Activision Blizzard Earns $1.2 Billion in Microtransactions Last Quarter

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Activision Blizzard Earns $1.2 Billion in Microtransactions Last Quarter

Video games have always been big business, but especially so in a year when the majority of the world's population tries to stay home as much as possible. Last week, Activision Blizzard announced its financial results for July through September, which were stronger than expected, with sales exceeding $1.95 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the same period of 2019.

The biggest driver of that success was a staggering $1.2B in microtransactions, which came primarily from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone. According to the report, the number of monthly active users for both titles increased more than tenfold in one year, and PC and console microtransaction sales quadrupled over the last year. Of the 30 million total active players across all Activision Blizzard titles, 111 million came from the Call of Duty franchise, and Modern Warfare holds the title of the COD game with the highest first-year sales. Only Candy Crush, which also owns the publisher since acquiring developer King in 2016, beats COD in monthly active users.

Overall, Activision Blizzard is projecting overall sales of $8.1 billion in 2020, which will be music to the ears of those recently laid off by the closing of its Versailles, France office. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Activision Blizzard would need to hire 2,000 people to cover future production demands.

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