An increase of World of Warcraft subscribers and the acquisition of Activision helped the French company see revenue grow by 6.7% to €223m (£190m).

Almost a million new subscribers helped Blizzards EBITA (a company's earnings before the deduction of interest, tax and amortization expenses) amount to €197m (£160m), making it the most profitable part of the gaming division. The number of World of Warcraft subscribers grew to 10.9 million in the first half of 2008, an increase of almost two million from the same time last year.

The company merged its American gaming arm Blizzard, the creator of Starcraft and Warcraft III, with US rival Activision, owner of Guitar Hero and the Call of Duty franchise, in July. A move thought to consolidate two of the largest companies outside of Electronics Arts' (EA) sphere of influence to make the largest video games company in the world.

Sierra Entertainment, another branch of Vivendi Games, had a EBITA of -€80m (-£65m). Vivendi explained that increased investment in the development and marketing of Spiderwick and The Bourne Conspiracy, as well as advances made for a number of titles in 2009 were responsible for the deficit.

With the release of 'Wrath of The Lich King scheduled for the second half of 2008, as well as Starcraft II and a number of Sierra titles in 2009, the gaming giant is moving from strength to strength. The gaming division continues to grow favorably compared to Universal Music, the largest music company in the world (also part of Vivendi), who suffered sizable losses in both revenue (-5.3%) and profit (-9.2%). Though, the music giant still made profits of €148m (£121m), four times that of the gaming division.