Activision court documents reveal astronomical budgets for Call of Duty games – more than $700 million spent on Black Ops Cold War

It’s no secret that game development is expensive, especially with blockbusters like Call of Duty. Exactly how much Activision spends on its military shooters, however, was unknown – at least until recently.

Image source: Steam (Caliban)

Game File journalist Stephen Totilo discovered this information in court documents unpublished until last month in a lawsuit over the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Call of Duty games, according to the drafters of the lawsuit (filed last May), are partially responsible for the actions of the attacker (he was an 18-year-old schoolboy), so Activision had to answer in court.

The Uvalda tragedy claims the lives of 19 children and two teachers (image source: Activision)

In a statement filed on December 23 in a California court, the creative director of the Call of Duty franchise, Patrick Kelly, provided information about three games in the series that the criminal was interested in.

As it became known, Activision spent from $450 million to $700 million on the production of three Call of Duty games (excluding marketing) from 2015 to 2020:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015) – more than $450 million in development costs over the entire life cycle, 43 million copies sold;
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) – more than $640 million, 41 million copies sold;
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) – more than $700 million, 30 million copies sold.

Image source: Steam (dreamscape)

For comparison, the development of The Last of Us Part II, judging by carelessly edited court documents, spent $220 million, and leaked files from Insomniac Games revealed the budget of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – about $300 million.

Despite the astronomical costs, sales and monetization have kept Call of Duty games extremely profitable for Activision. It is not surprising that Microsoft decided to buy the company for $68.7 billion.