Duty" related installment to date.
During the quarter, Destiny 2 released its second expansion, Warmind, with higher attach rates than Destiny 1’s second expansion. The game's monthly active users also grew quarter-over-quarter.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy performed well across PC, Switch, and Xbox One.
The money end
For the second quarter ended June 30, 2018, Activision Blizzard’s net revenues reported were $1.64 billion, up from $1.63 billion from Q2 2017.
Net revenues from digital channels were $1.26 billion. Net bookings for the quarter were $1.38 billion, compared to $1.42 billion year-over-year. Net booking from digital channels were $1.20 billion, up from $1.28 billion for the same quarter in 2017.
Activision Blizzard delivered $1 billion of in-game net bookings during Q2 and a record of approximately $2 billion year-to-date.
Activision had record Q2 in-game net bookings driven by Call of Duty: WW2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Destiny 2.
As a refresher, Net bookings is an operating metric defined as the net amount of products and services sold digitally or sold-in physically. This includes license fees, merchandise, and publisher incentives, among others.
A call to investors has kicked off, and if anything interesting comes out of it, we'll update this post.