@Fergie24: For starters, their overhead has to be ridiculous compared to most publishers. Add significant spending in R&D and acquisitions, subtracted by the likely high number of games ultimately made for a loss, and that's where your Warcraft money goes.

It's been crazy to grow up with the games industry and see it reach a point where analysts (professional and armchair alike) can make legitimate Hollywood analogies with some of the industry's titans.

Look at Activision Blizzard as similar to Warner Bros. "The Dark Knight" is on pace to make a boatload of money, and everyone's happy, right? Well they needed it, because "Speed Racer" shit the bed with authority. Even in the unlikely event the foreign box office take and home markets turn a profit for that piece of crap, it won't make up for the expectations set by WB for investors. Batman essentially wipes the slate clean, but that's a microcosm of the win/loss records each studio — film or game — will endure during a given fiscal year.