Blizzard’s earnings call reveals Overwatch has fifteen million players.
Blizzard Entertainment, one the gaming industry’s leading developers, has recently had an earnings call for the second financial quarter of 2016. The biggest surprise is once again Overwatch, Blizzards newest IP in 17 years, has already reached a record high 15 million players with barely two months since it was officially released.
It was a massive hit since its first week of release gathering 7 million players but with the latest report, its momentum on the sales leaderboards doesn’t seem to show any signs of stopping. Overwatch has a life-to-date revenue of about half a billion dollars, with players having spent 500 million hours playing the game.
Recently, Blizzard announced a professional tournament for the game with a prize pool of $300, 000. Its newest content Olympic-themed update titled “Summer Games” is bound to attract more players thanks to a new game mode, new skins, and other in-game items. With one new hero already released and various rumors and mysteries regarding “Sombra”, another possible new hero, Blizzard wants Overwatch to reach new heights in gaming.
Blizzard’s other games aren’t doing that bad either. The Legion expansion for World of Warcraft has registered similar pre-purchase numbers as the previous expansions. Although the Warcraft movie wasn’t very successful at US box office, it managed to garner new interest from people unfamiliar with the game. WOW managed to peak at around 12 million players but still has a decent amount of players for almost a 12-year-old game. Overwatch has the advantage of being on three platforms and doesn’t require a subscription. It isn’t entirely clear if by 15 million players, Blizzard just means the amount of accounts or active players.
Overall, Blizzard has had the biggest quarterly online player community in its history, with 33 million monthly active users, with the biggest revenue quarter and first half year ever. Even Hearthstone, a free to play game, had double-digit revenue growth year-over-year.
Blizzard’s future is looking very bright and with their upcoming convention, Blizzcon, this autumn, where rumors abound of a new Diablo expansion or an entirely new game in the series, coupled with constant content updates for Heroes of the Storm, things will keep getting better and better.
What Blizzard games do you play?
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