Destiny has 16m players, Call of Duty in 2015 – six things we learned from Activision's financials

The veteran publisher boasted a record year in 2014, with Call of Duty, Destiny and Hearthstone all performing well, and digital sales exploding

Destiny: ‘offered a glimpse of the future’. Photograph: PR

Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard boasted record sales for 2014 and beat market estimates for its fiscal quarter ending 31 December, but share value fell after the company announced it was unlikely to meet revenue projections for 2015.

In an investor call on Thursday evening, adjusted sales of $2.2bn were revealed for the last quarter, beating estimates of $2.1bn, thanks to strong sales for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Destiny. The company projected 2015 earnings of $4.14bn for 2015, lower than the $4.4bn it previously estimated. Activision blamed weakened foreign currencies, higher tax rates and investment into Blizzard’s free-to-play online battle game Heroes of the Storm.
Here’s what else we learned.

Treyarch is answering the Call of Duty in 2015

Call of Duty: Black Ops II – the most successful title in the CoD series. Will there be a follow-up? Photograph: PR

Not announced during the investor call but revealed concurrently on Twitter, developer Treyarch confirmed that it is developing 2015’s Call of Duty instalment. The creator of the Black Ops titles didn’t mention whether its game would be a continuation of that series, but considering Black Ops 2 remains the most successful title in Call of Duty history that seems pretty likely.
Bobby Kotick also revealed that the culminative earnings for the Call of Duty franchise now stand at over $11bn. So yeah, Call of Duty isn’t going anywhere.

Destiny has over 16m registered users

The ‘shared world shooter’ has over 16m players who indulge in an average of three hours of play a day Photograph: PR

It was a successful launch for Bungie’s online sci-fi shooter, even though the ambitious project received mixed reviews when it arrived in September. Activision claimed that data from market research company NPD made it “the most successful launch of a new video game franchise in history”. The mix of role-playing and FPS elements has certainly proved compelling: active players are averaging three hours of alien blasting a day. Three hours. There are no figures on how much of that time was spent hanging around outside the loot cave.

Skylanders is still ridiculously successful

Last year’s Skylanders: Trap Team has continued the success of the ‘toys to life’ series Photograph: Activision

The “toys to life” series, which combines kid-friendly role-playing adventures with compatible action figures, is another ongoing success. So far, Activision has sold 240m Skylanders toys, outperforming all other action figure lines in 2014. The series has made over $3bn so far.
The company is promising an “innovative” new title in the series this year, which is good news for fans, but bad news for parents: if there are significant new features it’ll probably mean a lack of backward compatibility with the current Portal of Power peripheral that connects the game to the toys. Hence, new starter pack. Oh Activision.

The World of Warcraft ship has steadied

The Warlords of Draenor expansion pack has boosted interest in Activision Blizzard’s long-running online role-playing game, World of Warcraft Photograph: Activision

The long-running massively multiplayer online game has been losing players over the past two years, but thanks to a boost in interest delivered by new expansion pack Warlords of Draenor (which sold over 3.3m copies within 24 hours of its November launch), it ended the year with over 10m subscribers. Considering the influx of free-to-play alternatives, that’s impressive form for the ageing MMORPG warlord.

Digital and free-to-play are the big growth areas

Call of Duty Online is coming to China this year; a free-to-play version of the blockbusting shooter designed specifically for the region Photograph: Activision

Like its rival publishers Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, Activision is moving away from a concentration on boxed-copy game sales and toward digital distribution. This includes full downloadable games on smartphones, tablets and consoles, and extra downloadable content for big titles like Call of Duty and Destiny. Indeed, the company boasted record digital sales in 2014, making up 46% of its revenue, and over the winter quarter it made $685 million from digital content. Demand for Call of Duty map packs doubled in 2014, and its likely that Destiny’s expansion packs – the already released Dark Below, and forthcoming House of Wolves – will provide a financial boost, especially at their £20 price point.
In January, Activision launched an open beta of Call of Duty Online, a free-to-play version of the hit shooter, specifically targeted at the Chinese market, where the freemium model dominates. The game is co-published by China’s Tencent, which runs several of the regions leading free-to-play role-playing games.
The company’s free card-battling game Hearthstone has also performed well with 25m registered players. Activision didn’t give separate revenue figures for the game, which makes money from microtransactions; it did, however, claim that, combined, Destiny and Hearthstone had generated $850m in revenue.

