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Despite strong Call of Duty growth, Activision Blizzard fails to beat expectations in holiday quarter

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported earnings that were below the expectations of Wall Street analysts during its traditionally strong holiday quarter. And its stock price has fallen 16 percent in after-hours trading as a result.

The earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter ended December 31 draw hordes of watchers, as Activision Blizzard is the largest independent video game publisher in the U.S., and its results are a bellwether for the $91 billion global game industry (based on market researcher Newzoo’s estimates). The company fell short of expectations even though it had an outstanding performance from Call of Duty: Black Ops III, the latest installment in a series that has generated more than $15 billion over a decade.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.