Activision Blizzard Posts 4Q Loss

Video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. posted a fourth-quarter loss Wednesday, but adjusted earnings jumped past Wall Street's expectations, boosted by strong sales of the latest "Guitar Hero" and "Call of Duty" games.

The company posted a loss of $72 million, or 5 cents per share, for the quarter, dragged down in part by charges from its combination with Vivendi Games last July. Adjusted earnings totaled $429 million, or 31 cents per share, surpassing the 29 cents per share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected.

More after the jump

[solideagle1]

i thought blizzard would have never get LOSS in the recession. i mean 11 million users of world of warcraft and call of duty selling like crazy. hmmmm i think nobody is immune to recession.
thanks

[Mikerra17]

how does a company with WoW and all those other games post a loss, no wonder all the other companies are going under

[Blasphemy]

Amazing with all those WoW subscriptions and all those Call of Duty and Guitar Hero sales and they still post losses...

[lord_of_balrogs]

Ya it's almost as if the world is in a recession or something. Oh wait.

[evrfighter]

Don't forget development costs for diablo 3 and starcraft II is probably the main reason for this.

[Blasphemy]

The way their games are selling it doesn't seem that way.

[NarFan]

its Activision who losing money not blizzard

[Motion]

But wow alone with 11mil users should earn them 165mil a month. How could they be spending more than 1,980,000,000 a year to post a loss? A servers really THAT expensive to maintain?

[B4st10n]

Just with WOW they have earnings of :
10 000 000 x 3 monthes x 15$ ( I give them 1 million slack to round up )

That makes 450 Millions ( just with WOW ), they say they earned only 438 Millions. What gives ???

I am talking earnings here, not profit.

[Mikerra17]

well they say that they have HAD 11 million subscribers, but Im thinking that is all time and not counting what they have at the moment.

Im sure their isnt 11 million people with active accounts

[Scerick]

It's 11 million active subscribers, not a lifetime total.

http://gamerfront.net/2008/...

[B4st10n]

I'm not counting all the earnings they made with selling the expansion pack WOTLK.

[Torkith]

Activision BLizzard = Activision
Blizzard kept it's original name just Blizzard.

I could be wrong, but when they merged it was only Activision who adopted a subname. If anyone could correct me, please send me a link, I would like to read an article about it.

[Ldubbz]

Activision did very well, even better than last year. The loss mainly stems from when Vivendi (the same people who own Universal) bought them out and combined them with their gaming division.

I honestly didnt know that they were owned by Vivendi now. Much like the move industry, the gaming industry is continuing to be more and more consolidated by the big conglomerates. For better or worse.