The latest financials are in from gaming’s two biggest names, with results generally positive for both Activision and EA. Digital revenue grew strongly for both companies, showing an increasing trend towards digital sales over brick-and-mortar releases.

Activision reported that World of Warcraft subscriptions were down to 8.3 million, having lost 1.3 million across the Asian market. However, even at 8.3 million World of Warcraft is still the strongest subscription MMO on the market. Heart of the Swarm was the number one PC gaming for Q4 with 1.1 million copies sold in just two days, and Skylanders Giants and Black Ops 2 were the number one and two games in North America and Europe combined.

Meanwhile over at EA, SimCity has shifted over 1.6 million units with “nearly 50% of those sales were high-margin digital downloads”. Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3 sales came in “below expectations”, but FIFA 13 sold 14.5 million units this financial year and produced digital revenue up 94% over its last installment.

Battlefield Premium subscriptions are now at 3.5 million, and have generated over $120 million in revenue for the company.

Source: VG247, here and here

In what might well be described as “a very smart move”, Blizzard have announced the acquisition of the IGN Pro League — including the technology, assets, and some of the employees. The acquired goodies will be mashed together into Blizzard’s own eSports team, based in San Francisco.

The news follows on the heels of Blizzard announcing a major overhaul to the StarCraft II WCS including new global broadcasting partners and a massive $1.6 million prize pool. Part of the overhaul included the discussion of a new “central hub” for players to follow along with all the action, which seems to be what Blizzard are angling at with this announcement today.

Blizzard won’t be the first developer to try and bring eSports coverage in-house — Riot already does the same thing, and it’s working out pretty well for them. It’s not clear exactly what Blizzard will be using their new eSports office for, but it’ll be interesting to watch.

Source: Blizzard

Blizzard have found some wood, built a fire and then poured fuel on it with the announcement that they’ll be using PAX East (March 22 – 24) to show off something, apparently, completely new.

“We’ve been working on a little something, different from our other games, and we’re pleased to invite you to be the first to see it,” reads an invite sent to the Penny Arcade Report. “It’s not a sequel, expansion, or that rumored next-gen MMO, but it’s something we’re excited for you to get your hands on.”

It’s apparently not Diablo 3 on consoles either, so… what is it? My money is on Blizzard All-Stars, but I’m not sure if that fits the description perfectly. Stay tuned!

After taking a break last year to finish up their games in development, Blizzcon 2013 has been announced to be back in force, with November 8 and 9 set as the dates for thousands of fans to descend on Anaheim, California.

This year’s Blizzcon will also include hands-on play time (naturally — maybe even with Project TITAN*!) as well as the global finals for Blizzard’s various eSports, and of course the regular panels, merchandise, and people dressed in glorious night elf costumes.

Are you one of the brave Australian contingent making the journey over to California this year? Let us know in the comments below.

*Probably not

Source: Blizzard

Announced seemingly years ago now, Blizzard All-Stars is the MOBA that never appeared, the DotA-style game combining heroes from all of Blizzard’s universes. Originally intended as a StarCraft II map, comments from StarCraft II production director Chris Sigaty indicate Blizzard is now looking at a stand-alone, F2P release.

“StarCraft 2 is a box. We intend to do something different with the business model in Blizzard All-Stars,” Sigaty said to Eurogamer. “Something more closely resembling the other types of games in that genre, the MOBA-style games that are out there today, and being able to sell smaller amounts of things to players, the things they want.”

“We’ll go into more details about that in the future,” he said, “but I suspect you will not have to have StarCraft 2 to play. We’re definitely emphasizing it as its own product in the future.”

Source: Eurogamer

It’s time for a round of the Internet’s favourite game, Ill-informed Speculation! Today’s contestants have quite a puzzle before them: Blizzard, the World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo publisher known to be working on a new top-secret MMO project codenamed Titan, has mysteriously registered the domain “ProjectBlackstone.com”.

The domain was previously privately registered to someone living in Texas, who let it expire in 2011; the gap suggests Blizzard only just decided to grab the domain, so it may be related to something new rather than an existing title. This theory is also supported by the fact that nobody has turned up a particularly compelling lore-based explanation for why Blizzard might want something called “Blackstone”. Current betting pools are split between “World of Warcraft update”, as there is abridge called Blackstone Span, or “Diablo III expansion”, thanks to plot emphasis on black soul stones in the action RPG.

Or maybe it’s Titan or maybe there’s a second new game in the works or maybe Blizzard has lost the plot and started buying random words. Argue among yourselves.

Source: Fusible

Blizzard have filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on domain names, asking that the domain HeroesofWarcraft.com be transferred to their control.

While you might suspect the company is simply protecting what’s theirs, when you combine this with the fact that Blizzard also created and registered HeroesofWarcraft.co.uk back in September, rumours are starting to swirl that this is the all part of the plan for a new WarCraft title.

“Heroes of WarCraft” was the original name for WarCraft III, and although speculation about a new WarCraft game has always been wild amongst fans of the iconic fantasy-themed RTS, this is the first strong indication that Blizzard may be about to make a public move.

