Overwatch Anchors Strong Q2 2016 with 15 Million Players

Overwatch is as big a success as it has seemed for the past several months since launch. During today's Activision-Blizzard investor call, the company revealed the numbers of players along with the news that revenues are up 50% year-over-year and a quarterly record of $1.14 billion, slightly over revenue totals for the same quarter in 2015.

Blizzard also announced that it featured 33 million monthly active users in Q2 2016 over 13% up from last year and is largely attributed to Overwatch and a record quarter for Hearthstone.

Other points of interest from the earnings call include:

• Blizzard had the biggest quarterly online player community in its history, with MAUsA of 33 million, up 29% quarter-over-quarter and 13% year-over-year. This reflects the successful launch of Overwatch® and strength across the broader portfolio, including Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™, which had record quarterly MAUsA, and World of Warcraft®, which had double-digit MAUA growth quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

• On May 24, 2016, Blizzard launched Overwatch which now has over 15 million players globally, including box and digital sales, internet game room players, and multi-user console households. In China, Overwatch broke the previous record set by Diablo® III as the fastest-selling PC game in the market’s history.1 Overwatch also currently holds the number one position in Korean Internet Game Rooms with over 30% share of play time.

• Players have spent about 500 million hours playing Blizzard’s Overwatch, with additional content updates ahead.

• Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft had record total quarterly time spent with the launch of the Whispers of the Old Gods™expansion.

• Blizzard had its biggest segment revenue quarter and first half year, ever. Blizzard's quarterly segment operating income nearly tripled vs. the second quarter last year. Additionally, Blizzard had record second quarter GAAP revenues and record quarterly non-GAAP revenues (as previously defined) in China. Blizzard’s overall performance was driven in particular by Overwatch’s outstanding launch, World of Warcraft’s strong pre-expansion momentum, with Legion pre-purchases tracking in-line with the previous expansion, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft’s double digit revenue growth year-over-year.

• On August 11, 2016, Blizzard plans to release a new adventure for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The adventure, One Night inKarazhan™, will offer single-player content and the ability to earn new cards for multiplayer duels.

• On August 30, 2016, Blizzard is expected to launch its highly anticipated World of Warcraft expansion, Legion™. World of Warcraftremains the No. 1 subscription?based MMORPG in the world.

Read the full press release here.