Activision spent $640 million to develop 2019's Call of Duty Modern Warfare reboot

Activision spent $640 million total on Call of Duty Modern Warfare's lifecycle development costs, new filings from a California court case reveal.

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Alongside Meta, Activision is being sued by survivors of the brutal Uvalde massacre of 2022. There's actually two lawsuits: One related to product liability (24SMCV02498 ARNULFO REYES, ET AL. VS META PLATFORMS, INC., A CORPORATION, ET AL.), and the other related to claims involving mass tort (24SMCV02494 VERONICA MATA ET AL. VS META PLATFORMS, INC., A CORPORATION, ET AL.). These cases can be accessed via the LA Court database.

The cases were recently updated last month, with Activision filing new documents that attempt to deflect allegations. A document that highlights testimony from Call of Duty's head of development Patrick Kelly also reveals some sensitive information regarding franchise sales, potential earnings, and the costs of development. These are the types of figures that were carefully guarded during the FTC v Microsoft anti-merger lawsuit from 2023.

Kelly states that Modern Warfare cost $640 million to make across its multi-year span. This includes development on the game itself both before and after release; Modern Warfare hooked up to Warzone, the free to play Call of Duty component, and had a variety of post-release content.

The Call of Duty lead goes on to say Modern Warfare sold 41 million copies. There's not many games on the planet that can sell that many copies in 5 years' time.

So how much did revenue and profit did MW actually make?

No one can say for sure, especially since there's not just a singular version of the game with a singular price that has remained static since the game released. Modern Warfare routinely goes on sale at various prices, and there's multiple SKUs to buy.

But the game was obviously profitable, potentially extremely profitable. Even if the game cost $10 across the full 41 million sales figure, Activision would have made over $200 million in profit based on the budget figures herein.