Destiny, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm earned over $1.25B in combined revenue
Activision Blizzard announced in its Q2 financial report today noting that Destiny, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm combined now have more than 70 million registered players and over $1.25 billion in estimated revenues.
This figure is up from the Hearthstone and Destiny numbers announced in Activision's Q1 March financials. Both combined for the period had earned $1 billion in revenues life‐to‐date. In 2014, both titles had earned Activision $450 million in revenue.
The number of players for Destiny and Hearthstone combined also increased since Q1, when it was reported there were 50 million registered players between the two. At the time, Destiny players were logging on average three hours per day of game time.
However, with Heroes of the Storm included in the figures, it's unknown how much of a split can be allotted to each.
As of Q2 2015, Destiny now has seen over 2 billion hours of gameplay logged by players since launch, which amounts to an average 100 hours of gameplay for each of Destiny’s over 20 million registered players. Activision attributed the rise in player numbers to the House of Wolves expansion.
The firm said its digital monetization was up 25% year-over-year, and its Call of Duty franchise revenues increased by a doubledigit percentage year-over-year due to strong continued sell-through of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and growing online revenues per user across the franchise.
This included season pass, downloadable content, and micro-transaction offerings. Since the reveal of Black Ops 3, Black Ops 2 engagement has risen to 11 million monthly active users.
A Call of Duty beta, the first in years, will go live August 19 first on PS4, ahead of Black Ops 3 launch November 6.
Though World of Warcraft ended the quarter at 5.6 million subscribers, down 1.5 million compared to the previous quarter when sub numbers stood at 7.1 million. Despite the subscriber decline for the MMO, Blizzard revenues are up year-over-year based on its portfolio.
In June, the developer released Fury of Hellfire, one of the largest non-expansion content updates to date for World of Warcraft. Activision said this helped stabilize the subscriber number towards the end of the quarter.
The firm expects subs numbers to increase again with the release of a new expansion to the MMO, which will be announced at gamescom 2015 this week.
With the release of Hearthstone: Blackrock Mountain in April along with the Android and iOS mobile platforms, key engagement metrics nearly doubled year-over-year, largely on account of the aforementioned new content and platforms. Activision said engagement was high already.
It was also noted that Diablo 3 has now sold-through over 30 million units life-to-date globally, and thanks to it's release in China, engagement in the country on all Blizzard titles has increased.
The 2015 release window for StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void was once again confirmed, along with the pre-purchase incentive containing expansion levels. This also includes access to “Whispers of Oblivion” missions. These missions are a stand-alone product as previously announced.
In total, for the quarter ended June 30, Activision Blizzard net revenues were $1.04 billion, compared with $970 million year-over-year.
Digital channels brought in a record $569 million and represented a Q2 record 55% of the company’s total revenues.
