Activision 2009 Annual Report Download - page 12

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1 0
genre by selling over 3 million units in its first month and nearly 4.5 million units between its
July 27, 2010 launch and the end of last year. Blizzard continues to strengthen its brand and delight
its audiences.
Activision Publishing and our wholly owned Treyarch studio released the next iteration to the Call of
Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops™, which surpassed even the incredibly high bar set by 2009’s
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 2. These two titles have achieved a distinction unmatched by any
other franchise in entertainment, to our knowledge, by setting the record for the largest entertain-
ment launch ever—across any medium—in two consecutive years. Consistently delivering fresh, new,
incredibly innovative content is what transforms a “launch” into the sustainable, repeatable long-term
franchises we have built and, most importantly, allows us to keep our audiences excited and enthusi-
astic about our games. Television is the best analogy and our franchises are in the early days of their
lives as compared to the great television franchises.
Looking forward, our development pipeline has never been stronger. Activision Publishing’s slate
includes a new Call of Duty game and the long-anticipated digital platform, the highly innovative
Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure™, which will be released on multiple platforms, and a project from
Bungie. Blizzard Entertainment has been hard at work developing new content for all three of their
franchises: World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, as well as working on an unannounced project
that will become their next generation MMO.
Building on our unique portfolio of brands and the wealth of information from our passionate com-
munities, and leveraging the capabilities of a fast-evolving technology and Internet landscape around
us, we truly stand poised to continue our leadership position as the world leader in interactive enter-
tainment, we hope, for many years to come.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to search for new ways to satisfy our audiences and serve our
strategic partners, shareholders and community. We will continue to operate a highly disciplined
company that makes the necessary investments and takes thoughtful creative risks. Our determina-
tion to continue using our core principles to guide our everyday operations should continue to drive
our future success.
Sincerely,
Robert Kotick Brian Kelly
President and Chief Executive Officer, Co-Chairman of the Board,
Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard
i For a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures cited in this letter to the most comparable GAAP measures, please see the reconciliation
tables at the end of this annual report.
ii Non-GAAP operating margin record relative to major third party western publisher peer group.
iii Return on Invested Capital is calculated using non-GAAP net income divided by average estimated invested capital. We estimate invested
capital by including non-GAAP net income, treasury shares, the issuance of shares, and dividends since the year of the business combination.
The average is calculated using the beginning and ending balances of invested capital for the year of 2010.
iv Per-share book value is calculated as total shareholders’ equity divided by the number of shares outstanding.
2 0 1 0 A N N U A L R E P O R T