Sales from Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc., which develops video games in which millions of players face off over the Internet, are proving to be the big breadwinner for parent company Vivendi SA of France.
For 2007, sales from Blizzard made up about $1.2 billion, or 80%, of Vivendi’s gaming division sales.
Overall, Vivendi Games saw roughly $1.5 billion in sales last year.
Blizzard’s blockbuster game series, “World of Warcraft,” recently passed the milestone of having 10 million subscribers worldwide.
The company passed the 9 million mark just six months ago.
Each subscriber pays roughly $15 a month to play.
Blizzard saw its revenues rise nearly 60% in 2007, according to technology news site dailytech.com.
Vivendi’s game empire, driven by Blizzard’s success, is set to grow even bigger after its $19 billion December deal with Santa Monica-based Activision closes.
Vivendi is set to combine Blizzard with Activision and end up with a 68% stake in the business, dubbed Activision Blizzard.
The move is set to make Activision Blizzard the biggest video game developer with yearly sales of $4 billion.