There are new “franchises” to come

Overwatch is Blizzard’s new team-based shooter set on an alternative future Earth Photograph: Activision

“This year we expect to expand our leading franchise portfolio to ten, up from five franchises at the beginning of 2014,” said Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick. “Franchise” is business speak for “games”, FYI.
Anyway, this boosted line-up will include Blizzard’s two newcomers Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch, a six-vs-six online shooter clearly aimed at the growing eSports market. What else? Well, we can expect at least one new title – or maybe even a return of a favourite legacy series for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One era. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Guitar Hero are both rumoured. We’d love to see Interstate 76, though: the apocalyptic road adventure from the 90s would look astonishing on current machines. Well, if there’s money in it, Activision will sniff it out.

Learning How to Make Money In World of Warcraft

There is nothing quite like it anywhere else although many others have tried. They haven't failed, but they can't exactly live up to the standards set by the World of Warcraft.There is nothing quite like it anywhere else although many others have tried. They haven't failed, but they can't exactly live up to the standards set by the World of Warcraft.

If you decide to go with this option to experience the World of Warcraft in all its game playing glory then you also get the chance to create your very character, which can be fun and interesting in and of itself. But now that you have a better idea about the game you might want to create a different character, then again you might want to stay with your first World of Warcraft creation. The importance of learning how to make money in World of Warcraft is large because it is your only way to improve; you need your money or gold to get better throughout the game. Here are a few ways for you to consider learning how to make money in World of Warcraft. Those looking how to make money in World of Warcraft understand that you can make more money or gold by perfecting your profession, but it won't be easy!

While it won't be the answer to all of your problems, this guide could give you a few more ideas on how to make money in World of Warcraft that you never considered. You never know, it could be the smartest thing you ever do! Any time a massively popular game like this one hits the circuits there are those looking to make a buck and those looking to dominate the game.

A good World of Warcraft cash creating guide can show you how to do both, here are a few ways one can help you. By earning gold or monetary wealth within World of Warcraft you can become more powerful and successful; leading you to the third thing a good World of Warcraft cash creating guide will show you. If you make it through several levels and make a good amount of gold or master a profession you can become an expert and sell e-books online. Think about it, that is how a World of Warcraft cash creating guide gets a start anyway, right?

World Of Warcraft Guides On PvP And PvE

This World of Warcraft class guide will help you learn everything that you need to know .Resilience was buffed, PvP and PvE Guide increasing the length of PvP matches and somehow injecting a bit more skill into the mix. To me all I can see is unkillable healers who have to be taken down with precision strikes that if they fail will require planning, waiting, and a second attempt. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Gold Sellers have gone insane. I was witness to a legion of newbies running around with gold selling site names. They're getting desperate. The economy of the game is going haywire and things are working against them. The price of gold is falling and rising, there are legions of teleporting farmers going under the world to gank titanium nodes, and accounts are getting hacked left and right.

This is a war people. This is a war for your accounts, for your gold, and for your real life money. Buy Wow Gold Instant Delivery, To them they want to take your account, take your gold, and then when you're desperate for it back they sell it back to you PvP and PvE Guide. They're using authenticators to keep you from getting on, Google ads are filled with phising sites that aim to steal your account, and Blizzard is being bombarded on the forums and IRL over the phone with restore requests.

Scammers, here at home, are trying to even take advantage of this by scamming Blizzard into restoring their accounts and getting something from nothing.
It starts off with a bit of history. Dalaran was originally founded by mages fleeing the restrictions of Strom so they could practice their trade with some peace. They built the Violet Citadel on an island in the middle of Dalaran and the large violet gardens all around with their magical knowledge.

Player vs Environment, commonly referred to as PvE by most online games .Of course, using magic like that comes at a price. PvP and PvE Guide Demons from The Burning Legion began showing up. Cheapest World Of Warcraft Gold, Strom was ready to invade so they went to the High Elves and made a deal that formed the Order of Tirisfal. The order would appoint the Guardian of Tirisfal to protect Azeroth from the demons while they worked to control the use of magic to prevent any kind of special tears that would allow the demons to invade.

