Though 2016 may not be considered as the best year for Hollywood, the video game industry had a surprisingly good year. Activision has just reported that they saw a 42 percent increase in revenue last year, and it's big thanks to the developers at Blizzard.
According to Game Informer, Activision Blizzard has reported that they earned a whopping $6.6 billion in 2016. That's a huge growth considering that they only got up to $4.66 billion last year. Most of the revenue can be attributed to Blizzard games like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and the incredibly successful Overwatch.
Overwatch Success - 25 Million Players
Ever since its release last year, Overwatch has become one of the fastest growing communities for Blizzard, and they have just recently hit 25 million players. The appeal for the game was said to be equal to both the East and the West, and the title was said to have received $2,428 million in profits for the company.
On the other hand, one of Activision's biggest titles, Call of Duty, did not perform as the company expected it to last year. After the terrible backlash of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Activision is said to put their main focus on traditional combat for the year of 2017. With only a few titles expected to release in the year, the company can focus on building engagement with their current list of available titles. A lot of eyes are also looking at Destiny 2 to bring in some strong revenue.
Blizzard Players Spiked At 447 Million Players
It was also reported that the number of monthly active users had risen to 447 million players. Out of that number, over 43 billion hours was spent playing "Activision Blizzard content." The company has had a very strong year, but it is quite ironic that the stronger titles like Call of Duty were the ones that severely underperformed. With such a large community, the company could focus all their energy on Overwatch this time around.
