Yahoo Finance Activision (ATVI) Drops Festival of Legends Pack for Hearthstone
Activision Blizzard ATVI recently announced the launch of Festival of Legends, the latest expansion to Hearthstone. It is Blizzard Entertainment’s digital card game with more than 130 million players worldwide to date.
Festival of Legends is also the first Hearthstone expansion of 2023, dubbed the Year of the Wolf. It will rotate out previous Hearthstone expansions (Forged in the Barrens, United in Stormwind and Fractured in Alterac Valley) as well as refresh the game’s core set of cards.
In this new set of 145 cards, each class has a Legendary minion representing its genre’s star musician as well as a Legendary spell that showcases the musician’s most famous song. Every class also has a finely tuned instrument weapon with some carrying Deathrattle effects that improve while in play.
Activision Blizzard, Inc Price and Consensus
Activision Blizzard, Inc price-consensus-chart | Activision Blizzard, Inc Quote
What Could Aid Growth at Activision Blizzard?
The global gaming market size is expected to reach $343.6 billion by 2028, exhibiting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.08% during 2023-2028, per an IMARC report.
This serves as an opportunity for Activision Blizzard to expand its user base and boost its top line. Revenues increased 49.2% to $3.37 billion in fourth-quarter 2022, driven by the launch of new games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Warzone 2.0 and World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.
The company has been working on strengthening its gaming pipeline to retain existing users and also add new ones. Activision is set to launch Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile in 2023, which is a free-to-play battle royale mobile game with up to 120 players. Already 20 million players have pre-registered for the game on Google Play.
Blizzard’s Diablo series, which is launching its fourth installment in 2023, is much awaited by players. The title will support cross-play and cross-progression across platforms and will also engage live service and provide ongoing storytelling.
Activision Blizzard to Face Competition
Though this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company is strengthening its gaming pipeline, it faces tough competition from competitors like Electronic Arts EA and Take-Two Interactive TTWO. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
EA has released EA Sports PGA Tour worldwide for Xbox Series XIS, PC via EA app, PlayStation 5, Epic Games Store and Steam. EA Sports PGA Tour will also release the Road to Masters, which will include online tournaments, challenges and gear tied to Masters.
Take-Two’s WWE 2K23, developed by Visual Concepts, is expected to be a game changer. The latest game features stronger enhancements to existing modes with an improved look and feel. All editions showcase different images of 16-time world champions and the iconic WWE superstar John Cena as its cover star celebrating 20 years of his WWE career.
Activision Blizzard is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft MSFT. Microsoft will pay $95.00 per Activision share with the total transaction value being $68.7 billion.
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