JB

"Those are the only other games" is because this was specifically the Acti Publishing wing, not Blizzard or King. I'm aware the whole COMPANY released other things.

the "COVID Boost" seems to not be dissipating, even in areas where pandemic is weakening

Full year of Warzone updates. Other franchises will have new entries. COD and "another premium release" will show up in Q4

Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 will not launch in 2021.

King is expected to grow, and they expect very little of that will be from Crash: On the Run, due to it being a new mobile title. They say this is expected and customary, not indicative of low interest/etc.

2020 was a record year. Their pipeline has never been stronger, and they keep mentioning 2022 real hard, so 2021 probably will not have a lot of releases.

Q&A begins.

COD Question: "What are you learning so far about integrating a FTP game like Warzone into the premium releases"

They've learned a lot. Cold War brought a lot of new content to Warzone. Massive update required a lot of resources, and having gone through it, they have a greater sense of how to do it more smoothly and efficiently in the future. WZ is 'front and center for a long time'.

Warzone will continue to be used as a way to communicate to the fans directly. They say Cold War revealing inside the game delivered a great result, and they also say the free trials offer great conversion so far.

They again mention they want to transfer this style to other IP.

QUESTION: "Can you comment on how titles are performing in the COVID-19 environment, and what learnings from that are permanent or transient"

I completely spaced on the answer because my phone finally started playing the notifications from this thread and it was a real pain in the ass to get it to stop. They say most titles saw an uptick in engagement from the pandemic in 2020.

On more social titles, engagement remains at an elevated level even where people are returning to work/school/etc. Seems that once people are in, they're in.

Development teams have executed across their studios despite pandemic.

Executed well, I meant. They haven't killed anyone yet.

As far as I know.

QUESTION: How can they maintain growth with King into 2021 and 2022.

They're structuring more around seasonal events and that seemed to resonate quite well, so they're going to invest more time and resources into that. They're also investing in 'high impact events' which I don't really know what are off the top of my head.

It could mean a lot of things and he didn't give a lot of context.

They are hard at work on Crash on the Run, super excited about working on that IP at King. Chosen runner genre bc it fits with Crash, but is also a high install quantity genre.

They see it as a tool to broaden the Crash franchise's audience, which I assume they mean to leverage to bring them to the console games.

That's just my assumption though. But you don't grow an audience to leave that audience where you found them, after all!

Question about Blizzard's history and how far it has come in 30 years

They think they have a lot of potential to bring them a lot higher than they are. Bizarrely, there hasn't been one mention so far this whole call as to the impact of Vicarious Visions on that plan.

But I guess the writing is on the wall when VV's leadership took over Blizzard leadership.

QUESTION: Outlook for advertising in 2021 for King, presumably in-game ads.

Of course, it's entering 2021 with record momentum. Especially the direct sales ad sector.

I'm very sorry, I really blanked on the rest of that answer, but they're looking at integrating ads in smart ways going forward.