Activision-Blizzard loses 63 million MAUs as Call of Duty, WoW slip

Activision-Blizzard has lost a total of 63 million monthly active users in one year, signalling that gamers are moving on to other titles.

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Activision's latest financials show a significant decrease in active players. According to the company's financials and data compiled by us, Activision-Blizzard had 372 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Q1 2022, down a whopping 63 million users from Q1 2021.

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Activision made up most of this loss, which could indicate Call of Duty has lost tens of millions of users since last year.

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Blizzard's MAUs have been falling consistently since December of 2018, with partial jumps to 33 million MAUs in Q3 2019 only to fall down to 22 million MAUs in Q1 2022.

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There's a few reasons for this and it's not all doom and gloom--at least in the Activision segment.

Yes, Call of Duty Vanguard sales were lower year-on-year from Black Ops Cold War. Players are also dropping Warzone--a trend that's clearly illustrated by Activision's own substantial player drop--which has led to lower revenues for Q1. The company is clearly facing competition from other heavy-hitting F2P games like Fortnite and Roblox, as well as premium games like Elden Ring, who attracted 12 million users in less than a month.

Activision is also competing with itself. Q1 2021 was a big period with multiple big Activision games on the market, including the Tony Hawk remaster, as well as the continued success of Black Ops Cold War being moved forward by a new console generation.

Q1 2022 didn't have those things. Vanguard's momentum never reached the critical mass that Cold War did, and Warzone has been losing players due to key issues like cheating.

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So what does this tell us? Activision is having a hard time competing with its previous quarters, but the company is still sustaining strong MAUs thanks to Candy Crush maker King, who has stood as a consistent pillar of the ABK's revenues time-after-time.