Vogue Valuation Hits Record High with Over $700 Million for 2020’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Dark Ops 3 and Modern Warfare incurred costs of $450 million and $640 million, respectively.
Developing three Call of Duty titles between 2015 and 2020 cost Activision between $450 million and $700 million for each game.
In legal documents reviewed by Game File, Patrick Kelly, the current creative lead for the Call of Duty franchise at Activision, revealed these figures, considered “the highest development expenses ever documented by a significant video game publisher,” incorporating information obtained through leaks or analyst projections.
Released in 2015, Dark Ops 3 cost over $450 million and sold approximately 43 million copies, while 2019’s Modern Warfare sold slightly fewer units at 41 million but had substantially higher costs at $640 million.
The 2020 title, Dark Ops Cold War, was even more expensive to produce, exceeding $700 million and selling around 30 million copies.
For context, Game File reports that Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2 had development costs of about $220 million, while CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077 was around $330 million. It is not believed that these amounts include marketing expenses but do account for additional costs related to DLC and post-launch content.
Kelly disclosed this information during a December hearing concerning the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.