Blizzard’s certainly no stranger to concocting hugely successful video games, but its most recent creation may well be the most successful yet. As part of Activision Blizzard’s third quarter financial results, CEO Bobby Kotick reveals that Overwatch continues to surpass expectations, with the competitive shooter now holding the honor of being Blizzard’s fastest game ever to exceed 20 million global players.
The ‘better-than-expected’ financial results for the third quarter of 2016 are further attributed to other titles released by the publisher, including World of Warcraft, this year’s iteration of Call of Duty, Destiny and even Candy Crush.
[zergpaid]Kotick adds that “we continue to see enthusiasm from our global audiences for our key franchises including Call of Duty, Destiny, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft, plus our newest franchise – Overwatch, which after only about four months had already reached over 20 million players and has incredible player engagement.”
As an aside, it appears as if Overwatch is equally as popular in the West as it is on the other side of the globe, with the report adding that the player base split is “roughly even” between both territories, the shooter having held pole position in “share of play time in Korean Internet Game rooms” in the third quarter.
Taking into account the relatively long gap Blizzard likes to leave between its games before considering a sequel, you can probably expect to see Overwatch sticking around for a good while as yet.
As a reminder, this year’s BlizzCon kicks off later today, and we have no doubt a certain character may be making their debut there.