Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Development Cost Hits $700 Million
Recently, the development cost of the games of the “Call of Duty” series has been revealed through a court document. The highest cost among these was that of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, released in 2020, whose development cost is said to be $700 million (about Rs 5,800 crore). This is believed to be the highest cost reported by any publisher so far.
Black Ops Cold War’s Cost and Sales Figures
The team of Treyarch Studios and Raven Software worked for several years to develop “Black Ops Cold War”. A creative team of hundreds of people was involved in making this game. However, the sales were slightly less than its cost. The game sold 30 million units, while Black Ops 3, released in 2015, sold 43 million units and its development cost was $450 million.
Cost of Other Call of Duty Games
The remake of Modern Warfare, released in 2019, cost $640 million. Despite this, its sales remained limited to 41 million units. These figures make it clear that the cost of games in the “Call of Duty” series is constantly increasing, but sales are declining.
Compared to these figures, the development cost of single-player games like The Last of Us Part II is much lower. It cost $220 million, which was considered one of the highest costs at the time. But, the cost of “Call of Duty” games also includes the cost of post-launch support and new content.
Revealed in School Shooting Lawsuit
This information came to light through documents filed in a California court, which is part of a lawsuit related to the 2022 Uvalde school shooting in Texas. In this lawsuit, Activision was accused of creating games with violent content that could influence the events. However, Activision rejected these allegations and sympathized with the victims.
Despite such high development costs, games like “Black Ops Cold War” did not get the expected success in sales. Experts believe that constantly increasing costs can prove to be risky for developers and employees of the gaming industry.
This budget of the “Call of Duty” series gives rise to a new debate in the gaming industry whether it is possible to recover the cost of such expensive games. Will small and impressive games be given priority in the future? It will be interesting to see.
