Weekly "Focus" and Calling all Gamers

For the first time ever, Canada will be hosting the Call of Duty World Championships at the end of June. You may have never heard of this video game and wondering why the winning team of four players will be walking away with the $2 million top prize. For video gamers, this is the ultimate championship and there are an estimated 100 million active players of this game around the world. It was developed by Activision, now part of Microsoft and Activision was acquired by Microsoft in 2023 for US$69 billion. Gamers are also eagerly anticipating the release of the next version of Grand Theft Auto from independent and publicly traded Take-Two Interactive. It is estimated that more than 200 million copies of the previous version of this video game have been sold, highlighting what a big business video games have become. Brian Pitz is the BMO Capital Markets analyst covering the sector and he believes the industry could be a big beneficiary of AI, helping to speed the development and lowering the cost of new games.

 

	Price Return 2025	Dividend Yield
Electronic Arts* (EA)	+3.6%	0.5%
Roblox* (RBLX)	+41.4%	0.0%
Take-Two Interactive* (TTWO)	+23.4%	0.0%

Source: FactSet, Values as of May 16, 2025

 

This week’s "Focus" from our economics team is attached.

 

Have a great long weekend,

 

Brad

Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Investment Advisor