VU Games reports 2005 revenues up 35 per cent

French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal has announced its 2005 financial results, with the firm's games business reporting revenues up by almost 35 per cent off the back of the massive success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

Revenues for the full year hit 641 million Euro, with subscription revenue from WOW being noted as the key reason for this increase, along with the strong performance late in the year of a number of PC and console releases.

WOW currently has over 5.5 million subscribers, and in 2005 launched successfully in Korea, Europe, China and Taiwan through a combination of directly managed and licensed operations.

Another title singled out by VU Games as a key performer was star vehicle 50 Cent: Bulletproof, which sold over a million units in the fourth quarter, although even its performance couldn't prevent fourth quarter revenues from falling 7.2 per cent year on year due to tough comparisons against last year's launches of both WOW and Half-Life 2.

Licensed properties Robots and Hulk II also performed well during the year, as did Crash Tag Team Racing and the hugely critically acclaimed PC horror / FPS title F.E.A.R.

Looking at the bigger picture, Vivendi Universal as a whole announced revenues of 19.5 billion Euro for the year, which is up 9 per cent from last year's figures, while in the fourth quarter, the group's revenues hit 5.5 billion Euro - up seven per cent year on year.