The biggest development budgets ever disclosed by a game company, buried in a court filing (but found by Game File), along with updated sales figures.
Absolutely insane.
In a court filing reviewed by Game File that has not been previously reported, Patrick Kelly, Activision’s current head of creative on the Call of Duty franchise, said that three Call of Duty games, released between 2015 and 2020, cost $450-700 million to make.
Black Ops III (2015): “Treyarch developed the game over three years with a creative team of hundreds of people, and invested over $450 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” (Kelly also discloses that it has sold 43 million copies.)
Modern Warfare (2019): “Infinity Ward developed the game over several years and has spent over $640 million in development costs throughout the game’s lifecycle.” (41 million copies sold)
Black Ops Cold War (2020): “Treyarch and Raven Software took years to create the game with a team of hundreds of creatives. They ultimately spent over $700 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” (30 million copies sold)
Current AAA titles almost certainly have comparable development costs.
If you have 1,000 FTEs with a blended per-FTE annual cost of $100 K (I would argue this could be higher in North America and Western Europe) that works out to $100 M per year of development.
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These numbers sound insane. I wonder how it compares to the developpment costs of other big games.
I also wonder how it conpares to the cost of similar games like Killzone 3 or Gears Of War from 15 years ago.
Current AAA titles almost certainly have comparable development costs.
If you have 1,000 FTEs with a blended per-FTE annual cost of $100 K (I would argue this could be higher in North America and Western Europe) that works out to $100 M per year of development.
Killzone 3 spent too much R&D on PS Move for costs to be recouped