Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War cost $700M to make

Our Call of Duty bill issued between 2015 and 2020 cost almost $2 billion total in construction costs, according to a court filing in December. as originally shown by the Game File and reviewed by Polygon. The case was filed as part of an ongoing 2024 lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, in which the families of victims killed and injured in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting are suing the company for promoting guns for children. Instagram parent Meta is also named in the lawsuit.

These charges were filed on December 23, 2024, on behalf of Call of Duty creative director Patrick Kelly in support of Activision’s attempt to cancel the deal. sue. Kelly’s description of the games and their development is clear. And a big, previously undisclosed part of that development is cost. The confidential video game industry rarely discloses this information; The public had glimpses of it, like when the court blunder shows that The Last of Us Part 2 cost $220 million to make, or when hacked data published online found Spider-Man 2 cost $300 million to develop.

According to Kelly, Call of Duty games cost more to make: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015), which was in development for three years, cost $450 million “in development costs over the game’s life cycle” and sold 43 million copies. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), in development for “several years,” costing more than $640 million over the game’s lifespan and selling 41 million copies. Black Ops Cold War (2020), also in development for six years, cost $700 million in its life cycle and sold 30 million copies.

Activision doesn’t seem to be hurt by Call of Duty’s big budget. The company has reported $8.8 billion in revenue in 2021up from $8.09 billion in 2020. In-game net bookings — mostly “revenue from downloadable content and microtransactions sold at the time,” per Activision — were reported at $5.1 billion, more than $ 4.85 billion in 2020. Sales are, however, declining when the budget increases for each game, as seen by the number Kelly has shown. The document did not provide details on Activision’s newest Call of Duty games – Kelly used the word most of Modern warfarebut also said to Call of Duty: Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, Black Ops 3and Call of Duty: Mobile.

Kelly wasn’t clear on what the fee would be – although the notice at all said the fee was for “development costs over the life of the game,” suggesting that this was a competitive price even that after the game was sent out for the first time. It seems that this includes staff salaries, technology and equipment costs, server equipment, third-party services, and extensions to the game – and much more. Many of these processes are described in the paper, like the creation of a graphic design; others are models of game development. Usually, development budgets don’t include marketing for games, but Kelly didn’t specify whether this was the case for the phone number.

All information, which Polygon has published belowit goes into detail on each of the three games listed and speaks more to each game’s content and story. Data is the main content of several Call of Duty games; It is a way to tell the court about specific details that may affect the case, be they plans or production equipment. Simply put, it was designed to identify what the game called Duty is, the things that make them, and how they do it.

It touches on the game’s development time, including aspects of military operations, space exploration, capture, and graphics. For the year 2019 Modern warfor example, Kelly describes the process by which former Navy SEALs were hired to discuss the game; These individuals “trained actors, actresses, and designers of special operations forces how to act through role playing.” Some of the Navy SEALs were also on the motion.

Kelly also told the art department’s role in designing every part of the game, including the guns — no gun manufacturers were involved in the process, he said.

Here’s what Kelly has to say about the process, providing detailed information about the game’s small and large details:

The environment team creates each setting – from the war torn building to the paper littering the ground – in various maps or plans. The actors around create additional elements that add to the incredible story. For example, artists create product logos, posters, flyers, and body art throughout the game to add another layer of reality and dimension to the game’s location is not true. No small detail: even soda cans and beer bottles have their own design labels.

To help create the real world of the screen and show the movie, the art department uses technology. For the first time in the franchise, Modern Warfare uses photogrammetry, a technique previously used in films like The Matrix and Quantum of Solace, setting a new high water mark for photography. Photogrammetry uses photographs taken to compare and measure the accuracy of objects that are used to create highly detailed three-dimensional models. The process provides Call of Duty’s art teams with a vast amount of visual information to integrate into their designs, from life-size military vehicles to the environmental blades of grass. The team used photogrammetry, for example, in the creation of a strategic plan and a multi-dimensional map of “Piccadilly Circus,” a real place in London where artists print finger by finger . An image from the Piccadilly Circus map is below. Modern Warfare also integrates real-time electronic imaging into its sights, which simulates the lighting of an area and thus provides a good image of the body. Using these techniques, the art team painstakingly combines each scene until the scenes have achieved the desired level of detail and accuracy.

Read all the information below.