"As we approach 2013 we remain concerned about our business prospects due to the constantly challenging global economy and the ongoing transition of consoles and very difficult year-over year comparisons due to Blizzard's record-breaking WoW cataclysm Gold sales in 2012," he said.
In addition, during the post-earnings financial conference, Activision has confirmed Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm isn't going to be released in 2012, but is expected to launch in the first half of 2013.
In the end, Activision refused to comment on an analyst's question about the settlement amount it paid for Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella. One analyst has estimated the figure to be somewhere in the region of "tens to millions."
Dota 2 players currently outnumber WoW Cataclysm Classic subscribers
Valve's hugely profitable MOBA, Dota 2, currently has many more gamers than Blizzard's game-changing MMO, WoW Cataclysm Classicin the numbers of players that were released publicly by Valve.
Dota 2's official Dota 2 blog is home to a counter that tracks the total number of players that the game has had over the past month. As reported by Reddit player dagla the counter indicates that Dota 2's players have surpassed 7.86 million players in the last month. This puts it just a bit ahead of the 7.8 million users WoW Cataclysm Classic had when Activision first reported figures in February.
There is, naturally an important distinction that needs to make: WoW Cataclysm Classic players are all subscribers, each of whom pay $15 to play the game each month (unless they opt to purchase a subscription for longer durations, in which case they receive discounts).
Dota 2, by contrast is a no-cost game and is a non-aggressive one in several ways. Contrary to rival League of Legends, it gives players access to every character at no cost. Instead, it earns money from the sales of cosmetics as well as new voice packs for announcers and other items that do not have an directly impact on the game.
In general it's a tiny percentage of the players in free-to-play games ever make a purchase. A recent report found that the figure was 2.2 percent. Although it's possible that the paid players of Dota 2 spend more than $15 each month, we don't have no way to know for certain the amount of money Blizzard and Valve are earning from the two games.
It is also worth noting that while Dota 2's 7.86 million players is a staggering number but it's not even close the League of Legends' player number. The the developer Riot Games announced the buy WoW Cataclysm Classic Gold game was attracting more than 27 million players per day, with an impressive number of 67 millions gamers per month.
