Activision Blizzard announces $1.08 billion quarter, 10 million 'Diablo 3' players

Activision Blizzard announces record Q2 results of $1.08 billion.

Activision Blizzard announced better-than-expected results for its second quarter today, boasting $1.08 billion in net revenues for the quarter ended June 30th, 2012.

The quarter, Activision says, was driven by sales of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 3. Those three titles represented the top three best-selling games in North America and Europe during the first half of 2012, according to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

Activision says that Diablo 3 was the best-selling PC game for the first six months of 2012 and has been played by more than 10 million people since launch, with 6.3 million people playing in the first week alone.

Blizzard notes that 10 million figure includes 1.2 million copies that were offered for free as part of the World of Warcraft annual pass incentive.

Skylanders, Activision reminds us, was both "the #1 best-selling console and hand-held game overall in dollars for the first six months of 2012" and "the #1 action-figure line in the U.S., outselling all other action-figure lines for the first six months of 2012."

in less rosy news, Activision Blizzard says that total World of Warcraft subscribers have slipped to 9.1 million. Blizzard's online role-playing game ended 2011 with 10.2 million subscribers, a decline of 1.1 million subscribers this year. World of Warcraft still remains the "#1 subscription-based MMORPG," according to the company. Activision execs expect that the Mists of Pandaria expansion, due September 25th, will bolster those numbers.