They make a lot of money but they spend a lot of money too.

They have huge teams, they have many projects, they don't do anything until it's super high quality, I wouldn't be surprised if they did their own in house CG, they have to maintain WoW, they have to supply servers, they have their support stuff, and probably much more.

Blizzard may not be bringing in the largest profit in the video game industry. But I'm sure they have the highest ROI(Return on investment) in the industry.

» Blizzard has spent $200 million on WoW

Apparently during their conference call with analysts yesterday Activision-Blizzard disclosed that they've spent $200 million maintaining World of Warcraft. This figure includes costs for all the staff, servers, and customer service, which is actually the largest expense.

While this initially may sound like a lot, it's estimated that Blizzard rakes in over $100 million each month in subscription revenue, so it's pretty safe to say that WoW has been worth every penny.

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WoW is right.

well I've stopped giving blizzard money since... last month. and i never will again

That's what they all say. And then WotLK drops... and then SC2 drops... you'll change your tune.

Blizzard make a shitload from WoW... over $100 million per month profit.

But remember they have to pay for their Daiblo team, Starcraft 2 team, whatever the Starcraft: Ghost team is working on now etc.

Ok lets take a look at the Audited 2007 Annual Report on page 27 of 117 ... Blizzard had revenues of 814 Million EURO or $1.197 Billion. From that they had a net profit of 345 Million EURO or $507 Million. So the overall net profit margin was around 42.4% for Blizzard in 2007... not bad Ali (though i used the 1 EURO = $1.47 as the conversion metric, calculation is definitely not accurate)

http://www.vivendi.com/vivendi/IMG/pdf/20080401_Financial_Report_Year2007.pdf

But this does prove one thing. Blizzard is the MOST PROFITABLE Video Game company in the world. Activision only made $377 Million in the same time period ... and EA lost money ...

In addition, Activision was BOUGHT by Vivendi with Vivendi owning 52% with the option to own up 68%.

Now taking a look at the most recent financial results on page 18 of 60:

http://www.vivendi.com/vivendi/IMG/pdf/20080901_Financial_Report_Half_Year.pdf

Blizzard had revenues of 378 Million EURO or $597 Million for the 1st 6 months of 2008. From that they earned 185 Million EURO in profit or $292 Million. This is a net margin of 49%. So here we see a huge improvement and Blizzard is making about $5 back from each $10.

All in all ... Blizzard has made more money in the last 6 months than the total combined profits of Take 2, THQ, Activision and EA combined for the past 1 and Half Years.

So long story short ... there is a reason why Blizzard is #1.

Also ... on a side note ... Activision's old CEO is the new CEO of Activision Blizzard, but the Board of Directors (the dudes who can fire the CEO) is of management personnel from Vivendi ... since Vivendi owns Activision Blizzard.

Yep, monthly fees.  Down with the man.

the fact that Blizzard makes all this money with such a small amount of games on the market is staggering. Its like they're the opposite of EA.

Can't you just STFU? If it weren't for the fees they'd be losing 60 million a month. Of course they could just take away the online part and they would be gaining money, but what's the fun about that?