Development of "Call of Duty: Cold War" cost 700 million dollars
Court documents reveal the development costs of "Call of Duty" games. The spin-off "Black Ops Cold War" is said to have cost 700 million US dollars.
(Image: Activision)
A first-person shooter for 700 million US dollars: that's how much the development of 'Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War', released in 2020, is said to have cost. According to the games newsletter Game File, this is shown by documents submitted by publisher Activision as part of a court case.
According to Game File, the document shows the total development costs for three Call of Duty games: "Black Ops Cold War" from 2020 cost 700 million US dollars, "Modern Warfare 2019" cost 640 million US dollars and "Black Ops 3", which was released in 2015, cost 450 million US dollars. This shows that the cost of Call of Duty games has increased over time.
According to Game File, these are the largest development sums ever known. In fact, game studios rarely publish their development costs, so analysts usually have to rely on estimates, leaks or court documents.
The fact that game development costs are rising is partly due to the increased technical demands and larger scope of modern blockbuster games. Triple-A productions are often developed by hundreds of employees at several studios simultaneously over a period of years.
Development costs over the entire life cycle
Nevertheless, the "Call of Duty" figures are remarkably high. It is unclear exactly how the figures are arrived at. In particular, it is not known whether they include the marketing budget or only describe the pure development costs. One important detail: according to the court document, the development costs mentioned relate to the entire life cycle of a game. "Call of Duty" games are so-called life service games that are actively supplied with new content even after their release. These development costs are therefore also included in the total sum – possibly in the same way as ongoing costs for servers, moderation or anti-cheat software.
So far, sums in excess of 500 million US dollars have mainly been known from the space MMO "Star Citizen", which is financed through a mixture of crowdfunding and the sale of in-game items. To date, the developers have raised 770 million US dollars in this way. The money is also financing the development of the single-player spin-off "Squadron 42".
(dahe)
