Sales figures, studio buyouts, financial reports… if these topics interest you, you’ve come to the right place. We offer you an update on the business news of the past week.
Call of Duty: 400 million sales for the Activision franchise
The Call of Duty license seems stronger than ever. It has elapsed to more than 400 million copies since its birth in 2003, which puts it ahead of franchises like Pokémon and FIFA, which respectively exceed the 368 millions and 325 million games sold. In May 2019, that is to say before the releases of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered, it was about 300 million sales. Activision does not say more about the individual performance of Call of Duty “premium”, preferring to reveal some figures for free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone, which has seen 100 million players since its launch in March 2020. Including Call of Duty: Mobile, developed by Tencent, the Call of Duty ecosystem grossed $ 3 billion in 2020. The 2021 episode has not yet been unveiled by Activision, but there is talk of a return in World War II.
To read also: From 2003 to the present, Call of Duty’s rise as the king of mainstream FPS
Dontnod returns to profit
2020 has been a rich year for Dontnod. The Parisian studio released Tell Me Why in August, then Twin Mirror in December. Two new narrative games that did not help increase the company’s turnover (13.5 million euros against 13.9 million euros in 2019), but the net profit is back in the positive (949,000 euros against a loss of 86,000 in 2019). Dontnod’s cash position stood at 21.2 million euros at the end of 2020, before the 50 million euros fundraising carried out in January 2021, boosted by the participation (30 million euros) of the Chinese giant Tencent. “We are entering this new year with greatly increased financial resources which will enable us to accelerate our ambitious development plan”, commented CEO Oskar Guilbert. Dontnod has no less than “six original creations” in the works, including five in self-publishing and one in co-production with Focus Home Interactive, which will be released between 2022 and 2025. A line-up reinforced by a seventh game developed by the Danish studio PortaPlay, which will be co-produced and edited by the French firm. It currently employs more than 250 people in France, not counting the members of the Montreal branch opened last year. Dontnod’s full annual report is available here.
CD Projekt takes stock of its year 2020
With 468 million euros in turnover and 253 million euros in net profit, CD Projekt achieved – by far – the biggest year in its history in 2020. In its Annual Review, the Polish firm reveals that Cyberpunk 2077 sales were 13.7 million copies as of December 31, including 7.67 million on PC, 3.84 million on PS4 and 2.33 million on Xbox One. We also learn that the game was designed by a team of 530 CD Projekt developers, knowing that in all, 5,200 people have contributed to this project including the total budget amounts to 263 million euros, making it one of the most expensive games in history. CD Projekt has not commented on the sales dynamics in the first months of 2021. The studio has honored around 30,000 claims under its game reimbursement program, costing it $ 1.8 million. ‘euros. This is without counting the refunds made directly by Sony (which let us remember that withdrew the game from the PS Store), Microsoft and the various resellers around the world.
CD Projekt reiterated its desire “to bring Cyberpunk 2077 to a level where everyone can fully enjoy it, whatever the platform”, by deploying patches, additional content and the optimized version PS5 and Xbox Series planned for the second half of 2021. For its part, The Witcher franchise has exceeded 50 million sales, including more than 30 million for The Witcher 3. The latter had its second best year in terms of sales, behind that of its release (2015). It will also be entitled to a “next gen” version – with a free upgrade – in the second part of 2021. The license will also be talked about with the mobile game The Witcher: Monster Slayer, planned for the summer, and season 2 of the Netflix series at the end of the year. Let’s end with a mention about GOG.com, the PC game store owned by CD Projekt, which also recorded its best year in 2020 with 75 million euros generated and 4.5 million euros in net profit. 10% of Cyberpunk 2077 PC sales were made on GOG.com.
Focus Home Interactive s’offre le studio Streum On
After buying Deck13 (The Surge) last June, Focus Home Interactive acquired – for an unspecified amount – of studio francilien Streum On. Based in Nogent-sur-Marne, this team of around twenty people is specialized in FPS since its creation in 2007. She first signed EYE: Divine Cybermancy (2011), before the start of her collaboration with Focus Home Interactive in 2013, which led to the creation of Space Hulk: Deathwing (2016) and Necromunda : Hired Gun, which will be released on June 1st. “We share a common vision and our collaboration has always been very efficient and fruitful. Our ambition is to offer players ever more ambitious and spectacular titles and we are convinced that Focus Home Interactive is the ideal partner to continue our common development”, commented Pierrick Le Nestour, President of Streum On. For its part, Focus Home Interactive confirms being launched in the acquisition race and indicates that it is “in active discussion with many studios”. Recall that the French publisher has seen several of its partners (Cyanide, Spiders, Passtech) pass into the hands of its competitor Nacon / Bigben, while Giants Software has emancipated itself and decided to publish the future opus of the lucrative Farming Simulator license.
For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, Focus Home Interactive completed record turnover of 171 million euros, compared to 143 million euros the previous year. The firm is delighted with the success of new titles such as SnowRunner, Curse of the Dead Gods and Hardspace: Shipbreaker, but also with the “strength” of its previous catalog which shows a growth of 60% compared to the previous year. Focus Home Interactive is now preparing for the releases this year of Hood: Outlaws & Legends (May 10), Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground (May 27), Necromunda: Hired Gun (June 1) and Evil West (end of 2021). In addition, the publisher will announce three more major titles at E3 in June and then the Game Awards in December. It has already been confirmed that projects are in the works with Dontnod (Life is Strange) and Asobo Studio (A Plague Tale: Innocence).
Discord: end of Microsoft buyout negotiations
Discord will not ultimately be bought by Microsoft, or any other company, at least in the near future. One month after the mention of discussions on this subject, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Reuters agree on the fact that the platform with 140 million users no longer plans to be bought out, but rather to go public, even if an offer of more than 10 billion dollars has been mentioned. Launched in 2015, Discord has seen its number of users explode since the start of the health crisis, allowing the young Californian company Discord Inc to achieve a turnover of 130 million dollars in 2020 (against 45 million dollars in 2019) by leveraging the Discord Nitro paid subscription.
In brief in the business news of the week
- It Takes Two is a great success. Released on March 26, the co-op game from studio Hazelight and Josef Fares was already sold a million units.
- While it celebrated its third anniversary yesterday, the management game Frostpunk has passed the bar of three million sales, announced 11 bit studios.
- Released in August 2020, Spiritfarer is on 500,000 copies sold, knowing that it is also available in Xbox Game Pass. The game from Thunder studio Lotus Games has welcomed the Lily update to celebrate this milestone.
- The Japanese independent show BitSummit will return on September 2-3, 2021. Streams with live announcements, gameplay sessions and panels are scheduled.
- Mario Kart Tour generated $ 200 million since its launch in September 2019 on iOS and Android, according to estimates by Sensor Tower. It also exceeded 200 million downloads.
- The Epic Games Store now offers download third-party apps, such as the Brave browser, Core game creation software, and the itch.io indie game store.