Activision Made Over $3 Billion From Call Of Duty This Year
It's been another bumper year for Call of Duty as the sharp-shooting series has earned Activision a tonne of money in 2020. While this year has been a tragedy across the board due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the game industry has had to adapt more than most. Although the esports scene has been largely decimated in terms of in-person tournaments, streaming has become the new norm. As for gaming in general, some titles have seen a massive boom in their players due to everyone being locked up in their houses.
When it comes to CoD, Activision has enjoyed continued success with 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, as well as the firm favourite being joined by the release of Call of Duty: Warzone in March and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in November. In particular, the battle royale bloodbath of Warzone has raked in the big bucks for Activision. Look at the whole CoD umbrella, the franchise has netted the publisher an eye-watering $3 billion in 2020.
In a press release, Activision explained how it has moved to a "shared ecosystem business model" for Call of Duty, which is currently ongoing with Cold War integrating into Warzone and a transition out of Modern Warfare. This is expected to grow further with the kick-off of Cold War Season 1 on December 10. The $3 billion figure refers to the net amount of products and services sold digitally or sold-in physically over the last 12 months. That includes licence fees, merchandise and publisher incentives.
Activision also confirmed net bookings (revenue) has rocketed up by over 80%, while the number of units sold in the past year is up 40%. Unsurprisingly, this has something to do with the 200 million players Activision say have hopped into a Call of Duty game in 2020 on PC, mobile, or console. A lot of this also comes from Warzone. Despite the game being free-to-download since release, it's now passed over 85 million players and is coining it for in-game purchases. The company said Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Mobile have continued to do well but stopped short of revealing how many copies of Cold War have been sold so far.
Click to enlargeDiscussing how Cold War will catapult sales forward, Byron Beede, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Call of Duty, Activision explained, "This is the next great chapter in Black Ops with an amazing campaign, an all-new zombies experience and of course, high-octane multiplayer. Launch is only the beginning. We are focused on building a continuous pipeline featuring a tremendous amount of free, post-launch content and events across the franchise".
Importantly, this $3 billion milestone makes it the best year on record for Call of Duty since the franchise began all the way back in 2003. We're told to watch out for "the biggest series of post-launch free content" to ever grace CoD, with hype at a fever pitch that Warzone could be completely revamped to join Cold War's sprawling roadmap.
Activision has already tipped Call of Duty to continue growing in 2021 - describing it as a "social network". There's a huge number of gamers that play with friends, and even for those who don't, the franchise gives solo players a place to feel like they belong. All in all, expect us to keep splashing the cash on the Call of Duty name.
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Images via Activision | Unsplash Emilio Takas