Pet Battles Guides In World Of Warcraft

The reinvigorated battle pets system lets you take those cute and cuddly companions that barely followed you around before in World of Warcraft and place them to good use battling individual another.

Not only does this connect more depth to the game, no more than it lets players enjoy those minute pets even more as they lastly spring into action. Since the plan is brand new there is a be destitute of of information about how to progress to the surpass levels. We will cover the various level ranges for different locations in the intrepid and hopefully provide you with a brains of direction for how you should subsist navigating around leveling up.

The in the place thing you have to do is pay with respect to the Pet Battle skill at single of the battle trainers throughout the earth. They are found in many of the starting zones and they are moreover found in Stormwind and Orgrimarr.

When you supply with food the trainer you will have to pay 100 gold to get your training. From there you should buy the starter especially liked for your race and then flinch battling with your pet to memorize a feel for it.

If you admitted your training in one of the starting zones you be possible to use the pet tracking ability to procure some pets nearby to try off your first battle. Most of the pets approximate to starting zones are around level 1 to such a degree you shouldn't have a question battling against any of them.

Make fast that you focus on killing the pets that you measure swords for a little while in the inception so that your first pet have power to level up. After you have gained a scarcely any levels you can capture some supplementary wild pets, or add some other comrade pets to your team as supplemental slots level up.

Finding pets that are round your level as you level up may present the appearance difficult but it is actually comparatively simple if you try to remember the zones that you used to level up initially.

The zones with higher condition enemies also have higher level pets against your battle pets to take without interrupti. All of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms progress in the adjust that you would expect them to and you should have existence able to get your pet up cease to level 20 before ever leaving them by Mount Hyjal and Twilight Highlands at the same time that some of your last spots.

From in that place you can move on to the Outlands to the time when you have reached the mid-twenties. Outlands progresses in the sort fashion with Hellfire Peninsula at the mean end of the range between 17 and 18 and Netherstorm at the luxuriously end with level 20 pets.

After Outlands you can go to Northrend where the fondling levels are pretty stable at between 20 and 22 throughout and eventually Pandaria to get those last leash levels and finally reach 25.

Make positive to pay attention to the especially liked families in the pet battle universe, or the types of pets with each new battle that you take down into. If you know which darling you have that is strong over your enemy you will be skilful to win more fights even if you are up against a stronger ted than your own. The game is exceedingly strategic and thinking about your actions power of determination help you get farther towards achieving your goals.

Teach You How To Earn As Much WoW Gold As Possible

Warcraft gold, gathering is the way to go - and here's why: it's passive, part of your character. ... The market for herbs and potions will increase steadily .Learning how to farm WoW gold is among the most important skills that players should be able to master in the game. World of Warcraft players should be good at it so you can get the most expensive gears and rare items sold in the game.Wow Gold 90, If you easily run out of gold and you want to get a lot of gold faster than you can spend, then you should learn the best ways of farming gold How to Improve Your Gold Farming Skills in World of Warcraft.

Several classes are capable of killing many monsters at a time that can speed up your WoW gold collection. The Death Knights as well as paladins are able to restore their HP and cast area of effect spells making it easy to defeat a number of enemies at the same time and this strategy is known as AoE grinding. Such specs can engage multiple mobs at a time and kill them efficiently for faster earnings of WoW gold. In case you are a warrior, you may need the help of healers in accomplishing the same feat. The other classes can do AoE grinding as well by creating a team three men composed of DPS, tank and healer.

Whether you are a newbie or long time player of the game, one of the fastest and best ways to farm Wow gold is queuing up for the dungeon runs. Mobs in dungeons drop gold as well as blue and green items that could be sold at the auction house. Being able to complete each dungeon will also reward you with WoW gold so if you can clear dungeons faster, you will haul more gold per hour.

If you're looking to increase your WoW wealth, Gold Capped is a great place to start. Like AoE grinding, Buy Wow Gold Instant Delivery, creating a reliable team is the key to a fast, death free runs on dungeons. How to Improve Your Gold Farming Skills in World of Warcraft The healers and tanks must make it sure to protect the rest of the team, preventing on-shot deaths while the DPS must learn the spell rotations to quickly kill the monsters.