Activision keeps its Call of Duty development costs firmly under wraps, but thanks to a newly-reviewed court filing, development figures for several of the best Xbox first-person shooters, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Modern Warfare (2019), and Black Ops Cold War, have now been revealed. Call of Duty development budgets revealed for three gamesA new report has revealed the development costs of three Call of Duty games across their lifecyclesCall of Duty: Black Ops III cost over $450 million to developCall of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) cost over $640 million to developCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold War cost over $700 million to developAs per a new report from GameFile, development costs for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War were published in a court filing by the current head of creative on the Call of Duty franchise, Patrick Kelly. It’s claimed that for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Treyarch developed the first-person shooter over three years and “invested over $450 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” Kelly adds that Black Ops III has sold 43 million copies. For 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, “Infinity Ward developed the game over several years and has spent over $640 million in development costs throughout the game’s lifecycle.” Modern Warfare 2019 sold 41 million copies. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which has the highest development costs of all three games mentioned in the report, saw Treyarch and Raven Software spend “over $700 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” Kelly notes that Black Ops Cold War sold 30 million copies. While it’s suggested that these figures cover the development of post-launch support for each game, they are still eye-watering. Presumably, these figures also do not include the amount Activision spent on marketing for each game, which will easily bump these numbers up by hundreds of millions per game. For comparison, GameFile adds that Sony’s The Last of Us Part 2 cost $220 million to make. Unfortunately, the report doesn’t mention anything about the development costs of more recent Call of Duty titles, so we don’t know how much it cost Activision and, ultimately, Microsoft to develop the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 — one of the best games on Game Pass. What are your thoughts on the development costs? Let us know down in the comments.
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