Big video games take a lot of money to make, but the industry is very secretive in exactly how much is spent developing them. However, it looks like we might have some insight on how much money it takes to make and market a Call of Duty game.
In a court filing reviewed by Game File, Activision’s head Call of Duty creative Patrick Kelly reportedly revealed the total budgets and copies sold for three Call of Duty games. 2015’s Black Ops III reportedly took developer Treyarch over three years to make and cost $450 million, with the total number of copies sold being 43 million.
For 2019’s Modern Warfare, developed by Infinity Ward, the total cost of development was reportedly $640 million with 41 million copies sold. The last one is Black Ops Cold War from 2020. Treyarch and Raven Software’s joint project reportedly took $700 million to develop and sold 30 million copies.