Call of Duty in data: how much money does it generate per year?

Unstoppable

Activision Blizzard will join Microsoft once the transaction is complete sometime in fiscal 2023. The purchase has shaken the industry at all levels, and it is that those in Redmond are made with those responsible for Call of Duty, among other successful brands. The 68,700 million that they will pay make sense when knowing everything that is generated around the franchise. We are talking about one of the best-selling video game sagas in history. Year after year they occupy the highest positions in the sales data. To understand this movement we must go to the figures, who give meaning to an unprecedented amount.

Precedents: This is where we came from

Call of Duty remains in excellent health when it comes to sales. Popular installments at the time like Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3 exceeded 30 million copies during their business cycle. Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty 4, which burst in popularity in a big way, placed 25 million and 17 million copies in gamers' homes, respectively. Even installments that had a lukewarm reception enjoy excellent data, as is the case with Call of Duty: Ghosts. It opened the generation of Xbox One and PS4 close to 29 million units.

Some recent hits like Infinite Warfare garnered close to 14 million copies. Its launch coincides with the identity crisis that influenced a good part of the deliveries of its generation. Infinity Ward led us in that installment to leave combat with our feet on the ground. Treyarch did the same in that distinctive hero combat from Black Ops 3 and 4. It wasn't until the Modern Warfare reboot that a golden era began.

And it is that the soft reboot of the adventures of Captain Price and company managed to penetrate the market as in the great moments of Call of Duty. It managed to market more than 30 million copies combining physical and digital sales. Some high records that extolled the later installment in the cycle, Black Ops Cold War, which in just 3 months on the market entered the top 20 best-selling games in history in the United States. The numbers are dizzying in full perspective. In 2019 it exceeded 300 million copies sold since the origin of the franchise.

Dollar figures

Sledgehammer's vision of World War II got off to a good start. It closed 2017 generating more than 1,000 million dollars since its launch on November 3. Despite being in the middle of the sales chart with almost 20 million copies, the public's reception was positive, which together with the microtransactions gave these numbers a footing. But not all markets accepted the return to context. Call of Duty: Vanguard saw its sales in the United Kingdom reduced by 26% in physical format compared to Black Ops Cold War in the same strip. In digital they reacted worse: they fell by 44%. Despite the data, it managed to be the second best-selling game of 2021 in British territory, only surpassed by FIFA 22.

But recent data has been especially positive. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 managed to generate half a billion dollars in profit in just three days from its commercialization. The Treyarch title set records in its context, such as being the best-selling installment of the saga in digital format on launch day. Given its peculiarities, it has merit, since it was the first Call of Duty to debut without a traditional campaign mode. The Blackout momentum sowed the seed in the players. Later Warzone would take over as a full-fledged battle royale.

Activision Blizzard counts Call of Duty as a franchise "exceeding $1 billion in annual net income." A club in which within the same label shares with Warcraft and Candy Crush. The last complete annual report, which corresponds to the 2020 fiscal cycle, assured that the three franchises account for approximately 76% of its annual net profits, which in this case were 8,419 million dollars. The publisher saw its revenue increase by an additional 1.7 billion dollars compared to fiscal year 2019 around Call of Duty. The firm does not share exactly what figures the saga generates for them in annual installments.

The relevance of free to play games

Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile play a key role in the current business model of Americans. Its foray into mobile terrain has garnered significant success for the company. Mobile amassed 250 million downloads worldwide in its first two months on Android and iOS. Of these, 28.5 million corresponded to the United States. The Americans spent 36 million dollars in microtransactions in the same slot. Almost nothing. By contrast, Warzone managed to break the 100 million player barrier at the end of the same fiscal year.

The Chinese market has a say in Mobile's rise. In the fiscal results of Q3 2021 (the last ones published at the time of writing this article) they indicated a 40% increase in net profits year after year. Activision Blizzard argued that this data was driven "by the double-digit increase in the West and the continued contribution in China." In June 2020, it reached $327 million in profit, which is 78% more than the total money generated by PUBG Mobile in the same framework, during that time.

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References: Activision (1, 2) | Dot Esports | NME | Game Spot | VGC | The Hollywood Reporter (1, 2) | gamerant | Venture Beat | Statista

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