Even the hottest sector of video games—multiplayer online games—is feeling the effects of the industry’s downturn.
The parent company of Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment Inc. said Wednesday it expects yearly sales to be roughly flat for 2010.
“World of Warcraft” and related online games are a billion-dollar business for Blizzard, part of Vivendi SA’s Activision Blizzard Inc., based in Santa Monica.
But growth in subscriptions to play “World of Warcraft” seems to have slowed in the past year.
Blizzard ended 2009 with around 11.5 million “World of Warcraft” subscribers. That’s roughly flat from the end of 2008. Players pay around $15 for a monthly subscription that allows for unlimited playing time.
Activision Blizzard doesn’t break out sales for Blizzard on its own. Some observers estimate that Blizzard sees around $1 billion in yearly sales.
Publicly traded Activision Blizzard on Wednesday also gave a lower-than-expected outlook for the balance of the year that came in below Wall Street’s estimates.
The company is expecting profits, excluding one-time charges of $889 million on sales of $4.4 billion and roughly flat from 2009 sales of $4.3 billion.
That was lower than the average analyst estimate for a profit of $927 million cents a share on revenue of $4.8 billion.
Last year was a difficult one for the video game industry as many players scaled back their spending on consumer electronics and games.
Activision combined with Blizzard in a complex deal valued at around $19 billion at the close of 2008.
Activision’s known for popular games such as “Guitar Hero” and “Call of Duty.”