Source: Fusible

A class action lawsuit filed by two people last week against Blizzard alleges that the company “forced” them to purchase authenticators “in order to have even minimal protection for their sensitive personal, private, and financial data”.

The plaintiffs claim that Blizzard “negligently, deliberately, and/or recklessly” failed to ensure that “adequate, reasonable procedures safeguard the private information” of users. In doing so, they argue that the company forced them to purchase authenticators, and claim that such forced authenticator sales have resulted in $26 million of revenue for Blizzard.

Naturally Blizzard have come out swinging against the claims, describing them as “frivolous”, “filled with patently false information”, and “without merit”, and pointing out that they extensively communicated the situation to their players — and that the authenticator is an “added inconvenience” but one which they “strongly encourage”. And hey, it’s actually a free app for most smartphones anyway.

Source: GI.biz, Ausgamers

An investor earnings call for gaming giant Activision-Blizzard overnight revealed a company in strong financial shape, off the back of good Diablo III sales and record-breaking Black Ops II pre-orders. The company turned a $226 million profit for the last quarter, up over $148 million this time last year, and attributed a full 51% of that to digital revenue streams.

Blizzard’s figures are good: Diablo III has moved well over 10 million copies, and World of Warcraft subs have risen again above the 10 million mark. The company also confirmed that Heart of the Swarm is well on track for a first-half of 2013 release, and Blizzard All-Stars is continued to shape-up well in internal testing. Mike Morhaime confirmed that an expansion for Diablo III was being looked into, but had nothing to offer in terms of timing or information.

Meanwhile on the Activision side of the fence, Skylanders Spyro Adventure is the single best-selling console game in North America and Europe for the first nine months of 2012, which is a staggeringly impressive feat and has earned the company a similarly impressive amount of dollars. Black Ops 2 is also tracking well, with pre-orders well ahead of Modern Warfare 3.

Source: VG247

Does the name ‘Starblo’ sound familiar? No, it probably wouldn’t unless you’re an old-school Blizzard developer, but it’s the internal nickname for a project created by Blizzard North after Diablo II that blended Diablo-style gameplay with a space opera setting.

“Have you ever finished a round of Diablo and said, ‘You know, I bet that addictive slot-machine formula would be a blast in a science fiction setting?’” posed Dave Craddock to Shacknews. “Blizzard North thought so, too. After D2, the company split into separate teams: a Diablo team, and a ‘We love Diablo but it’s time to try something new’ team. They started and scrapped more than half a dozen ideas before a few team members suggested making a Diablo clone, but set on a space opera stage.”

“The project earned the nickname Starblo for its mix of a space setting and the action-RPG formula that made Diablo so successful. Like Diablo 2, Starblo would take place over several acts, but rather than journey across a single world, players would board their customizable spaceship and travel to new planets, killing and looting the space creatures they found there. By the time Dave Brevik and the Schaefers left Blizzard North in summer 2003, the Starblo team had produced a few playable builds of the game, but still hadn’t come up with a proper name.”

What do you think, sports racers? Was this one best left un-developed, or would you rather be playing it right now? Let us know.

Source: Shacknews

Speaking to Games Industry International, Blizzard’s Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo agreed that big-budget AAA single-player titles were soon to become a thing of the past.

“I don’t see there being a great business model for it these days,” he said. “It’s really sad, there’s just a lot of elements out there that conspire to make those games difficult to make now. Between pirating or the ability for people to rent games, it’s hard for publishers to pour millions and millions of dollars into a game and not necessarily see the return they need to make those budgets realistic.”

Pardo continued: “Another big trend is connecting everyone in their games, be it a full online experience like World of Warcraft, or just being able to have a social experience with other people playing single-player games. You’re seeing all these sorts of elements being explored. I think it’s really interesting because it’s not just about connecting someone so I can play with them. It’s about how I can have a social experience around the games that I play even if it’s inherently a single-player game.”

Pardo’s comments mirror those made by EA’s Frank Gibeau, who claimed that he had “not green-lit one game to be developed as a single-player experience” and that “all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365″.

Edit: Blizzard have contacted us to point out that Rob Pardo did not directly state that single-player games were an endangered species; rather he agreed with the interviewer who posed the question.

Source: Games Industry International

The latest expansion for World of Warcraft has just been released, so while you’re playing Mists of Pandaria perhaps you are not wondering what Blizzard is up to these days. However, I will tell you anyway.

In an interview with Curse, VP of Game Design Rob Pardo talked about Blizzard’s mysterious new MMO, the one codenamed Titan that was first confirmed back in 2011. “We are definitely in the middle of development at this point,” Pardo told Curse, “The team is over 100 people now.” There doesn’t appear to be any confirmation — or denial — that the game is still on track for the 2013 launch that was leaked back in the day, but development is definitely in full swing, as Blizzard said it would be after they were done with Diablo III.

Source: Curse