Daily Briefing: Friday 4th February

There’s a mobile Warcraft game coming this year

Speaking in their most recent earnings report published this week (there was no actual earnings call due to the proposed Microsoft acquisition), the company stated that at least one F2P mobile Warcraft titles is set to release before the end of this year. This follows on from Activision Blizzard’s confirmation last year that “multiple” F2P Warcraft experiences were deep in development. As far as specific details go, the earnings report just says “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.”

• Embattled Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick previously said that these kinds of F2P mobile titles will “create opportunities for both existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways.” However, as we know from the still-infamous Diablo Immortal debacle, there’s a bit of disparity between Activision Blizzard’s core audience and the target market for mobile experiences. Still, it’ll be interesting to see what a mobile version of Warcraft will look like.

Activision look to Infinity Ward to rescue Call of Duty

Staying with Activision Blizzard’s financial reports for a moment, one of the biggest things we learned was that Call of Duty net bookings on console and PC decline year-on-year across the fourth reporting quarter. Activision attributed this decrease to lower sales for Call of Duty Vanguard, which was developed by Sledgehammer games and released following widespread reports of internal strife within the studio. The multiplayer and Zombies components, meanwhile, were created by Black Ops series developer Treyarch. Even more worrying than lower premium sales, however, is the news that Warzone has seen “lower engagement.”

• Activision didn’t give any specific detail in the way of sales numbers for Vanguard or player numbers for Warzone, but something they did say is that development on this year’s premium and Warzone “experiences” is being led by Infinity Ward. They were responsible for both the successful 2019 Modern Warfare reboot and the battle royale juggernaut that is Warzone. According to Activision Blizzard, Infinity Ward are "working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting.” Take that, WWII-set Vanguard.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund just splashed the gaming cash

According to a new report from Bloomberg, the country’s Public Investment Fund has been used to invest stakes exceeding 5% in both Capcom and Nexon. Though it’s not clear exactly how much of the fund was allocated to each investment, but Bloomberg claim that the combined value of both investments totals more than $1bn.

• These investment in Capcom and Nexon is just the most recent of their type to come out of Saudi Arabia in the past few years. Back in December 2020, the Public Investment Fund was used to acquire of $3bn worth of stock in Activision Blizzard, EA, and Take-Two Interactive. Interestly, the Fund is actually set to receive a notable profit should Microsoft’s proposed $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard go through. That deal centres around all shares being bought for $95, whereas the purchase price of stocks in December 2020 ranged from $79-$91 per share.