French media conglomerate Vivendi today announced its earnings for the first half of its fiscal year through June, revealing a sales increase of 10.2 percent overall for the group. Vivendi Games in particular, however, actually experienced a decline in revenues, from 500 million euros last year at this time down to 444 million euros.

Vivendi explained, "A comparison of the first half of 2007 and the first half of 2008 performances is not representative because first half 2007 included the hugely successful release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade." The second expansion from Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, is slated for release in the second half and will no doubt be a huge contributor to the publisher's bottom line.

WoW subscribers have now reached 10.9 million members, Vivendi said. That represents an additional 1.8 million subscribers year-over-year.

For Blizzard Entertainment in particular, first half revenues came to 378 million euros, which is obviously the majority of Vivendi Games' total revenues, emphasizing the importance of Blizzard. Vivendi also noted that Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile had revenues that were "slightly higher than their performance for the same period last year, due mainly to two new releases for Sierra Entertainment in 2008." That said, Vivendi commented that "each of the business segments were impacted by unfavorable currency exchange movements."