A bit of bad news has arrived regarding the entity that's now known as Activision Blizzard. The company sent out a press wire announcing that only five of Vivendi's games are expected to be published, leaving the future of the company's other titles in question. Further details are available in the full article.

*Update* Ghostbusters is still in development.
*Update 2* Brutal Legend has also left limbo.

Vivendi recently confirmed its Q3 guidance, and it racked up performance with accurate ties to market analysts' expectations. Apparently, their guidance also falls in confidence with observers in the business market, reassuring investors that its full year outlook is on-track.

Though the conglomerate-like Vivendi ran through Q3 of fiscal year 2007 with flying colors, its own video game publishing segment holds a success story in itself. Vivendi Games' performance also grew with the rest of the corporate umbrella. Read on to find out why.

No one has ever doubted the massive impact the World of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade had on the gaming market.

In terms of financial gain, Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi's Games Division has announced that the company had an EBITA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, and Amortization) of 119 Million Euros for the first six months of 2007. This places them up by a whopping 91.9% from the previous year.

The company has attributed this gain to the very successful launch of WoW: The Burning Crusade and their increased subscription base of 9 million players worldwide.

The numbers they posted are also said to be affected by a non-recurring release due to Blizzard's profit sharing and talent retention plan as well as the other Sierra releases throughout the year.

A very good showing from the company. It makes one wonder on how much of an impact Wrath of the Lich King will make on Vivendi's earnings when it comes out.

Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi Games is known throughout the world for its four main divisions: Blizzard, Sierra, Sierra Online, and Vivendi Games Mobile. They have pointed out Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade as the main reason for the company's increased revenue.

Vivendi has posted a whopping 117% revenue increase from last year because of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion. The company has also given word regarding their first quarter profits which has been pegged at € 771 million, a substantial gain of 22.8% from their last posting. It only goes to follow that the net income of the media conglomerate has also risen by 32% to € 932 million.

The company has given an official statement in its annual report regarding their increase in revenue saying that "the strong increase is primarily driven by the successful January release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade." Vivendi definitely has a lot to be happy about but how long will this boom last?

After purchasing Sierra and off-shoot Sierra Online, Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi (formerly Vivendi Universal) has kept the classic brand name that popped out superior titles like Caesar, Kings Quest, Police Quest, and Space Quest (among others) under the Vivendi Games' shadow. But now Vivendi CEO Bruce Hack told MCV that they're bringing up the name once again.

Vivendi is now gearing their four labels to target their own market and consumer block. Blizzard Entertainment is now in charge of satisfying the MMO slice of the gaming pie, while Sierra Online is being restructured for delivering quality casual games. Vivendi Mobile is shuffling their cards for the mobile game market and Sierra is now looking up to address the needs of console and PC gamers worldwide.

And while Sierra is well-known in the PC gaming segment, the name is about to get ramped up in the next few years with exceptional quality titles, including titles that were originally released under the Sierra brand. World in Conflict and TimeShift are two highly anticipated games that will be coming out this year sporting Sierra's seal of quality.

"The revival of the Sierra brand comes from product. Over time as our products become better and establish themselves as perennial franchises, the name Sierra will be given a stronger life. As we move forward, our products get stronger and as they are established as franchises the name Sierra will be strengthened," Hack concluded.

Lets start with the bad news. Things don't look so good for game publisher Activision as their stock might get delisted from the NASDAQ exchange after the company failed to file its quarterly earnings statement.

Activision alerted shareholders to the news and has pledged to make the earnings report as soon as erm, uh, "practicable." Activision says that the reason for the delay is because of their need to complete a review of the their stock-option grant practices.

The company intends to request a hearing before the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel in order to appeal for a continuance of their listing.

Okay, so with that done, let's move to the bit that's all nice and rosy.

WoW publisher, Vivendi Games, boasts a spike in earnings reaching up to 110 Million Dollars compared to 38 Million Dollars. That's a increase of around 186.7 percent. Aside from the obvious Warcraft money cow, Vivendi also credits start-up investments for the Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile divisions, and the strong sales of Scarface: The World is Yours, as reasons for the profit increase.

When asked about the revenues for World of Warcraft, rumoured to have reached $1 billion for this year, Gamespot reports that  Vivendi opted for general terms. The describe the financial results of its games division as "very healthy and dynamic," and the overall economic performance as "great."

So, let's dispense with all this news business, since we've talked you to death about the usual upgrades and downgrades, the levelling tweaks and delay of The Burning Crusade. Instead let us discuss something near and dear to our hearts: money, and how World of Warcraft is making a ton of it, and what it has to do with other people.

Over at Spong, they've made an interesting guesstimate of how much money Blizzard makes in a year from World of Warcraft alone. There are approximately 7.5 million people playing World of Warcraft these days, and according to Spong's estimate, if each of them pays around £9 (US$ 17), that nets Blizzard and Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi £12,500,000 (US$ 224 million) each month, leading to £ 1,350,000,000 every year.

That's a little shy of US$ 2.6 billion. Wow for WoW, indeed. Of course, they didn't factor in the number of people who want to pay for Paid Character Transfers (at US$ 25 per character, no less), which would really increase this count by even more. By normal standards, it's a huge number, but Blizzard is taking steps to make sure they can do better.

Now, what does this have to do with anything? Simple: WoW makes more money than some countries do each year. Rwanda, for example, has a yearly Gross Domestic Product of US$ 2.1 Billion, and they have nine million people over there and Sierra Leone has a GDP of US$ 1.1 Billion across five million folks. If you're thinking there's any other spin to it, that's all. It's a sobering thought to bring to mind when you're out to hunt down Nefarian.