Activision Tops in 2008

 Activision Blizzard posted a net loss for the fourth quarter, but the good news is that most of it was due to accounting rules for deferred revenue. The company did manage to beat the street’s expectations on sales of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Call of Duty: World at War, which were strong performers during the Christmas shopping season. For the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2008, Activision reported a net loss of $72 million, compared to earnings of $86 million, for the same period a year ago.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said during the earnings call that followed  that 2008 was the company’s 17th consecutive year of growth and that operating income was up 20 percent from the previous year.  Activision ended the year with $3 billion in cash and no debt.

The company also said that it would only be introducing three new original IPs in 2009:  Raven’s first-person shooter Singularity, an unnamed racing game from Bizarre Creations and Prototype. The rest of the company’s catalog will consist of familiar brands like Guitar Hero, and the next Call of Duty game. The company said that 2009 won’t see a new James Bond game - with talk of this new game being some type of driving - shooting game. Finally it was revealed that Blizzard will release at one title this year, though what it will be was not revealed.

Endrant Studios Working On Wolfenstein

Endrant Studios, a brand new development studio startup located just outside London in Sevenoaks, Kent, is working on the new Wolfenstein game. Announced last night at Activision Blizzard’s non-e3 press conference, the game is being developed by Raven Software under the watchful eye of id Software. For Wolfenstein, Endrant is working in collaboration with Raven, focusing primarily on multiplayer development.

the company is currently fillings its ranks for other projects on the horizon and hope to swell its ranks to at least 18 developers by the end of the year, according to its web site..

Wisconsin Courts Game Developers

Although it may not be the case with this particular state, when it comes to the interactive entertainment industry, it is like one big stupid hand doesn’t know what the other big stupid hand is doing. On one hand you have legislators trying to pass laws to control how games are labeled and who they are sold to (usually interlaced with some way to punish people), and on the other you have them giving out incentives to lure game developers into their states. I guess the message to take away from this kind of behavior is “we like games if they are developed in our state or city.”

Quite a long segue to report that Wisconsin is getting into the act of offering incentives to game makers that do business in their state through the Milwaukee Film Office. Unlike other state governments Wisconsin has been pretty supportive of the industry over the years, what with the likes of Raven Software and Human Head churning out hits and bringing money into the state.

Wisconsin joins the multitude of states that want to bring business home with new incentives. including a 25 percent rebate on “qualified production related expenditures,” plus a 15 percent credit for infrastructure development, according to the Milwaukee Film Office.