The development costs of several Call of Duty titles have been revealed for the first time, with the first-person shooters reportedly costing between $450 million and $700 million to develop.
According to game File, development figures for Call of Duty Black Ops 3, Modern Warfare (2019), and Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War were first released as part of a court filing.
In a court filing filed by Patrick Kelly, Activision’s current creative lead on the Call of Duty franchise, it is stated that for Black Ops 3, “Treyarch developed the game for three years with a creative team of hundreds of people and invested more than 450 million dollars. in development costs over the life cycle of the game.”
For Modern Warfare, a remake of the much-loved 2007 shooter, “Infinity Ward developed the game over several years and has spent more than $640 million in development costs over the game‘s entire lifecycle.”
More recently, for Black Ops Cold War, “Treyarch and Raven Software took years to create the game with a team of hundreds of creatives. “In the end they spent over $700 million in development costs over the life cycle of the game.”
For comparison, it was revealed thanks to poorly worded court documents that the development cost of The Last of Us Part 2, Sony’s flagship single-player franchise, was around $220 million. At the time, this was considered to be the largest gaming budget in the industry.
However, when comparing the two, it’s worth noting that while The Last Of Us Part 2 was a single-player experience without any ongoing content or post-launch opportunities to monetize, the budgets cited for the development of these Call of Service titles include post-launch support and new content.
One of Sony’s most prominent figures when The Last of Us Part 2 was in development, Shawn Layden, has regularly spoken out against the rising costs of video game development, calling them unsustainable.
The former executive, who currently advises companies such as Tencent, believes that by encouraging the creation of smaller-scale games, platform owners can help alleviate the budget and team size issues currently facing the triple-A gaming industry. .
“gaming budgets are not going to stay in triple-digit millions,” Layden said last year. “Let’s say $20 million dollars. With the current level of skill in game development… it has increased more than 10 years ago. “We have a pool of talent that we can draw on with the right budget and take advantage of variety.”
